Sitting up with a groan, Thomel rubbed his eyes and looked around the room he was in. Calling it cramped would be an understatement. He’d slept in single-person tents more spacious than this.

All it consisted of was a single bed, which he was laying on top of, and a set of knobs on the wall. He could probably reach the door handle even without standing up.

He wondered if he was in some sort of supply closet that had been refurbished.

Grabbing at one of the knobs on the wall, he pulled it open to reveal a drawer filled with company clothing, all precisely packaged in a crisp, plastic covering.

The chances of this being an actual company sleeping quarters had just shot up, alongside Thomel’s disgust.

He knew the Lonel corporation was among the worst of the worst, but still, this was unbelievably stupid.

It has been proven time and time again that employees functioned better if treated better. That meant decent break rooms and a fair amount of breaks to enjoy them with, as well as a liveable wage.

Company housing should have at bare minimum a bathroom and a small room for hobbies.

Not every corporation did that of course; practically the entire mining sector used what could only be described as slave labour, not that it was labelled that officially.

There wasn’t too much point in worrying about keeping someone happy and productive if their job was mostly menial work and their happiness didn’t lead to increased profits.

“Oh.” He muttered out loud. That’s right, he was basically a slave at this point, but, unlike the miners, he was given firearms.

Then again this was the Lonel corporation; they probably relied on their reputation to help keep the majority of people like himself in line.

Closing the drawer, he stepped up and opened the door. He half expected it to be locked, so he was pleasantly surprised when it smoothly opened.

Stepping outside into a minimalistic hallway lit up by white lights, he looked left and right, yet spotted no one.

It was almost like he was in a hotel, except all the doors were placed way too close together. It looked like everyone else shared his horrible living conditions.

At least they had privacy, he supposed, but if he stayed here for longer than a couple of weeks he would probably start longing to get stuffed into a dormitory; even if it was cluttered it would still be more spacious and less sterilised.

One of the doors over on his left popped open, and a seemingly sleep-deprived man stepped out. He waved at Thomel with one hand while using the other to cover his mouth as he yawned.

“Hello.” Thomel greeted, moving cautiously closer to the stranger.

“Yeah, what’s up?” The man replied, before letting out another large yawn.

Thomel let out a yawn of his own before he replied. “Everything but my spirits.”

Letting out a snicker that quickly died off as it got replaced by a grimace, the man patted him on his shoulder. “Yeah, it’s a damn shame what happened to the pelters. Loved those guys, always optimistic. I mean having the biggest guns around is quite the morale boost but a lot of that confidence was innate.”

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“Uh yeah, who are they?” Thomel asked awkwardly.

For the first time, the man opened his tired eyes fully and stared at him in surprise.

“Ohhh, new guy?” He questioned curiously, after some delay.

“Yeah, I just got here. I have no idea what’s going on, I'll be honest with you.”

Looking him up and down, the man scratched the back of his head before offering him a handshake. “Name’s Marace.”

“Thomel.” He replied, shaking Marace’s outstretched hand.

“Can’t say I've heard a name like that often, it’s a good one.”

“Likewise.”

“So, I’m going to assume, firstly, that you haven’t read the contract, at least not properly. Secondly, I’m going to guess you got press-ganged into this. Now luckily you’re probably going to be fine, it’s awful but after about a year tops, you’ll be out of here. Just keep your head down low and stick together with the other guys when you go into those other worlds. Gun beats knife but fireball melts both, don’t underestimate the creatures out there. That’s the general gist of everything; eat, kill, sleep, repeat. On that note, it’s time to be eating.”

Marace gestured at Thomel to follow and he obliged, he didn’t feel all too hungry yet but he knew that in just a little bit he would feel like he was starving.

“So how do you know we get out of here, this whole place seems like a mixture between a torture chamber and a prison. Why wouldn't they just keep us here? Thomel voiced his fears, just to have them shot down with a slight chuckle from Marace.

“Paranoid much? Don’t blame ya, be weirder if you weren’t. To a certain extent, it’s because the upper management fears a revolt. They also don’t want to make the higher leveled amongst us unhappy, after all those guys are probably getting recruited to be the next generation of money collectors and hitmen. I think there’s some sort of pride thing involved as well, like obviously no one cares about us but killing us or keeping us here damages their ego or something. I don’t really know about the last part to be hone-” Marace’s explanation gets cut off by him yawning yet again.

“Tired much?” Thomel jested at him.

“Absolutely, side effects of getting this gift, but I’d rather have to deal with this than deal with werewolves without it.”

“Why specifically werewolves.?”

“Just an example, nasty buggers. If you fight one just stay still, it’ll come to you and then you nail it with a face full of lead.”

A few more bits of banter later and they were at the end of the hallway. Looking back made Thomel feel shocked; the sheer scale of this place was insane.

Noticing Thomel gazing backwards, Marace said in an offhandedly way, ”It only houses around a thousand of us.”

“A thousand?” Thomel exclaimed loudly, earning himself a shush from Marace.

Heading down a wide flight of stairs, they arrived at a square room with branching hallways leading in all directions.

“Left.” Marace said, tugging Thomel lightly behind himself as he started walking.

It felt a bit embarrassing; he wouldn’t stand and gawk if left to his own devices. He didn’t have to shake Marace’s grip off though, as a particularly large yawn made him raise both hands to rub at his eyes.

“Why do you keep doing that?”

“Huh what? It’s a habit, and bad breath, I suppose." Marace replied.

That made Thomel pay a bit more attention to the smell, but maybe because of lingering drugs or something else, he couldn’t smell a thing.

“Anyways, we’re here.” Marace called out, rousing him from his distracted thoughts.

Rounding the sharp corner as well, Thomel saw his first real dose of colour since he’d woken up. Hundreds of people were all gathering food in one giant cafeteria. Their skin, as well as the food, painted quite the contrast to the all-consuming white void of his environment.

“Come on I’ll introduce you to my buddies, we’ll get some food in you as well. You’re looking awfully skinny.”