Adjusting to having a job is...weird.
Before I graduated from the university, I hardly ever thought about anything other than my classes, but now none of those things matter. I used to wish for one extra day before the deadline so Mara the Procrastinator can sleep in on a Friday, but now I just wish for things to be quiet.
Existing in your 20s is also weird. You're full of hope, you're full of spite. Your world is dying, your world is developing. The future is infinite, the future is already here. You dream of tomorrow, you miss yesterday. It's like I'm Janus, forever looking into the past and the future, while the present mind is chained to this receptionist desk. Stuck trying to understand all the people that are in their own ways, their own little well of hurt and sentiments. A city overflowing, long, grasping, suffocating, dreaming and clawing, but at the end of the day...simply existing. So close yet so disconnected, like seeing each other through silk screens.
I went home and bought a bottle of painkillers after the run-in with the Weeping Maiden. I keep it on my windowsill, just in case there's another Echo out there that's crying for help. I don't know if giving the Maiden some liniment would have helped it, I don't know if it would've been enough. It looked starved more than anything, and maybe there's something more to it that Aruna didn't divulge.
Today, I deliberately take my lunch break next to the storage room, which has been since repaired. I assume I'm not allowed in this area, but I do it in vain hopes of meeting Aruna again. Something about her was comforting, the way home-baked cookies and little dandelions growing through concrete cracks are comforting.
But alas, I don't see Aruna today. Something small is scuttling down the hall towards me with a high-pitched wail, and before I can discern what it is, it speeds past me towards the men's room, trailing black ichor behind it. Its shrill cries turn into ringing in my ears. The horrible rancid odor follows soon after like a tidal wave of nausea, gasoline and bleach mixed together left to stew in a summer swamp, acrid yet pungent.
image [https://i.imgur.com/HPiPJs9.jpeg[/img]]
I know better than to chase after the damn thing, so I head back to my desk and dial Aruna's line.
"Yes, Mara?" She chirps sweetly.
"There's a...thing, running down the hallway. I think it went into the men's room next to the archive depot...it smells really bad too. Is it one of those Echo things?"
A bit of silence, I can hear her stirring what is probably a cup of tea or hot cocoa. She seems like a hot cocoa person. "Ah, no...that's...Line 2's mess. I'll call him to clean it up."
Not even a minute later, the line rings again.
"Hey, Mara...I asked Line 2, and he said he's...busy with something. So you might have to go down there and grab the little guy and bring it to him."
"What? Are you crazy?" I almost throw down the receiver, "It was fast as f-fff - I'm not going after it!"
"I'll walk you through the steps. Don't worry, these things are usually...not dangerous."
That's not reassuring. I look at the fetid trail it left behind then at my only pristine white dress shirt. As I think about the dry cleaning bill that really should go towards my ice cream funds, Mara's future seems just a tiny bit dimmer now.
"If we don't grab this thing and get it back to Line 2, then...it might become a problem for Line 5. And trust me, you do not want to meet Line 5." Aruna advises, the stress evident in her voice.
"If it kills me, I'm going to be so mad at you. I'm going to haunt you forever. I'll be one of those Echo things that crawl through your window and throw stuff."
Aruna just chuckles.
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I follow the trail down carpeted hallways that lead to yet another twisting maze of nondescript offices. The black liquid, whatever it is, is soaking through the fabric and blotting out the bland pattern, filling my nose with battery acid fumes. The trail grows spasmodic, scuttling up walls and even along the ceiling, but I see no discernible footprints. When I stop to examine the splatter that landed on the walls along its frantic path, I realize it was going faster than expected - the drops are almost horizontal to the floor.
"How am I supposed to catch this...thing? What even is it?"
"You'd have to ask Line 2." Aruna clinks her teaspoon against her cup softly, I can just barely make out the beep of a telegram machine in the background. "But he said...'find a sturdy container first.'"
"And he's telling you that through Morse code."
"Something like that. He is...old-fashioned."
The line then went quiet, because Aruna put me on hold and left me to face death alone. I think about just turning around to flee and just pretending like the thing got away from me again, I think about calling our nonexistent security, I think about what people will say at my funeral. I think about getting fired, sleeping in a Honda Civic, that nightmare I keep having.
I open the men's room door.
image [https://i.imgur.com/87h60iA.jpeg[/img]]Great.
Aruna calls again. When I pick up, she's definitely typing up a storm at Line 2. That telegram machine is going off faster than a pulsar.
"Okay, I talked to him. He said it should be fine as long as you don't scream or make sudden movements. Apparently he calls it a 'Nyctonaut', and I have no idea what that means. You just need to kind of...coax it out and into the container."
I grab one of the empty trashcans - luckily no one has used this restroom in ages, and empty out the bag. It seems large enough and sturdy enough to contain this...Nyctonaut. Just in case, I hold the lid like a shield and grab a broom for self defense. Mara is a strong independent woman who has a blue belt in Taekwondo, sleeps with the bedroom door open, and won't be bested by some small...slime creature, even if this entire thing feels like the first five minutes of an alien horror movie.
image [https://i.imgur.com/eIOYkpN.jpeg[/img]]
"Coax it out...like a raccoon?"
"Like a kitten that's hiding under your car because it's winter and the engine is the only warm thing around."
She makes it sound so harmless, God. I brace myself, take a deep breath, and slowly push open the creaky stall door with my shield in front of my face the way Perseus must've approached Medusa. Please don't kill me I don't want to die in a bathroom-
image [https://i.imgur.com/4UfFDI8.jpeg[/img]]It takes me a few moments to process what I'm looking at: a broken vintage TV oozing black slime, with a small body attached to it at the neck that's made of the same disgusting material. Freakishly long arms extend past its entire body length, ending in sharp needles dripping with ichor. There are wires embedded in its chest and dangling from its viscous ribcage like grotesque entrails. The screen, although broken, flashes and spews static occasionally, and the antennae seem to be the only parts not covered in that liquid. The smell is mercifully no longer the most horrific thing in this room after the damages it did to my nose.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
It stares at me with what I assume to be visual sensing organs behind the broken screen, or at least I get the strong sense that it's staring at me. A fuzzy voice mixed with bursts of static buzzes quietly.
"̷I̷s̷ ̷t̷h̸a̷t̶ ̸y̷o̴u̶,̷ ̸m̸o̵m̵?̶"̵
Not today, motherhood. I tilt the empty trashcan towards the Nyctonaut carefully, holding the lid ready for whenever it decides to crawl in. Thankfully, it seems attracted to small spaces, and clambers inside without hesitation. I throw myself and the lid over the trashcan immediately, holding it in place until the thing has calmed down. To my surprise it stays docile, content in its confinement. I hear it circling a few times inside before curling up into a ball.
"Guess what," I pick up the phone with shaking hands, "that wasn't a kitten under a car."
"You did great, just need to get it to Line 2's office. I'll give you directions."
"Does this...happen a lot? With the Nyctonauts?"
"No...not this." Aruna trails off. Something in her voice makes me feel there are other things involving Nyctonauts here, possibly many more of them. I take a moment to listen through the lid, when it's evident the creature isn't going to budge from any external interferences and is clearly enjoying its solitude, I reluctantly begin hauling it toward Line 2's office.
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I knock on the solid double oak doors simply adorned with a brass "2" on the front. Everything I know about this Line 2 so far is adding up into quite an unpleasant mental image. The Nyctonaut buzzes inside the trashcan, almost snoring.
"Come in." I hear a faint voice. The doors creak open just a little.
He is...not what I expected.
image [https://i.imgur.com/4jHzHom.jpeg[/img]]
Soft dusk coats the room in amber hues, from the worn mahogany table to the stacks of yellowed books, the faded Persian carpet, and the ghostly man standing in the middle. Dust swirls and dances through thin, scattered light, dancing to nowhere in this room that felt sealed since antediluvian times. What little wallpaper that isn't peeling off is covered in a mad scrawl of schematics, diagrams, charts and every other incomprehensible form of cosmic knowledge condensed to paper. There is enough space to stand and walk, but mostly to sit and ponder things from the comfort of the relatively intact office chair, which compared to the rest of the room, is probably a new addition.
The man, too, is worn at the edges. He saps the warmth from the air just by glaring. His depression-grey turtleneck sweater and threadbare dark jacket remind me of one divorced college professor I used to study under, the one that inevitably winds up rambling about their own research instead of the actual lecture material. He's young enough to pass for a college student, but old enough to not get ID'd at any liquor store. Besides, nothing but age could have produced that piercingly bleak look in his eyes - his eyes, which I have noticed, are odd colours: one green and one brown, both pupils pinpricked like a cat's.
"Thank you for bringing back my Nyctonaut." He rasps, as if his lungs are as desiccated as the books he reads. "I apologize for the troubles you went through to deliver it."
"Just don't let it get loose again, please. It made such a mess in the halls."
He lifts the lid to peer in to the trashcan. The Nyctonaut sleeps soundly in its little cage without a care in the world. I realize he has an odd way of inflecting his words, something I can't put my finger on - it's almost...trans-Atlantic, but less deliberate, more subtle, like he's practiced it before.
"Augusta will see to the necessary sanitation. You may leave now."
"I'm not some maid to be dismissed at your whim." I slam my hands down on the trashcan lid. He just tsks in irritation, mumbles something about "Aruna warned me" and such.
"What are you going to do with the Nyctonaut?"
"The little thing?" He hovers over the trashcan which I am protectively hunched over. I feel his gaze on me, prickling, vexed. "Dispose of it. It's a failed product."
"Just like that?"
"What, do you expect me to father it?"
image [https://i.imgur.com/XoDLe63.jpeg[/img]]
He's probably one of those smug assholes that think they can get away with being abrasive and inconsiderate just because they're good at what they do, people like that grate my nerves in a way only taxes and traffic jams can. But unfortunately, dealing with jerks comes in the job description of working customer services. Still, the way the Nyctonaut called out for its mother back there, it felt wrong to speak of it as a "failed product".
image [https://i.imgur.com/FioxGlz.jpeg[/img]]
"I brought it back all this way and you're just going to kill it? It was calling for its mother, for fuck's sake-"
"It's a dead memory piloting its child-corpse through a river of metaphysical muck that failed to even navigate the rapids." He spits out the words with clear venom, no matter how little sense they're making to me. I have no idea what the river of metaphysical muck is, or how far this guy has veered off the deep end, but I feel light-headed under his glare, sickeningly so.
A faint buzzing or clicking rings out from somewhere behind him.
"Go find Aruna if you are so desperate for charity, but I do not partake in her joie de vivre." He hisses, "I do not minister, I do not soothe. And I have no inclination to justify my methods to you."
"No, obviously, you're just a jerk."
The clicking is louder now. He draws back, eyes fixed on the trashcan.
"You should know what kind of business Line 2 deals with, receptionist."
Of course I know, Augusta had me memorize the manual for when to transfer to each line.
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image [https://i.imgur.com/2oYsJFc.jpeg[/img]]
Line 2: For mysteriously puzzling phenomena, haunting visions, cognito-hazards and other confounding incursions into the supernatural world, consider transferring to Line 2. Often times the greatest mysteries have the simplest explanations, which Line 2 pinpoints with indefatigable logic. All manners of portends can be deciphered this way, and most general inquiries into the arcane can be answered, so as long as the relevant information exists somewhere. If the caller is not in immediate danger, but has persistent issues that they require insight into, Line 2 will offer them blunt, often-unpleasant, but necessary truths to release them of their troubles. However, avoid burdening the line with too many frivolous callers who simply don't want to do their own research - Line 2 is one of the busiest, whose work quality may be compromised when overwhelmed.
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I can't believe this guy gets paid to be an asshole. A knowledgeable one, maybe, but an asshole nonetheless. I stare him down until I can no longer tell if the buzzing is coming from his office or from inside my skull. Then, as if he only just heard it, Line 2 snaps his attention away from me to dig around his cabinet. He finds a leaden box with a bottle labeled "potassium iodide" inside, shoves the bottle in my hand, and starts pushing me out of the door.
"That's enough of you now. Go, get out of here."
I clock the lead gloves and lead apron hanging from the coat rack as I stumble out from his office, which only made the pit in my stomach sink even deeper. Everything back there felt deeply, seriously wrong, but more than anything was the utter silence after he slams the door shut behind me. I am left in the hallway with my bottle of potassium iodide and a head full of swirling questions, bubbling up out of indignant fury. Still, the worst thing about that encounter was perhaps the source of that buzzing: the Geiger counter I glimpsed on the shelf just before he closed the door. It simply read 45 mSV. Almost the amount of radiation a nuclear power plant worker is exposed to in a year.
I have a question, and I have a guess, and I don't like either of them.
What the fuck could have made that much radiation?