“Good morning, Ed.”

Waking up, Ed stretches. Relaxed after a nice long rest, he readies himself for another day at work. I hope I can take it easy today as well. I still don’t feel quite right. “Morning Buddie. How long until today’s file comes in?”

“There will be no file today, as the company has something else planned for you.” Ed stops stretching, worried to hear what Buddie is about to say. “Congratulations Ed, due to your performance during the internship period, the company has decided to offer you a position as a trap designer. If you head through into the hallway, you will find a door on your right which will take you to a waiting room. An employee will arrive shortly to guide you through the company building where you will be staying for the foreseeable future.”

Oh, thank fuck. I thought I was about to die. Ed breathes a sigh of relief, celebrating that he managed to survive the internship process. “You scared me there Buddie. I thought you were about to tell me that the company had picked someone else and that I would be killed.”

“That was a distinct possibility. When the meeting was held to determine who would be hired, you had yet to meet the basic requirements for the position. However, they decided to hold off on deciding because your performance received two recommendations from people in higher management.”

Recommendations? That must’ve been why I was allowed to use the actors. Thank God I figured that shit out, otherwise I would’ve died without even knowing how I failed. Ed gets up out of the chair, prepared to head out to the waiting room. As he looks around the room he spent the last several days of his life in, he stops for a moment to take it all in. Will I still be working here, or will I be working in a crowded office? “Hey, Buddie? Will I still be able to come back here?”

“You will be allowed to continue working from this room if you so wish, as this area is designated specifically for you. But you can also work in a livelier environment if you so wish.”

“Thanks Buddie.” Ed walks out into the hallway and spots a door on his right. Reaching out to it, he slowly turns the handle. Here we go.

~

At the same time, in a room identical to Ed’s, a young woman is sitting in front of a screen, using her arms as a pillow. Her long blonde hair being used as a blanket as it blocks half her face.

“Good morning, Zara.”

Zara wakes up with a smile. Pushing the hair out of her face, she hops down from the chair, ready to start the day. “Good morning, Buddie.” She says cheerfully, beaming as she waits to start work. “When will today’s file get here? I’ve got some ideas floating around in my head that I really want to try.”

“There will be no file today, as the company has something else planned for you.”

Zara pouts, but quickly perks herself up when she hears that something else is going to happen. “Ooh, ooh, what does the company want me to do? Do they need me to spy on another employee and design the perfect trap for them? Who is it? You can trust me; I won’t tell anyone.” She says, practically vibrating out of her chair in excitement.

“No, that is not what will be happening today.”

“Aww, why not.” She settles down, waiting to hear what he has to say.

“Congratulations Zara, due to your performance during the internship period, the company has decided to offer you a position as a trap designer. If you head through into the hallway, you will find a door on your right which will take you to a waiting room. An employee will arrive shortly to guide you through the company building where you will be staying for the foreseeable future.”

She jumps out of her seat. “Yay, I knew they would pick me.” She immediately runs out into the hallway, excited to finally see what the company is like. “I wonder what the other employees are like? I’ve got so many questions I want to ask them.” Seeing the new door, she immediately opens it and rushes through into the waiting room.

~

Opening the door, Ed looks into the waiting room before stepping in. It looks like the kind of waiting room you would see in a business tv show. I’m surprised that they have art hanging on the walls. I expected it to be more barren and impersonal.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Hey, you must be the employee here to show me around. Buddie said you would be coming soon. I’m Zara, what’s your name? Where will you be taking me to first? How big is the company? How long has it been around? How come I’ve never heard of it before? Buddie refused to answer my questions. It’s not fair.” A warm vibrant voice calls out to him.

Where did that come from? Ed looks around to find a petite young woman walking over to him with a radiant smile on her face. Wow, she’s beautiful. Ed forgets himself for a moment while looking at her, but quickly grows tense and wary upon remembering where he is. Don’t get distracted Ed. She should be a new hire just like you, which means that she had to have killed several people to get here. No normal person would be acting this way in this situation. I should keep my distance from her, she might be very dangerous.

Lost in his thoughts, Ed takes a moment to process what is going on. The room falls silent as she waits for him to answer, a big grin on her face. “I think there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding. I was also just hired; I don’t think I would be able to help you.” Before he can say anything else she drags him to the seats.

“That’s fine, we can wait for the employee together. Do you think they hired anybody else?”

Shit. Looks like I can’t get away from her right now. “I’m not too sure. If there was anyone else, surely, they would’ve shown up by now. I feel like Buddie would have told us all at the same time, but I could be wrong. How long have you been waiting here for?”

“About a minute, I raced out the door the second Buddie told me about it. I’m super excited to meet new people, I’ve been bored out of my mind stuck in there for days with no one to talk to. Sometimes I would go into the trap rooms just to feel like there’s someone else in the room with me.”

Wait. Is she saying what I think she’s saying? “Don’t you think it’s a bit weird to talk to the corpses? You could’ve just talked to Buddie; he seems like a fine conversationalist to me.”

She looks up at him, genuinely confused. “Why would it be? I did it all the time before I came here.”

Looks like I was right. I am not safe here. “May I ask what you did for a living?”

“Oh, I was a medical student. Spend enough time around cadavers and it sort of just happens. I thought that was kind of a requirement, what did you do?”

“You might be on to something. I was a psychology student, so maybe a requirement for this job is to have a deeper understanding of humans in some way.”

They spend the next few minutes talking about their lives on Earth while waiting for the employee to come.

“Why aren’t they here yet? Buddie said it wouldn’t take long. Don’t get me wrong, I like talking to you, but I want to know what they’re like. Will they like me at all? Besides, this is taking up valuable time I can spend making sinners understand the error of their ways.” She bounces up and down on the chair, looking around the room, waiting for someone to show up.

Oh, I can see why the company picked her. She seems like a model employee to me. I can’t wait until I’m back in the safety of my room. “It’s okay, there’s nothing for you to worry about. Trust me, you will definitely get along with them. They can be very... dedicated to their work.”

Zara immediately turns her attention to him, no longer caring about anything else. “What do you mean by that. Have you met other workers already. How?” Her eyes widen, staring directly at him as if she will be able to read his mind.

“I figured out some information about the company, so Buddie allowed me to use actors in the rest of my traps. I was able to talk to them in person before and after each trap went off. They seemed to have their own little quirks, but they weren’t too bad to talk to.”

She sinks down into her chair, sulking. “That’s not fair. I could’ve really used that. I already have some ideas I could do involving multiple people.” Zara gets into the zone thinking about what she could do with this ability. “It’s just so unfair that you got to have so much fun when I couldn’t.”

Ed puts a hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay. If I remember correctly, Buddie said it was something that would normally be given to us when we are no longer interns. So, you should be able to do whatever you want with it when we get back to work.”

She immediately perks up, a big smile coming across her face. “Really! That's amazing. Do you think they’ll do whatever I tell them to do?”

“Well, I saw one of them eat another person’s heart, and she decided to do that all on her own. They're also quite used to being blown up. So, I think they’ll be fine with whatever you tell them to do.”

“She ate someone’s heart?”

“I know right, it was so wei-”

“That’s so cool. I wonder what that tastes like?” She immediately falls into thought, occasionally taking glances at Ed’s chest. Seeing Ed flinch she immediately giggles.

“Don’t even think about it.” Seeing her reaction, Ed relaxes a little.

“Relax. I don’t feel the urge to taste a heart right now. Besides, there are far easier ways of sourcing a heart. So, I promise you I won’t try and eat yours.” She pokes his chest.

I guess she’s not wrong. The company probably has a lot of leftover remains, surely it would be easy to get your hands on one... Wait why am I even thinking about this.

Ed relaxes. She’s weird, but maybe I’ll be able to get use to her. She’s far more normal than the other people I’ve met so far. It’s probably a good idea to get to know my future colleague anyways. While they wait for the employee to arrive, Ed decides to fill her in on all the information he knows.