Chapter 2:

First Day on the Job

///POV: First Person\\\

“I...I’m not, why am I not hungry anymore? Oh right I just died, next question! why the fuck do I have a big blue box floating right in my fucking eyes?” I try to look around, but the blue box follows my eyes and won’t leave. ‘Jeez this thing is annoying!’ After a few minutes I give up and let out a sigh while falling to the ground.

[Too Close A Job Box Think Happy Thoughts. We Want Our Workers To Start And End Their Day In A Good Mood]

I proceed to remember the time I died as it was the happiest moment of my life. ‘I’m sorry box dude, but I never applied to work for whoever, or whatever you are.’ I realize I must look weird talking to a screen and look around only to see dead bodies everywhere. Wait did I not die??? I think I’m still at the camp, maybe I’m a vengeful ghost.

I knew death camps were bad but I honestly did not expect this. Like God damn, how can people treat other people so badly?

“So, um, what’s my job? I do have a job right? You said I’d be working.”

[Your Job Is To Kill Those Whom You or Me Deemed Need To Be. That’s the gist of it anyway. That’s why your job title is Executioner...Pretty Lame I Know]

“You’re right that is pretty lame, mostly because I don’t want to kill anyone. Also you think you could order me to kill anyone just because you told me to do so, right? What if I don’t wanna kill anyone? I don’t want to kill anyone not for anything but my own reason.” The dumbass probably thought I was gonna miss that ‘You and Me’ part. Fucking shit for brains.

[You should just Do your job kid. You know what, congratulations you’ve successfully talked back to your manager on the first day, therefore you get extra work. Clean up all those dead bodies around you into a pile and burn them. An Executioner’s gotta at least has to cremate a body if it is executed by him or someone else.]

“Jeez, so hot tempered. what happens if I say no?”

[Did you miss the entire Orientation? You Die. Just like all those people I killed around you.]

“Oh. Well okay then asshole!”

[You have an hour to complete the job]

///About 30 minutes Later\\\

[Kid do your job, or you're gonna die.]

“That’s the point dumbass.”

[What are you suicidal?]

“I guess you could call it that. I have a question. When a new blue box appears what happens to the other box before it.”

[It gets destroyed.]

“Cool.”

[...]

“What?”

[Orders from HQ. I can’t believe I have to give the ‘speech’ to my first client. I hate this speech!]

“If you hate it so much why don’t you just get it over with then? Just get through it quickly.” This guy is very relatable, he hates making speeches, I hate talking to others in general. We have so much in common.

I’m getting to be one depressed sack of shit huh ? I can’t believe I used to want to be a hero. What embarrassing times.

[Okay…first day on the job speech: play, 3, 2, 1. “Hello there fellow co worker, my name is Tim. just in case you’re wondering, yes I love working day and night too! But wait a second! This says here that you have never worked a real full work day in your life. You must be new! That is just fantastic. Let me give you the lowdown for work and how everything works. First and most importantly check your status, to do this think of something you could do to work better. Do you see a blue screen with your name, job, and stats on it. Great! Now look in the top left hand corner just under your name, you should see something that says ‘intern’, now look just below. Good job I can tell you’re going to succeed you’re such a good listener! You should see a single star and nine other empty star slots. You need to fill all those slots with stars by the end of the month! Or you die...but hey that doesn’t really matter all too much anyway! To get a star you have to complete ten tasks. When you fill all the slots you get a promotion, for example: A person who is an apprentice knight completes all his tasks he gets promoted to a journeyman. When you get promoted you get an ability and stat improvements, but that is only because your workload becomes harder...I mean more exciting! If you check the ability tab on your status you can see your current ability. To do this think of the coolest person you know, and ponder how you can become just like them. You are first level, so no stats improvements by the way! Well I gotta get going, Bye! Have a great day.”]

“Great job blue box thingy, you just made me read the most I have ever had in my entire life.” I gotta say though this whole status and job thing is pretty cool. Is it worth living for though, possibly. I guess I just need a good reason.

[No questions about your status or anything?]

“Oh I was just thinking about that! I have two questions, what’s the ability for my job? And secondly why the fuck is my strength 1.5! Like I know I was just on the verge of death for about a week, but shit! I thought I was pretty well toned for a young starving boy such as myself.”

[First answer is to check your ability tab. And the other answer...you really need to get a good look at yourself man. You are literally only bone right now, the only reason you’re even alive is because you got a promotion aka hired and your hunger bar automatically refills.]

I look up and down my body. Yeah I literally was skin and bones, you could even see the veins that were deep beneath my skin. My body looked so frail I was honestly afraid to move, I thought my paper thin skin might rip off. I’m surprised I haven’t gotten sick by now with my body being so weak and all.

“Yeah I guess it is time to check my status.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

[Hurry up you’ve only got eighteen minutes until you die because you didn’t complete your job.]

“Oh yeah I forgot, I have to cremate all these bodies if I wanna live...oh well I guess my ability will decide whether I live or not because I don’t think I could move all these bodies if I wanted to. It better be something cool and useful or else i’m not waiting for you blue boxes to kill me.”

To open my status I think of how I need to work on my personality, and think that I could work on that by being more social. I could totally become a better worker by doing

that.

Name: John Str: 1.5 +3 Psy: 0 Job: Executioner Int: 5 Lck: -1 Rank: Intern Wis: 3 Shop Tab *00000000 Dex: 1 Abilities Tab

“Okay now time for the important thing, my ability.”

Abilities: "Slightly Less than A Loser" (Think about why your favorite superhero is so great to open Desc.) Sub Abilities: N/A

Desc. Slightly Less Than a Loser: Description of Ability: You do not even possess the strength of a Total Loser, we thought you might need this strength to be able to move properly. Voted most likely to die during the revelation by council.

“Yup okay, fuck this shit kill me now!”

[You still have 15 minutes, I’ll even make it so you don’t have to pile up the bodies. Come on this will look bad on my record. Your ability isn’t so bad you got more strength.]

“...”

[...*Sigh* Okay so your ability is the worst I have ever seen, but I still believe in you. Mostly because if you fail I get fired, but the rest of my hope is purely for your sake *crosses fingers*]

“I think I’m gonna try to complete this task. Also when you right çrosses fingers* in text it isn't so secretive as you might think.”

[Cool.]

“Yeah I’m gonna go do that.” I guess I’m just in the body burning mood right now.

Looking up to the sky I feel a soft breeze on my neck and I shield my eyes from the bright sun. There were clouds out today just like always. I look around to see many dead bodies scattered everywhere and the big white building where all the guards stay. It was funny though, the guards protecting the door were dead. Now that I look closer everyone is dead. Why? You know what. It doesn’t matter.

Looking down to my feet I see a decomposing body and jump up in fright but quickly calm down. ‘I could’ve sworn I saw it twitch. How the hell am I going to get rid of all these bodies? How am I going to cremate them? ‘I guess fire would do the trick, but how do I start and make a fire big enough. Thinking for a second a grin quickly covers my face. This was going to be fucking awesome.

“My plan is perfect, just perfect!” I make my way through all the bodies on the ground trying not puke while I feel their decomposing bodies beneath my feet. I had already felt a few brains mush beneath my toes, and I could feel bile rising in my throat. A lot of people would call me insensitive because of me desecrating the dead bodies of these people. But death has been, and always will be a way of life for me. Life and death that is it my superb virtue of how to go about living. Yeah it never made much sense to me neither. Believe it or not all these dead people here can’t even compare to the slums I lived in back home.

Over-population does not work well with tight spaces and a massive lack of housing if you were wondering. The death count per day per every ten miles is about five. To make it that much worse, just like our garbage, we don’t have any place to put the bodies. All the landfills are full so the people are either somehow buried through the enormous amounts of layers of asphalt and concrete, or left to rot in the streets. Lets just say the later is the majority when it comes to a homeless person's choices.

Therefore if you think I give a shit about dead people you are a little pussy ass bitch and that is final.

Finally making it to the shed I started to heave. I travelled over about a football field of dead bodies to get here and even with the extra strength from my ability I was still exhausted. My body was just simply to frail. If you cut me open you’d probably only find dust. Probably.

I see the thing I was looking for in the back and I go to grab it.

[You have five minutes left you better hurry]

“Crap I lost track of time!” Grabbing the thing I was looking for I run outside. The thing I happened to grab is what the guards use once a month to clean up all the dead bodies. Basically it looks like a huge pump action pesticide shooter but it has gasolene in it instead of the conventional bug killer stuff. There it a lighter gun taped to the end of the hose where the gas comes out just in case you need to light something up, or wanna do a cool party trick for one of your guests.

I look around and start pumping, it takes a few seconds but gas starts leaking out and then spraying onto all the bodies. I run around as fast as I can spraying all the dead bodies I can. I was starting to get winded, but as I look ahead of me and to the side of me I start to speed up. I didn’t have time to slow down. I only had about three minutes left.

My lungs are burning and my left ankle won’t stop clicking for some reason, but I push forward. I finally reach the last segment and I spray gas on the bodies, ah finally sweet bliss, no more running for this guy. Now all I have to do is light them on fire.

“Oh shit I better get clear of all these Gasoline ridden bodies before I light them up” Why the hell did I not think about that. Shit I need to sprint or I won’t make it in time. Looking around I found the gate of the compound and started to sprint to it at my maximum speed. Which apparently was not a lot because I was running slower than turtle with a broken leg.

[Times up kid. I can’t believe I had to contact the boss because of you. I worked hard to get you this chance kid. Be grateful]

Demons are arising, this time in the form of a tribe called the ‘Deaduns’. Kill all of them successfully to keep your job. You can not gain any Experience toward your Stars for this mission

“Shit that can’t be good!” I pick up the pace running towards the chain link fence gate at full speed. Which unfortunately was still not a lot. I whip my head around and see a bunch of the bodies rising. Their faces and bodies were terribly malformed and some of them were missing limbs. ‘I’m so screwed.’ I feel tons of hands grabbing at my feet as I squash the zombie like bodies beneath my feet.

“Zombies, really! Could you not come up with something more original. Will you guys lay off my feet!” These things were constantly biting at my feet, but I was stomping them in the face before they could actually bite me so I was not gonna become a zombie anytime soon.

I see the gate still about one hundred eighty two meters away, and I could hear the groans and grunts of zombies running behind me. ‘I thought zombies couldn’t run!’ I trip a little as I run but quickly get back up again and I hear a zombie chomp right past my ear. They were within touching distance of me now, these guys were seriously fucking fast. Oh wait, I’m just extremely slow huh?

The gate was now within forty two meters now and the zombies were grabbing at my shirt. I coughed up blood a few times now and I honestly am contemplating jumping into the horde to kill myself. What can I say though, work is work. Finally reaching the chain link gate fence thing I jump up onto it. Putting my feet in between the gaps between the steel I climb higher until I am at a safe distance from the zombies. I rip off the hose attached to the gasoline pump machine on my back. The I rip the lighter gun off of that. I fumble to turn on the lighter and I feel a bead of sweat slowly roll down my face.

I start hanging off of the fence and extend my hand outwards towards the zombies. I find a nice and wet one that was drenched in gasoline and reach out further toward it. I feel my arms stretching as far as they could and I start to yell out in pain. “Just a little fucking...further!” The lighter finally reaches the zombie and next thing I knew my entire world was flames and death. I watched thousand of bodies burn to death...I mean they were more dead, they screamed out in pain and I felt the skin on my feet slowly burn off. “Ow!!!” I jump up to the top of the fence high on adrenaline and hop down feeling my knees crunch beneath the twenty foot drop that I just made.

I look over to the burning mass of zombie flesh and bones and say the first words that came to my mind.

“See you in hell, motherfucker.”