Morning After

Coming back to consciousness, I could feel that someone was shaking me awake. But before I could even open up my eyes to check who was bothering my restful sleep, I was hit with a variety of symptoms that could only be described by one word - hangover.

"Ugh." I groaned as a headache hit me while also noticing just how raspy and dry my throat felt.

Slowly opening one eye, I had the misfortune of being hit with a direct beam of sunlight, causing me to instantly close my eye and further intensify my headache.

"Wake up, sweety." whispered a voice I recognized as being my mothers.

"Turn off the sun." I said to her.

"Can't do that now can I, sweety?" she said as she rubbed my head, which did soothe my headache a bit.

"Here." said a gruff voice that I recognized as being my father's.

Opening my eyes just enough to see, I saw my mother holding her phone, I assume recording her baby's first hangover, with a big smile on her face and my dad holding out a glass full of a concoction I could only assume was throw up evident by both the color and how chunky it looked.

'Observe.'

[Observe]

Item Name: Garetty Family Magic Hangover Cure-All

Garetty family hangover cure-all consisting of egg yolk, Worchester sauce, coffee, banana, pickle juice, and water.

Reading the ingredients listed out courtesy of Observe, I felt myself heave a bit but managed to keep it in.

'Either Dad's messing with me, which is out of character, or it's meant to be a placebo like Barney's hangover elixir from HIMYM. Or it works for Dad for whatever reason.' I quickly thought.

"That looks like vomit." I said.

"Drink it. It'll help." he said and seeing how honest he looked I didn't have the heart in me to deny his help.

Sitting up from my prone position, I realized that I was not in my bed but rather on the living room floor. As to how I got there, the memory eluded me but I'm sure I would find out later.

Grabbing the glass from Dad, I stared at the concoction which I swear bubbled a gas skull like poisons do in cartoons.

Looking up at my father, he only looked at me expectantly which made me realize he truly believed the thing worked. But looking at my mother, I only saw pity in her eyes and some schadenfreude. Probably because she knew the ingredients that went into the concoction.

'You've survived a zombie apocalypse. This should be a walk in the park. It's just a drink.' I thought steeling my resolve before downing the whole thing.

As soon as the concoction touched my tongue, my body began to reject it, but I stopped the impending vomit and quickly downed the whole thing. But it was bad.

None of the ingredients mixed well so it was a cacophony of flavors that just didn't mesh well. Not to mention the texture which I could only assume was what cement felt like if you chewed it.

Done with the glass, I had to steady myself for a bit to make sure it wouldn't come back up. But after doing so, I wiped my mouth with the napkin my mother so kindly provided before handing the glass back to my father.

"So?" he asked.

"Thanks, pops. I feel better already." I said with a forced small smile.

"Mm." he said with a proud grin on his face before leaving the room.

"It's bad huh?" asked Mom with the same smile that had not left her face once.

"Really bad. Does that work for him?" I asked.

"Every time. It was your grandfather's recipe. He made it for your dad the first time he got a hangover and he's been waiting to make it for you ever since you were born." she said.

"Odd to wait so impatiently for your child to get drunk, don't you think?"

"The Garetty men are all odd." she said, as she stopped recording, "Go take a shower, sweety. Breakfast will be ready soon."

"Wait, what happened to everyone else? And why is there no mess?" I asked, as I shakily got up on my feet.

"They all left. You're the last one to wake up. And there's no mess because I made them clean up before they left. Normally, you would be cleaning up since it was your party but considering I semi-forced you, there's no need to this time." she said before making her way to the kitchen while I made my way upstairs to my room to get some stuff before taking a shower.

~

One long shower later and I was feeling much better. Not 100% but 70%ish which is more than I could ask for.

'Wonder if Dad's hangover cure actually worked.' I thought as I went downstairs and to the kitchen where I saw Mom and Dad talking to Aunt Karen, Andrew, and more surprisingly, Steve.

"Steve? What are you doing here?" I asked as I sat down while saying good morning to Aunt Karen and Andrew before serving myself some good old bacon and eggs.

"I forgot my phone here so I came to get it and your Mom asked me to stay for breakfast. You know I can't refuse free food." he said with a smile, "But you look better than I thought you would. I thought for sure you'd be out the entire day."

"Speaking of being out, what happened yesterday?" I asked.

"You don't remember?" asked Steve with a big smile.

"No. Not everything anyway. I remember the beginning and then everything's hazy."

"Awesome! Andrew, show him." said Steve before Andrew took out his camera and started rewinding.

"You just had the camera ready?" I asked.

"Yeah. You'll see why in a minute." said Andrew with the same smile Steve had, a smile that said they knew something I didn't.

"Okay. Ready." said Andrew before pressing play as we all huddled around the small screen that the camera had.

And as we watched the video, the previous night came back to me.

The initial toast was followed by a round of shots that turned into Steve calling more people over turning the small party into a big one. That then turned into a night of drinking contests, shots, drinking games, more shots, and one embarrassing moment where I puked a little on a cat, which was very confusing since we didn't have a cat.

By the end of the tape, everyone was laughing. Even Dad was chuckling a bit.

"Poor cat." said Aunt Karen.

"I didn't know you had a cat." said Steve.

"We don't." I said causing him to laugh even harder.

~

After watching the tape, we finished eating breakfast. Afterward, Steve went back to his house, while Aunt Karen and Andrew went out to spend some time together. Aunt Karen didn't need to be in a wheelchair as much thanks to her condition improving so she and Andrew would go out to the park to get some exercise in.

Meanwhile, my parents stayed downstairs in the living room watching TV while I went back to my room and sat in front of my PC which was a beast. Every single part of it was top-of-the-line. Or as top-of-the-line as I could get without buying stolen state-of-the-art goods.

Of course, my parents asked me how I could afford a PC and I told them that I got some money from doing freelance work with my Programming skills which wasn't entirely a lie.

I was using my skills to make some money, but I was actually a gray hat hacker that had been making the rounds on the web. I had even made a name for myself, evident by the title I had received, PancaKe.

PancaKe was the alias I used for my gray hat hacker persona which was both a food I loved and a homage to my abilities. And thanks to my reputation exploding on the hacker forums, yes there really are hacker forums, I had received the title PancaKe from The System.

I had done a lot of jobs for people who asked, from things like changing people's grades in college to things like taking some videos down from the internet. I also, on occasion, exploited the security systems of some of the less reputable companies before selling the information of how I did it to them.

Of course, I still left easy access for myself even after telling the companies what was wrong, not that it would matter since I could just as easily hack back in.

And thanks to my exploits, I caught the eye of some law enforcement agencies like the FBI and CIA who wanted me to work for them. After refusing their offer, they labeled me a criminal and had been trying to track me down since.

Thanks to my hacking skills and Anivia, there was no worry about them finding me so I didn't really care too much about their threats.

But other than that, I had also been working on something else.

"Anivia, status report."