Shaking, he forced himself out of his chair. This email dashed his hopes. He was hoping that he wouldn’t have to do this. And even if he had to, he hoped that he could take his time with this task. That he would be able to portion out the water over the course of the rest of the day. But now, he didn’t have the time for that.

Every second he didn’t spend towards completing these tasks was one second closer to him going to prison.

He forced himself to calm down and walked out into the office space. He couldn’t hear the sounds of people talking. He knew that they were, but his mind was so focused on the task at hand that it blocked out everything else. He only had the water cooler in his sight.

He was so focused that he didn’t notice that someone was walking towards him with their head down, reading something.

The two collided, sending both of them to the ground. The stack of papers that were in the other person’s hands scattered everywhere. The office went silent, as everyone turned to see what had happened.

Arno’s tunnel vision cleared slightly, allowing him to register what was going on around him. However, his attention was still fully focused on the water cooler. The threat of being ‘torn apart’ by his bosses was all he could think about, so the fact that he had knocked into someone barely even mattered to him.

“I’m sorry,” the other person said nervously, reaching to help Arno to his feet.

Arno ignored the outstretched hand and got up on his own. He ignored the stares from everyone around him and walked to the water cooler.

The employee pulled back his hand awkwardly, dusted himself off, then went to clean up and reorganise the scattered papers. There were about fifty pages scattered across the ground, and it would take a while for him to organise it all again. But even while he was picking up the papers, he couldn’t help but look back at Arno who was acting strangely.

Someone else who was sitting nearby came to help him, but she was also more focused on Arno.

“Don’t you think there’s something off with him today?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he nodded before shaking his head. “This is none of our business. Thanks for helping me with this.” All of the paperwork had been picked up, now it was just a matter of sitting down and sorting it all out again, but that was something he could do on his own.

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The woman nodded, agreeing with what he said, and went back to her desk. However, even though she was trying to focus on her work, she was still looking over at Arno every few seconds, who was currently standing at the water cooler, hesitating.

She wasn’t the only person looking at him. By now, almost everyone in the office was looking at him. The noise had been reduced to a hushed whisper. No one knew what was going on, but they could tell something was wrong from how Arno was acting. No one wanted to stand out at a time like this,

They watched as Arno, with a shaky hand, reached out for a cup and began to fill it with water. He seemed incredibly nervous. Now everyone knew something was wrong. Maybe the company was about to go downhill. Rumours quickly spread throughout the office, and everyone began worrying about their jobs.

Arno filled the cup with water and tried to calm his shaking. He could feel countless eyes on him, and knew that whoever sent that email was watching him now. He didn’t want to upset the person by spilling any water.

Bringing the trembling cup to his lips, he quickly gulped down the entire thing. Then he filled up the cup again. And again. And again. And again. He gulped down each cup of water in a hurry, just like the first one.

The water in the cooler started to lower as he drank one litre of water. Then two. Then three. He was already starting to feel nauseous as everyone stared at him incredulously. He could feel something sloshing around in his gut, threatening to crawl up and out his throat.

He tried to hold it back, but with each cup of water, everything became worse. Downing half of the water in the cooler, he was already struggling to keep himself from throwing up. Water was dribbling from his mouth as it became difficult for him to continue drinking.

He forced it all down, only upsetting his body further. Unable to stop it, he threw up, coating the floor in little chunks of his breakfast, water, and his stomach acid. A sickening stench stung his nose, and caused everyone around him to hold their breath.

He could feel everyone staring at him, and he never felt more embarrassed and ashamed in his life. Even if he managed to finish these tasks and keep his secrets safe, his reputation would be forever ruined. But he had more worrying things to think about. Like finishing the rest of the water.

With much difficulty, he downed the last of the water. And with much of the water he had drank now on the floor, he excused himself, running towards the bathroom with a red face.

Kneeling down in a bathroom stall with his face in the toilet, Arno continued to vomit his stomach out. He wanted to get as much of the water out of his system as possible, hoping to lessen the effects of water intoxication.

Having finished the task the stranger asked of him, all he could think about now was that everyone in the office had seen him drinking so much water that he vomited. He was humiliated. He wanted to just curl up into a ball and die. This disgusting, vomit filled toilet stall was a hundred times better than heading back out there and facing his coworkers.

But, he knew that wasn’t an option for him. As much as he didn’t want to go back out there, he had to get back to his office. This was only the second of five tasks he had to complete.