Twenty years ago, the veils of reality were torn, and everything went wrong. In an instant, creatures from the realms beyond poured in and wrecked havoc on their new neighbors. For those of this world who survived, life had become decidedly worse.
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“You are to show up here at eight o’clock in the evening, every Tuesday through Sunday. If I hear about any slacking, or showing up late, or putting false information on your time sheet, I will not hesitate to fire you. Do you understand?”
“Yeah it’s, I mean, it sounds pretty straightforward. So, wait, I am officially hired, right?”
The facilities manager, Felicia, typed a few more notes before looking up. “Yes.” She glanced at the screen of her sleek CommPad communicator, looking over the newly-signed contract, and turned it so the device was facing her again. “Orientation starts tonight at six. Make sure you pick up your uniform before you go.” She pushed the CommPad between herself and Terrence and began tapping on the screen. After a few minutes of silence, she raised her eyes. “You’re excused.”
Still, Terrence couldn’t help but sigh with relief when he made it to the bus stop. Sweeping up a power plant during the night shift wasn’t quite his dream job, but at least it was something. That time next week, he’d be receiving a real paycheck, pure digital proof that things were going to be okay. He wasn’t going to screw up, he wasn’t going to let down his family, and he was feeling great.
Reaching his apartment, Terrence nearly crashed into one of his roommates, who was on his way out. “I just locked it,” the man apologized, glancing back at the door.
“It’s fine,” shrugged Terrence, “I’ve got it. Hey, if you’re free this Monday maybe we can…” The roommate was already halfway down the hall. Sighing lightly, Terrence dug through his pockets for his key card. He swiped it once, twice—this card reader was the worst he’d ever seen—until the door beeped and creaked open. He held onto the doorframe, gazed upon the mess that was his apartment, and then closed the door and collapsed onto his bed. Light filtered through the dusty window, and his eyes slowly traced the spiderweb of cracks on the ceiling. Exhaling heavily, he realized he’d almost forgotten about his new work orientation. He powered up his CommPad, exiting out of the screen that held the punctuation-free reminder to get food fridge is empty, and set an alarm for that evening. Then he closed the shades, flopped back onto the bed, and didn’t sleep a wink.
Six hours later, Terrence was once again gazing up at his new workplace. The grimy walls effectively blocked any view of the sunset, and the black logo of a toothy blob roaring inside of a glowing lightbulb was the sole break in the field of grey. The painted slogan “Turning Problems into Power” completed the image. Heart pounding with excitement, or perhaps just with the two caffeine pills he’d taken, Terrence stepped in.
The person in charge of his orientation was waiting by the drinking fountain. A pudgy man with a generous helping of grey hair, he was dressed in the same company-issued blue shirt and work overalls that Terrence was wearing. He introduced himself and waved Terrence to the elevator. When he saw the wall of buttons and watched the man press one for floor B-102, Terrence remarked, “Wow, that’s pretty far down.” The man grunted indifferently in reply. Having somehow already forgotten his guide’s name—it was either Sairo or Saidrie or something of that sort, he remembered that much—they reached their floor and got off.
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‘Sai’ walked briskly to a side room and turned around. “Back here’s the closet. All the supplies you’ll need are in it, and all those supplies go back into it at the end of your shift. Your ID card’s your key,” he said, pointing to his own company identification card, “so make sure you don’t lose it. You punch in and out over there.”
He went on to point out the different cleaning chemicals and tools and explained what they were used for, and then Sai waved him on. Further down the hallway, something growled menacingly. Sai ignored it and looked at his CommPad. “So, the brains in charge have this new thing where they want everyone to get inspired about how great this company is. Not too sure why they feel the need to blow their horns any louder, since they already know they’re the only power company on this side of the planet.” He scoffed and scratched the side of his nose. “But hey, they figured out that this ‘aberrant monster energy’ stuff was a good source of power, so who am I to complain if they jack up our electric bills? It’s better than no electric bills and no electricity like most of the world, eh?”
Terrence sighed. “Well aware of it.”
“Yeah.” Sai stretched and turned around again. “Well, we’re not getting paid overtime for inspirational speeches, so if anyone asks, just say it was great. Come on.”
His guide went on to show Terrence how to clean the hallways and bathroom, informing him that if he had any questions about what to do with something, he should just spit on it and give it an extra good scrub. After a few hours of helping him clean, Terrence was beginning to figure out how to do things. The procedures were simple enough, just tedious.
“Okay, last thing,” Sai said, checking his notes again. “Some of the monsters are only active for our graveyard shift, so you’ll need to feed ‘em. Pantry’s right here, and—”
“Wait a minute,” Terrence cut in, hoping to stop him before he skipped to the next topic. “What are these monsters supposed to eat?”
“The feeding schedule’s on that wall. Now, at the—”
Terrence was studying the list intently. “I’m sorry, but where do you get all this meat from?”
His guide glanced at the schedule. “I dunno. Lots of places. They breed mice and rabbits upstairs, so mostly from there, I guess.”
“Okay, but, er,” he took a deep breath, wondering how best to phrase the question, “none of these things eat people, right?”
Sai leaned against the wall. “If you’re asking if you’ll end up as dinner for showing up late one time too many…” Terrence rolled his eyes. Realizing he hadn’t gotten the desired reaction, Sai shrugged and looked over his shoulder. “Damn, nobody falls for that one anymore. But jokes aside, what type of a place do you think this is? Some human sacrifice cult?”
Terrence winced automatically. “I didn’t mean it that way.”
“All right, all right. It was another bad joke.” Still, Sai’s expression remained serious. “Course, that doesn’t mean half of the things in here wouldn’t jump at the chance to eat someone. Even the ones that don’t are still a bunch of psychos. As long as you aren’t stupid and you don’t go messing with the monsters, especially the intelligent ones, you should be fine.”
Grimacing, Terrence replied, “It seems like a great job we’ve got.”
“Sure does. Especially after fifteen years of it,” Sai laughed. He checked his watch. “Well, would you look at the time. Our shift’s already over.” He went to scan his ID card at the console for punching out, and then he leaned against the wall, pulling out his CommPad to play a game. When he noticed Terrence expectantly looking towards the elevator, he shook his head.
“Forgot to say, they have this policy with lock-ins. All the doors are sealed at night to prevent anyone from breaking in with the reduced staff. The morning shift opens them when they get here. Just sit tight for an hour and they’ll let us out, okay?”
Terrence didn’t answer for a moment, mostly due to surprise. “Wha—So we’re stuck here? What if something happens?”
“We deal with it. What else?” Sai, obviously long-since resigned to his fate, went back to his game. At a loss for what to do, Terrence leaned against the wall, exhaling. Getting locked in with a bunch of monsters wasn’t exactly something he was thrilled about, especially since it hadn’t been listed anywhere in the application process. Still, a job was a job, and unless he wanted to scramble for another one, he was stuck.