“~*~##~”
“What..”
“~~~* and I'm sorry.”
“The FUCK! Who even does that?!”
“Calm down-”
“I mean, I could understand if they were texting or something, but THAT?!”
“Ahem. I'm sure we-”
“Like Seriously! Driving while watching anime? What kind of person-”
“Anime is a perfectly reasonable-”
“It was boku no pico.”
“I'm sorry for interrupting; please continue.”
“He didn't even have the decency to see if I was alright. He just hit me and kept going!”
“I'm sorry.”
“Right... Who are you? Where are we?”
“Apologies; I tried introducing myself, but you seemed rather occupied. I’m Hela; welcome to the afterlife.”
…
‘I died? That bastard killed me! You're way too cheery while telling someone that they just died, lady, and what's with the crappy décor?’
“This is my office; I'll be managing your case for the evening.”
“Case?”
….
“I'm sorry.”
“Go on.”
“You were meant to live longer than you did. One of our employees made a mistake, leading to your early demise. I'll be leading your case for benefits in your subsequent reincarnation.”
‘Fuck! No wonder he didn't even check if I was fine; they have someone to clean up his mess. Actually, why is someone from their “company” taking care of this case? Isn't that hella immoral? Conflict of interest much?’
“I see… What happens now?”
“Now? You wait here while I talk to management. When I get back, hopefully I have good news.”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
‘Wtf? This sounds sketchy as all hell.’
“No.”
“Sorry?”
“I said no. There's no way I'm letting you run off on your own to supposedly negotiate on my behalf. You work for the same company that's supposed to compensate me? Why would you be helping at all?”
She sat there awkwardly, her face halfway between a typical ‘customer service smile’ and a grimace.
“Fine, I can contact management. It's up to them whether or not you're allowed in.”
She stood perfectly still for a minute, then came back to reality, briefly flashing a grimace before her smile came back.
“Good news! Management has accepted your request! We should get going now; I'm nearly late.”
‘And that's why you looked like you just ate a lemon?’
She led us through a bland door, then a bland hallway, to another bland door, and finally a bland... break room?
“I thought we were going to a meeting.”
Another pause.
“We are! The meeting room is all booked, though, so we had to relocate.”
‘Mhmm, this gets more and more fishy.’
We spent a while waiting for whoever would show up. This 'meeting’ was obviously low priority.
Before he even opened the door, a man was already chastising Hela.
“Why didn't we just do the usual? Why’d you make me come to the break room, Hela? Just split it 60/30 and leave the sod the dregs; why do you always insist on complicating things-”
‘Bingo.’
“Fuck.”
"Matt, you idiot! You can't just keep your mouth shut?!”
“If I had been told what was happening instead of a shitty message about meeting in a break room-”
“Don't try to pin this on me!”
"Hahaha, I knew this was shady!”
“It's all your damn fault! Why couldn't you just accept everything like all the other morons?!”
‘Because you were sketchy AF, also, what a personality change.’
“Now what? Do we get rid of him?”
Hela's face lit up for a moment, but soon fell again.
“We can't; the moron made me call management. If they follow up later, we’ll be exposed.”
…
“Listen brat. How about we do the usual package? You get everything you were supposed to, no skimming, forget any of this ever happened, and we all win.”
The man's offer was tempting. But why get only what I deserve? That boku no pico bastard really pissed me off, and I would have been swindled if these two were not complete idiots, or worse, killed... again? Anyways.
“How many people have you tricked before me?”
…
“He's not agreeing, Matt, What are we going to do?”
“Let's just leave him here; someone else could find him and send him away. They won't even know he was our job to take care of.”
I got to shoot that down real quick.
“Good idea. I'll wait here for someone to come and tell them that Hela and Matt tried to scam me. I'm sure you’ve scammed many others; I'll bring that up too. Ask for compensation that they'd be forced to pay...”
Trailing my sentence and shaking my head, I “hurriedly” tried to shoo off the two in front of me. Like I was already imagining the upcoming wealth. Though, in reality, I was trying to make sure they didn't try to ‘get rid of me’ somehow. I'd just raised the stakes for them, after all.
“Wait! Let's be reasonable here, kid. Tell us what you want.”
Hela nodded enthusiastically next to him.
‘Perfect.’