The next evening, Terrence woke to the sound of his alarm. Shutting it off sleepily, he took in his surroundings and blinked himself awake. The soft glow of the CommPad illuminated a roach on the wall. Wiggling its feelers, the creature scuttled away. Terrence saw that he had one message waiting.
In the bed a few feet away, one of his roommates groaned softly and rolled into a deeper layer of sleep. Terrence turned the CommPad’s light away from the man and looked over the message. It was from home. Quickly, Terrence rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and typed up a short reply. He figured it wouldn’t be read for a while, since his mom worked late and his little sister tended to have an early bedtime, but to his surprise, a response came a few seconds later. Have time to talk?
Fumbling with the straps of his overalls with one hand, Terrence slipped out of the room and locked the door behind him. The hallway was cool, with one flickering light providing illumination. He waited for someone to pick up the call, and when it was answered, it was more relieving than he’d thought to hear the familiar voice. “Terrence?”
The words caught in his throat. He took a deep breath and tried again. “Hey Aure.”
There was palpable relief in the reply. “I’m glad I got a hold of you. One more day of radio silence and I was ready to freak. Is everything okay?”
Terrence leaned against the wall. “Yeah. I got a job,” he reported, trying to sound cheerful. He took a deep breath. “Sorry. It’s been a little crazy, moving in here. Er, how’ve you been? Is Mom home?”
“I’m just fine. Mom’s still at work, though,” Aurelien replied. “I’ll let her know you called.”
“Thanks.” He watched the light flicker. “How’s school?”
“Pretty regular.” She paused, and Terrence could tell that his sister was carefully planning how best to phrase her next thought. “Terrence, you don’t have to do this. Are you sure you can’t come back?”
Terrence lowered the CommPad. For a girl of eight, Aurelien was surprisingly in touch with the world. If she’d been a little older, Terrence didn’t doubt that his sister would have attempted to go to the city in his place. In all honesty, Terrence wished he could have stayed at home, but space in New Jericho was scarce and between Aurelien, his mother, and himself, he was the best candidate to send. Besides, he was old enough to get a job, and the city offered better opportunities for someone able and young. If all went well, he could pay for his family’s passage into the city, and then they could be together again. Until then, the hard work was up to him. He put his hand on the door to his apartment and tried to sound confident. “Hey, it’s not so bad. Aren’t you happy to have my room?”
There was some grumbling on the other end of the call, but the girl finally replied, “I still wish you didn’t have to go. What’s the new job, anyway?”
“Well, I have been initiated into the very glamorous, absolutely fantastic profession of,” his voice dropped conspiratorially, “cleaning.” Aure laughed, and Terrence’s gaze wandered to the time display on his CommPad. “And it starts in ten minutes!”
“Shit!” He didn’t have time to wonder who hung up first. He just ran.
Second day on the job, and he was already making a terrible impression. With the hope of redemption in mind, Terrence quickly made his way through his work for the night, cleaning and disinfecting his parts of the facility. In spite of how interesting the idea of monsters sounded, the job was fairly monotonous. Most of the floors he was assigned to had the same layout of cells, and cleaning up monster waste was about as exciting as it sounded. B-100 was a little more interesting, with a few offices and a bathroom. He paused his work to look around Felicia’s desk. It was perfectly organized, betraying nothing about its owner’s personal life. Above it hung a tiny security camera, which watched the scene impassively. Quickly, Terrence went back to looking busy.
Back on the monster floors, Terrence checked his schedule. He still had some monsters to feed. Making his way to the storage room, he loaded up his carts with various foodstuffs and a list of what each monster needed. He looked it over. Most of the list was fairly standard, just greens and slabs of meat, but some of it was more interesting. He wasn’t sure, for instance, what type of a creature could survive off of ‘one small cube of salt’ each night. Chalk that one up to more monster weirdness.
He found the first monster on the list. He couldn’t quite say that the creature was watching him, seeing as it was just a ball of arms and hands, but it pounced quickly on the mouse he gave to it. Terrence wasn’t too sure where its feeding orifice was, but he didn’t really want to find out. Moving quickly to the next cage, Terrence peered in.
This monster inspired a lot less terror. It resembled a small, hairless rodent that shuffled about purposefully, and every few seconds, it would reappear elsewhere within the cage with a small pop. The monster across from it, a short humanoid with black eyes and feathers, was watching the rodent monster hungrily. “Okay, okay, I’m feeding you soon enough,” Terrence muttered, looking at the humanoid monster, while dropping a few food pellets through the service slot for the ‘phase mole’ thing.
Something tapped for his attention. Terrence looked up. In the cage next to the teleporting rodent, the ball of arms was rapping on the glass. It presented the mouse’s tail, which it had tied into a single, messy knot. Terrence blanched. “You monsters, uh, sure like being weird, don’t you?” he murmured. The collection of limbs continued squishing the knot against the window excitedly. It was very enthusiastic, albeit in a kind of unsettling way.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
He wasn’t quite sure what possessed him to do it, but Terrence rummaged through his pockets for a spare piece of string. Opening the service slot again, he dropped it in. The monster fell upon it instantly. Limbs attacked the string from every direction, tangling it as the creature ecstatically rolled onto its, well, it didn’t really have a back to roll onto. Terrence cracked a smile, and the ball clapped happily. A low, warning growl echoed from around the corner, sobering the mood once again. “I’ll, er, just leave you to that, little guy.” The arms flailed contentedly in reply.
Terrence’s stomach wasn’t quite in the mood to watch any more monsters feed. He turned back toward the bird-like monster, which was watching him with more intent than a supposedly non-sapient creature should, and deposited a mouse in its cage before leaving. It gave one chirp in reply, and the echoes of the arm ball’s play followed him to the end of the hallway.
----------------------------------------
As promised, Terrence sought out Seamstress when his shift was over. He thought about other options, of course. Usually, he would have called Aurelien or one of his friends and either chatted happily or played digital checkers until he could get home, but the wee hours weren’t exactly an ideal time to call people. Putting his back to the wall, he powered on his CommPad and looked at the screen, feeling tremendously alone.
At any rate, he had an appointment with the monsters to keep. Whether or not it would be better than staring at a screen for the next hour was about to be decided. Nervously, he made his way back to the correct hallway and looked around. “Hey Seamstress, I—”
On the other side of the hallway, there was another Terrence. The doppelgänger stood, mouth agape, just as the real Terrence did, and mirrored him in every way. Surprised, Terrence blinked, and suddenly he was staring at his own bloody corpse. The zombie rose and leered at the glass, tongue hanging out. “You lookin’ at me?” the other him grinned.
Terrence took a small step back and didn’t take his eyes off the expectant corpse. The monster grinned. “Wow, Seamy, I think I broke him already.”
Seamstress, within her own prison, looked up. “Prismec, I have told you several times to never refer to me as that again. Excuse me, Terrence, I need to deal with this cretin.”
“Refer to you as what, Seamy?” Prismec smirked.
“You know perfectly well what forsaken alteration of my name I am speaking of,” Seamstress glared icily.
“Yeah, fine,” Prismec huffed. Then she grinned. “Make me stop, Seamy.”
Terrence, unsure of what to do, looked on awkwardly. “Um, guys?”
“I’m Seamstress and I like being called Seamy! La la la!” Prismec shouted, having morphed into the spitting image of the other monster. The real Seamstress’ arms waved wildly as she screamed back. Terrence backed away, hitting another cell.
Its occupant stood up, revealing himself to be a tall, middle-aged man. Or at least, a monster that looked just like a middle-aged human. He was stocky and strong, but his eyes were rimmed with dark circles. “Don’t worry about it,” he said before Terrence could apologize. “We’re lucky if they can go a week without screaming like that. Seamstress, just ignore her, won’t you?” Seamstress hissed and Prismec stuck out her tongue. The two monsters continued bickering.
The man sighed. “I apologize for that rather unconventional introduction, but there’s not much we can do about it, I’m afraid. I take it you’re Terrence?”
“That’s him!” interrupted Prismec. “But he goes by Terry, T-man, T-poser, or whatever other honestly insulting nickname you can come up with.”
“It’s Terrence,” Terrence cut in quickly. He looked back at the man. “Just Terrence.”
“Understood,” he smiled wryly. “I am Caliax. I would shake your hand, but…we can’t do that here.” Caliax’s gaze drifted past Terrence and he put a hand on the glass. “It’s all right, Sirena. He won’t bite you.”
Terrence followed his gaze to the cell next to Prismec’s. The monster who’d been watching them, a creature that looked like a giant snake, coiled back shyly. A translucent frill ran along the length of her body and flopped over one of her eyes. She gave a small smile, just barely revealing several rows of teeth. “It’s really nice to meet you.”
“Um, same to you.”
Sirena’s smile widened and she laughed. It was a quiet sound, hardly more than a whisper, and Terrence noticed that the glass on her cell was noticeably thicker than it was for the other monsters. She recovered and looked up again. “Um, Terrence, you’re going to stay with us, right?”
Before Terrence could answer, a new voice drawled out from a cell behind him. “Let’s hope not. The last thing we need is another dying animal for you to whine over.”
Sirena’s slitted green eyes widened. Then, “Ceeeeeelia! Nobody asked you to be so mean!”
“So what, if it’s the truth?” The monster sighed and shambled forward. Despite having seen almost a half-dozen monsters in detail by then, Terrence’s eyes grew wide. The entire creature was an amorphous, pulsating mass. It was a wonder how it could even move, let alone speak. “What?” it asked crossly.
“Sorry, I just…” He tried not to stare. “I’m really not used to seeing monsters.”
“Then you should leave before you get too comfortable with them,” Celia growled. “Unless, of course, you’d like spores feeding off your rotten corpse. Perhaps it would be an improvement.” Terrence glanced back at Sirena, who was shaking her head vehemently. “And you, girl,” Celia went on, "you ought to be less excitable in a place like this. That’s one thing I won’t miss when you’re finally drained and gone.”
“Celia!” Sirena screamed.
Terrence stepped between Sirena and Celia. “Okay, look, why don’t we all just…calm down?” His confidence was draining faster than the blood from his face.
Celia drew herself up to her full height, which was a fair bit taller than Terrence. “And if I don’t, then what, exactly, do you plan on doing about it?” she questioned icily.
In retrospect, picking a fight with a monster probably hadn’t been the best idea. Then again, it wasn’t really a fight. His effort to face off with the monster was slightly marred by the fact that he started gagging at the smell of rot diffusing out of Celia’s cell, but he composed himself and managed a good glare. “Well, honestly a lot, seeing as you’re stuck in a cage and I’m not. But that isn’t fair, so it wouldn’t be right if I took advantage of that.”
The mound quivered for a moment, and then stilled. “Enjoy it while you can. Let’s see how long it lasts,” she finally said.
Terrence looked behind him. Caliax was watching him quietly, but Sirena practically oozed gratitude. Prismec was imitating Seamstress covered in trash.