Roy looked at the door to Lestrat’s office for a second time, before it swung inwards, opened by Madelyn without an ounce of warning to those inside. The room was just as dark as Roy remembered it, the same lone candle burned in its place on the table, illuminating Lestrat’s downturned face.

His eyes scrutinized a sheet of paper, glanced at the two for a second, before returning to the document and making several quick marks with the pencil in his hand, it seemed not even their sudden entrance could pull the boy from his task.

“I’m hurt...” Madelyn began.

“What! Hold on a second I’ll get Leo,” Lestrat burst from his seat, dropping his pencil with a clatter.

“Emotionally, that you would ignore me,” she completed, that seemed to take the wind out of Lestrat’s sails. Though the mention of someone called Leo did catch Roy’s attention.

“Leo? From our school?” he interrupted, he and Leo were not very close friends, but they were on friendly terms.

“That’s right, he works as an assistant to Doctor Brown,” Lestrat walked back to his deck and organized the mess he had made in his haste.

The news that Leo was fine drove up Roy’s spirits; Leo had headed to the auditorium with most of the class. The boy often stuck with the crowd, so if he was out here then it was likely others had left the school as well, as far as Roy was concerned the further they were from the Goliath the safer they were.

Madelyn walked up to Lestrat as he had his back turned and spun him around before catching the boy by the small of his back with one arm, the action was surprisingly agile and in the candle flame they were two dancers doing the tango. Madelyn leaned over a surprised Lestrat, only a few inches separated their faces, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Forgetting, that, well, indeed, perhaps,” the boy’s sentences broke apart like the sheets of paper which were now scattered across the desk.

“You need to distribute lunch to the masses,” she pulled Lestrat upright and gestured for him to leave.

“Right, of course, where has the time gone,” Lestrat straightened his shirt; water stains now covered the front. He seemed reluctant to leave despite his words.

Without further ado, Madelyn allowed her suit to drop to the ground, then slowly, methodically, and back turned towards the door, she began to pry at the first button on her dress shirt, its thin white fabric clung to her like a second skin. Lestrat’s reluctance vanished, turned into mist in an instant; he sped past the girl, grabbed Roy, and dashed out the door, slamming in in his wake.

“You should have stayed,” Roy felt the need to add, he had never had a girlfriend but he was fairly certain that it would be typical for their age.

“No, no, I need to serve lunch, it wouldn’t do to have the people wait,” Lestrat pulled out a comb and fixed his hair.

“I mean... Whatever, do you need help?” Roy gave up and continued a more constructive line of dialogue.

“Of course, I’m so glad you asked, we need to go pick up a few boxes of food and move them to the front. We have some modified shopping carts to help with the transportation,” Lestrat explained as he began to walk down the row, “follow me!”

Roy trudged behind the boy, the air around them filled with Lestrat’s off tune humming. Ignoring the boy’s awful singing, Roy had a chance to focus on the task that the goblins and his own conscious had burdened on him.

He was almost certain that Lestrat trusted him, and the fact that he was his own age curtailed the chance that he might dismiss any warning he gave as the product of an overactive imagination. To put the cherry on top, Lestrat was a notable, he distributed the rations, kept the records and Greyson seemed to rely on him. Based on what little Roy had seen Greyson and the, to Roy, enigmatic Owen, were in charge, it made sense since it sounded like they were police officers.

Lestrat pulled out a small rung of keys and managed to open the door in front of them with one try, despite the poor lighting. The door swung open with a soft screech, its motion churning of the water covering the ground.

The inside was quite spacious and well lit, several bulbs hung to the ceiling, jury rigged like the one that shone in the Task Force’s room. The light half dangling from the roof revealed several aisles of towering shelves, their bottoms empty but their tops stuffed with various foodstuffs.

Multicolored cans were the most prominent; they were lined on the shelves and stacked several high, their reflection quivered in the water and turned in blobs of color as the waves propagating from the door disturbed the mirror surface. Lestrat waltzed in, making sure to close and lock the door after Roy followed.

They then made their way off to the left where several propane stoves rested on a collapsible table. Each stove came with a large metal pot, its shiny surface hinted at their recent acquisition. Lestrat walked up to each in turn and lifted the lid slightly ajar to inspect the contents, curious, Roy took a glimpse.

White gruel filled each of the pots; the thick paste looked and smelled like nothing else Roy had ever eaten, it wasn’t nasty like boiled greens, or appetizing like fried chicken. It was plain in both appearance and smell, a tasteless meal meant to provide the bare minimum sustenance.

“We need to move the pots of boiled flour, a hundred and eighty-seven bowls, and that number of cans of vegetables to the front,” Lestrat commented, as much to inform himself as to inform Roy, “After we shuttle everything over using the carts, we need to ladle the soup into bowls and then distribute them alongside the canned goods. After that we need to make sure all the bowls are returned before shuttling everything back.”

A hundred and eighty-seven, that was probably the number of people gathered in the grocery store, it was a large number for sure, but only a fraction of the population of the town. Roy brushed that though aside, the task sounded like it would take a while so broaching the topic of the mushrooms right now when they were alone was a sound idea.

“Uh, before we do all of that, I have something to tell you,” Roy turned towards his audience of one and felt inclined to add, “It’s important.”

Lestrat looked at Roy, his eyes lost some of their energy and his posture seemed to leap forwards decades at a time, “Important... Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s... bad news.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Yeah,” he didn’t expect his demeanor to take such a heavy blow so early in his report, “It’s about the mushrooms."

“Please, go on,” Lestrat turned away from the pots and leaned against an empty spot on the table, his eyes followed the streams of light filtering through the shelves and locked on the points of luminence hanging near the ceiling.

“I heard from some people that the mushrooms are, like, coming this way in big groups,” it was more or less the truth, he certainly saw the goblins as people too, “I saw, outside, that you guys had fought them already, but from what I heard their numbers will keep on growing as time goes on.”

“They come in waves, every day, just before nightfall,” Lestrat blinked his eyes as he looked away from the light, features neutral, “Their number keeps growing, and our bullets won’t last us forever. I take inventory every day.”

“The people I talked to, they said they were going south. I wanted to go too, but I thought that the people here should as well,” Roy laid his plan before Lestrat, voice raising a notch as he delivered his final line, “Soo, uh, how about it?”

“I would follow you, and Madelyn, and Greyson, and Nolan, and the Task Force, and maybe a few others,” Lestrat looked Roy in the eye, but then shifted away, “To leave the gloom and oppression of this place, that, that would be bliss.”

“Then come on, we’ll grab everything and go!” Roy exclaimed, trying hard not to notice the small visual cues the other boy left him. He wanted to go, so why couldn’t they, why?

“There are others though, a large majority who feel that they are safe here. The system is a fluke, things will sort out over time. If we were to leave, I doubt they would follow,” Lestrat let that settle in the room, silence unburied the buzzing of the light overhead and that quite hum dominated Roy’s thoughts.

“I’m so sorry...” Lestrat bowed his head and leaned over the table, his voice drowned out by the buzz.

“Let’s just, uh, go and distribute this food, it wouldn’t do to make the people wait, right?” Roy chattered, trying to flood his voice with false cheer, it was only his first day here, he still had a week or two to sort things out.

“Right, or course, I’ll load these pots into the carts, you can grab the canned vegetables. Make sure to retrieve a good selection; peas, spinach, tomatoes,” Lestrat picked up on Roy’s efforts instantly, reverting back to his usual self, “Perhaps a few cans of beans too, so we can add some protein to the diet.”

Roy got to work moving cans of vegetables from the shelves to the cart Lestrat had prepared, a wooden board had been attached to the basket so that any good place within would be elevated well above the water.

The task was oddly relaxing, the aisles were well lit and with the only sound was the gentle splash of the water as Roy trundle to and from the cart. Some of the cans had been placed quite high and so occasionally he would need to stool to reach the cans at the top of the stack.

Colorful brand names and illustrations reminded Roy of a more peaceful time, when he wasn’t running around completely out of his depth. The canned goods, with their flashy advertising were a connection to that past, Roy doubted anyone would expend so much effort sprucing up cans of vegetables now.

Somehow, they were also a reminder of their present, wrapped up in niceties like the can, but the contents spoke otherwise. It was desperate times when people started subsisting off of flour gruel and canned goods alone.

Roy kept track of the number by repeating it over and over in his mind, one-o-one, one-o- two, slowly the cart with the cans filled up, layers organized into a vaguely rectangular structure. Lestrat had finished too; there were two carts for the pots whose cylindrical form took up quite some space, and one for the aluminum bowls stacked in neat piles.

“Do you have all the cans loaded?” Lestrat inquired as he unlocked and pulled open the door.

“I’m ready,” Roy replied as he pushed the cart of cans towards the door.

They pushed a cart of gruel and the bowls to the front first, Lestrat watched the stand and ladled the gruel into bowls while Roy returned for the cans and the rest of the main course. As he walked back, key jingling by the chain he held in his hands, a family stepped out of a room that lined the avenue.

A bulky man exited first, followed by a homely looking woman and two small children, both were chubby and Roy recognized the boy that had knocked over Madelyn. The man walked up to Roy, a reserved smile plastering his face. Roy had never felt short compared to his classmates, but now after seeing Greyson and this man, he felt the drawbacks of his presence.

“Don’t think we’ve met, I’m Jake,” the man offered a speedy introduction as he stopped barely a meter from Roy.

“Oh, yeah, I’m new here, so nice to meet you Jake, I’m Roy,” he replied, Lestrat was waiting for him to get the rest of the meal.

“Nice to meet you too, going by that pin on your chest you’re a part of the Task Force right?” the man asked with a hint of humor in his voice.

“Yeah, but I’m really new so...” Roy responded as he edged to the side, trying to return to the task at hand.

“No, no it’s fine, we just have a small issue and were wondering if you could help us,” the man shuffled slightly, edging into Roy’s path, it would be rude if he were to squeeze past the gap.

“I’m sorry, but I think you should ask someone else, I’m really new, and I’m helping Lestrat right now,” the man was frustratingly insistent on asking him for help, couldn’t he find someone else to bother if the issue was so small?

“It’s really small, please, it’ll only take a second, we just want some food,” the man implored, the woman chipped in as well, her voice folding into the man’s words.

“Food?” that was silly they were serving lunch right now, perhaps they had dawdled too long in the store room, “They’re serving lunch right now at the front.”

“I know, I know, but we have two growing boys and there’s just not enough, I’m just asking for a can or two, it’s no big deal, right?” the man gesture to what Roy guessed were his two sons, they looked at him, discontent visible in their eyes.

“Maybe you can ask Lestrat? I’m just helping,” Roy tried to appease the man, he just wanted to get back to work, Lestrat could handle their complaint. That was the duty of their office based on the sign Roy had read.

“He’s too hard on these things, just a few cans, it’s all we want!” the man’s voice raised in volume, and he took a half step forwards.

“If Lestrat can’t, I can’t, I’m sorry, but maybe you can try asking him again?” that seemed to set the man off as he walked forwards and made to grab towards the keys Roy held in his hand.

Roy backpedaled, trying to put more distance between him and Jake, was he really going to resort to violence because of a few cans of food? None of them looked malnourished, and the kids looked fine if viewed from the perspective that the world was falling apart around them.

Jake didn’t give up, he dashed forwards and pushed Roy up against the shelves, and before Roy could react the man had his arms restrained. The shock of being assaulted shot through Roy’s body, the man's overpowering strength and his own emotion kept his muscles locked in place, not even putting up a token resistance.

How could the man, where was his civility? If he couldn’t get a bit more food from the proper channels he would resort to violence? The man motioned to his wife and the woman approached, anger and pity in equal measure filled her eyes. She made to jerk the keys from Roy’s grasp, she wasn’t well muscled, but her bulk made her plenty strong compared to the scrawny Roy.

Roy tightened his grip, he couldn’t fight back but he couldn’t simply hand over the keys, Lestrat had trusted him with this oh so simple task.

“Move aside VIP coming through,” a crowing voice interrupted the scene, Roy, Jake, and his wife turned to face the newcomer.

Madelyn stood, at the center of the aisle, arms shooing at the three cluttered against the shelves. She wore a suit identical to the one earlier; except it was dry and her shoulders were under the shoulder pads.

The man let go of Roy instantly, but not before delivering a sharp kick to the shin that elicited a yelp. The woman took the took kids inside while Jake glared at the girl.

“Lestrat’s bitch,” he muttered, venom dripping from his vocal daggers, before he followed his wife into their shabby little apartment.

“No time to space out Sir Stone!” Madelyn announced in the lowest pitch she could muster. She swept out her arms and gestured towards the storage room, “The princess is waiting!”

“Oh, thanks,” Roy managed to get out as he sped towards his task, the horror of being attacked by his fellow man had yet to dissipate. His appetite was gone, alongside a little bit of the past.