It would have to be. The instructions said to let it sit for several hours, then vacuum it up. He'd do that after tackling the bathroom.
Oh god, the bathroom.
Four hours into his cleaning rampage, Jordan opened the bathroom door and immediately closed it again.
"Nope. Nope. Nope."
Whatever lived in there wasn't human. The mirror was splattered with toothpaste. The sink held beard trimmings from when he'd attempted to grow facial hair (result: patchy disappointment). The shower—Jordan didn't even want to think about the shower. Black mold had established colonies in the grout lines, claiming territory like tiny civilizations.
He opened the bathroom cabinet and found more cleaning supplies his mother had optimistically purchased. Armed with toilet bowl cleaner, shower spray, and what appeared to be industrial-strength mold killer, Jordan reopened the bathroom door.
"I'm coming for you, bathroom demons."
The toilet surrendered first. Multiple flushes and aggressive scrubbing restored it to something resembling porcelain rather than a science experiment. The sink followed, clumps of hair and toothpaste excavated with paper towels.
The shower took the longest. Jordan had to let the mold killer soak for twenty minutes before the black spots would even consider releasing their grip. He scrubbed until his arms burned, wiping away months of soap scum and hair and whatever else had accumulated while he'd been too depressed to care.
Five hours after starting his cleaning crusade, Jordan stood in the middle of his apartment surveying the results. Eight contractor bags lined the wall by the door, filled with the evidence of his degradation. The floor was visible. The kitchen counters gleamed. The bathroom no longer required a quarantine sign.
His mattress upstairs lay under a blanket of baking soda. The washing machine hummed through its third load. His room looked almost... normal. Like a place where a functioning human might live.
Jordan checked his phone. The timer read eighteen hours, forty-three minutes remaining.
"I didn't die," he said to the empty apartment. "That's something."
His legs gave out before his will did. Jordan collapsed onto the couch, muscles liquefying from the unaccustomed exertion. He hadn't moved this much in months. Hadn't accomplished this much in longer.
The couch cushions embraced him like an old friend. They were clean now—he'd vacuumed them and wiped down the leather. No mysterious damp spots remained. No empty cans rolled off when he sat down.
"Just gonna close my eyes for a minute," Jordan mumbled.
His phone slipped from his fingers, landing on his chest. The golden countdown continued to tick away, but Jordan didn't see it. His eyelids dropped, heavy as iron doors, and consciousness fled before he could fight it.
He dreamed of swimming through trash bags, of mattresses that tried to eat him, of socks that crawled under his bed by themselves. But mostly he dreamed of numbers counting down, of percentages rising, of a system that watched his every move with cool, mechanical interest.
Jordan woke with a jolt, disoriented in the darkness. His apartment smelled... different. Clean. Like lemons and chemicals instead of old food and despair.
His phone screen glowed on his chest. The timer read fourteen hours, twelve minutes.
"Shit."
He'd slept for over four hours. Four precious hours he could have used to wash the rest of his clothes or vacuum the baking soda from his mattress or start on the next quest objectives.
Jordan tried to sit up. His body screamed in protest. Muscles he didn't know he had reported for duty with complaints about abuse. His lower back felt like someone had replaced his spine with rusty rebar. His shoulders burned from reaching and scrubbing and lifting.
"Is this what exercise feels like?" Jordan groaned. "People do this on purpose?"
He forced himself upright despite the protests from his rebellious body. The apartment looked different in the dim light filtering through the blinds. Cleaner, yes, but also... emptier. As if he'd excavated space that had been buried under garbage and neglect.
The washing machine had stopped. Jordan shuffled over to it, opened the lid, and found clean, wet clothes waiting to be transferred to the dryer. He made the switch, adding a dryer sheet as a halfhearted concession to proper laundry procedure.
His stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten since... when? He couldn't remember. The refrigerator held nothing but expired condiments and a suspicious container labeled "smoothie" that had separated into distinct geological layers.
"Food run," Jordan decided. "Then salon. Then laundry. Then call dad."
The thought of calling his father made his stomach clench tighter than hunger had. That was the real quest here—not cleaning the apartment or fixing his hair, but facing the man whose disappointment had become a physical presence in Jordan's life.
But first, he needed food. And his mattress needed time for the baking soda to work its alleged miracle.
Jordan peeled off his sweat-soaked clothes and stepped into the freshly cleaned shower. Hot water cascaded over his tired muscles, washing away hours of accumulated filth. He used actual soap—the expensive kind his mom had bought him that smelled like sandalwood.
Daily Quest: Path to Becoming Adonis - Hygiene Level 1 and 2 completed.
Clean, dressed in the only clean clothes he could find (gym shorts and a t-shirt that said "Pacific Crest Volleyball" from a team he'd never joined), Jordan grabbed his keys and phone.
The golden timer continued its countdown. Sixteen hours, three minutes.
"I'm going to make it," Jordan told his reflection in the newly cleaned bathroom mirror. His face looked different—tired but purposeful. The dark circles remained, but something in his eyes had changed. "I'm actually going to make it."
His phone pinged with a notification.
Daily Quest: Path to Becoming Adonis - Physical Activity: 90 minutes completed.
"Wait, cleaning counts?" Jordan laughed. "Fuck yeah it does."