What feels like a long time ago, there was someone I relied on. After losing almost all of my family in unexpected short order, the emotional shock caused me to recede into myself, afraid of losing anything more. I don't remember what I was like before the incident, but for a while I became an empty husk devoid of emotion.
That was until, I met her.
After getting my first corporate job, I just went through the motions everyday, careful to stay in my own lane and not aggravate my coworkers or managers. I had no desire to climb the corporate ladder, but I also did not have the desire quit. I just felt like if I stopped doing something... anything... whatever was still holding me together would fall apart.
One day, while absently making my way to the cafeteria to grab a nondescript lunch, I heard someone calling me name.
"Pablo?"
Thinking I must have misheard, or maybe someone with the same named being called in the same vicinity, I pretended to not hear and kept walking.
"Hey! Pablo!"
This person is really persistent... I hope they find whoever they are looking for.
"Hey, you!"
I felt someone tap my left shoulder and instinctively stopped to turn to face them, but... no one was there?
*Am I finally... being haunted by ghosts?*
As I quickly turned to step forward and walk as far away from this unusual event as possible, I bumped into something stiff yet soft - and found myself tumbling into it as soon as it became dislodged.
"Aaa-aaahh!"
Disoriented from the sudden influx of events happening at once, I briefly saw locks of golden hair flying into the air as I myself tumbled face first into the ground.
"Ow, what the heck, Pablo! Are you pretending not to see me to be funny or something? Because it's not!"
Ensuring that I would not be falling anymore, I slowly opened my eyes to see... nothing but the hallway and one of my arms in front of me, which probably tried to break my fall. But what about my other arm...?
"Are you going to keep your arm wrapped around me forever? You just pretended to not even know me a second ago!"
Realizing that my arm ended up accidentally hooking around someone as I fell, I quickly retracted my arm and tried to quickly stand up and brush myself off while apologizing.
"I am... so sorry about all of this! I had my mind on other things... so I didn't really notice you there, uhh..."
As I was apologizing, I finally got a good look at who exactly I bumped into.
She was a petite woman wearing a long, black pencil skirt and white blouse with short, blonde bob-cut hair. If I remembered correctly, she was a new hire working on a sister team to my own...
"I know you don't know my name because you've never asked - it's Rebecca, or Reca, for short!"
Reca [https://www.osco.blog/images/tgc/ch2-reca.jpg]
Staring directly at this woman who was grinning for some reason, I blinked a couple of times trying to process an appropriate response. Most notably...
"Sorry again... Reca. I usually don't talk with people outside of work reasons, so I really didn't think you were talking to me. "
I paused, waiting for a response, but Reca continued to grin at me, albeit a bit less so.
"Do you... need help getting up? I'm sorry again for bumping into you again."
The entire exchange apparently happened with Reca simply sitting on the floor staring directly at me. I hesitatingly reached a hand out, and Reca grabbed it in a flash.
"That's much better, Pablo! You need to show more respect for your fellow employees, especially the new ones!"
Helping her up, she quickly composed herself and stood before me once more. Again, she was staring directly at me while grinning.
"Reca... do you need something? I'm just on my way to lunch, if it's something about work I can try my best to help you after I eat..."
"It's funny you mention that, I was just wondering if I could join you! You always seem to look so busy when you are working, and then you slink away randomly when no one is looking!"
Unconsciously raising my eyebrow, I get annoyed at her response.
"Yeah? And what if I am busy? And what do you get for telling someone that they slink away? That pretty rude, you know!"
Reca put both her hands up in a defensive posture as if to apologize, then replied.
"My bad, my bad, I didn't mean it like that! I just meant... I wanted to get to know my fellow coworkers, you know? This is my first job out of college, and I was really excited to have passed the interviews to work here... but after I started, no one has been trying to help me learn the ropes. I'm not really sure why, but you seemed like you would have a bit more patience with me as someone who started just a little while before me... I'm sorry if you are really busy. too. "
While stating her reasoning, Reca kept her hands up, but began to look sideways and downcast, as if she was the one causing a problem and not me for accidentally knocking her over.
"..."
I was at a loss for words, wondering how I should proceed. It's not like I was intentionally going out of my way to avoid everyone, I just... didn't want to deal with them more than required.
But this girl was new, and very clearly nervous about starting a new job. I remembered my first couple of months at this company, and I distinctly remember being chewed out by my manager for not being able to complete tasks because no one of my teammates wanted to help me. I unconsciously sighed, remembering how dumb and inadequate I felt, until I complained enough to my manager's manager and was luckily able to move to another team...
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"I understand... I was pretty new myself, and really would have benefited from having someone show me around when I started, too. I am, like you said, pretty busy myself, but I can do my best to make sure you know at least how to do your assigned tasks."
Reca put her hands down and placed them behind her back, and turned to face me once more while smiling.
"Thanks, Pablo, I'd really appreciate that!"
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A couple of months went by, and Reca invited me to lunch whenever both her schedule and mine aligned, due to the sheer number of work meetings we both had (how does anything get done at this company?).
I kind of resigned to the fact that I wouldn't have friends anymore, and therefore had no reason to be friendly and welcoming. Despite this, Reca managed to get me to open up a bit about myself, and even though it was painful to sift through old memories as they would inevitably remind me about my deceased family, I started to remember things I liked. Things I would look forward to. Things I wanted to create and things I wanted to become.
"Reca, you can't be serious. This dream is dumb - I mean, come on. Playing videogames and traveling internationally to compete in tournaments? We are adults now - we already have a real job. Why spend time working towards something I'm not even good at anymore and has no stability career wise?"
"Well... those are all good points, Pablo. But how much time do you spend watching these competitions, analyzing these tournaments and suggesting what the players could have done better. Maybe if you spend time playing seriously, you could learn enough to be a coach or mentor or something like that!"
I looked at her with doubt, but Reca continued.
"For example... you said you would just help me enough to get by at this job, but you spent so much more time going over all the little things at this company and even introduced me to a lot of people who know stuff that even you aren't good at!"
I winced a bit at that last sentence - my relationship with everyone else at the company was acquaintance at best, but after introducing Reca to them, they immediately fell in love with her excitable and gushing personality. She would often get invited to lunch and even after-work outings with them, which led her spending less time with me.
Not that I minded, because I had no expectations about anyone anyway...
"Pablo, guess what? All that advice and tutoring you gave me worked out so much that I'm getting moved to a new project at the company! It's super high-profile and apparently will help me get promoted faster, and it's all thanks to you!"
Reca was sitting across from me in the cafeteria during our now rare lunching outings, and I shook my head at her statement.
"I didn't really do much... it was all you, really. I just pointed out some things here and there... it was really up to you to use what I showed you and impress our management, and they took notice. Congratul-"
Just as I was about to congratulate Reca on her astonishing achievement, a group of coworkers came up to our table to talk to her.
"Hey Reca, that campy horror movie night last week was a blast! When are you hosting the next one?"
"Yeah! And we were thinking of doing a white-water rafting trip sometime next week, will you be free?"
Startled by the sudden appearance of friendly coworkers, Reca turned to face them and engage them in conversation - while all of them proceeded to ignore me.
I wasn't surprised, given my cold demeanor to everyone in general, but for Reca....
It was obvious that Reca had outgrown our short acquaintanceship, so it was decided by me then and there that this would be the last time we would ever get lunch together.
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"Hey Pablo, I know that you've been busy with your own new project, but do you think you'll be free sometime this week for lunch?"
After Reca moved to her new project, she was forced to relocate to a different part of the office building with her newly composed team, and thus had no idea what was going on with her old team. I made up a blatant lie, saying that my own team had spun up a new project that would take all hands on deck, so I didn't really have time to get lurch with her anymore.
"Sorry... it's just be crazy over here. I'll be sure to send you a message once I have some free time, is that okay?"
The corporate messaging app showed the three dots to signify someone typing, and I quickly received a reply.
"Okay =( Please let me know asap, and good luck on your project! "
"Thanks, you too."
I closed the messaging window and returned to my empty desktop screen, because unsurprisingly so, my workload had not changed at all.
"It's for the best..."
I mutter something under my breath, deciding for both Reca and I that it was better for her to spend her time elsewhere. There was no value in hanging out with a nobody like me anymore.
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( Let's keep moving, Usika! We can't let this thing catch up to us! )
A memory from the past flittered into and out of my mind while trying to run away while piloting my avatar. Why now?
( Shit! )
The initial blow from the trash behemoth was a lot more severe than I thought - it felt as though Usika had several broken bones throughout her body as I tried to run through the junkyard. Every breath was a vicious hack and accompanied with sharp pain in my lungs, and every step felt like being stung by thousands of tiny glass cuts.
( We won't be able to run far in this condition... should we try and hide, Usika? )
Usika shook her head and winced, all while she continued to trudge forward.
"We need medical attention as soon as possible... and we won't be able to escape unless we defeat that monster. If we were to try and hide somewher- KEH"
Usika stopped to grab her chest and hack out another painful cough, which I also felt too. At the same time, a giant shadowy object appeared from over the horizon of the piles of junk, and grew larger and larger until it whistled just over our head and landed about 10 meters in front of us. We both paused, staring at what could have been our untimely demise.
"If we were to try and hide somewhere, we would either die from our wounds, starvation, or be crushed just like that... "
Looking onward for just a moment more, I shook my head to try and refocus. If Usika were in top-shape, we could try to set up a trap with the myriad of discarded items in the junkyard or maybe even try to take it out head-on... but we weren't in such a state.
( Shit! Shit! What can we do? )
Looking around at our immediate environment, I noticed that the giant ball of trash that had almost crushed us had also dislodged a lot of the piles of junk immediately around that. Maybe If we had a higher vantage point...
( Usika, do you think we can climb on that small hill of trash in front of us? )
Usika winced, but nodded her head regardless.
"I think we can... but what do you think will happen once we get on top. Don't you think the monster will be able to spot us faster?"
I paused for a moment to consider that possibilty, and felt the ground shake violately.
( We don't have many options left - the next thing we see could be the very thing we need, or the last thing we ever do. )
Usika remained silent for a moment as another thundering footstep approached us from behind, and replied.
" We have to try..."
Without another word, I piloted my avatar's body and began to shuffle towards the pile of junk and painstakingly attempted to climb onto it.
"Kuh-kuh-KUH"
Every time I reached out with my avatar's hands to try and grab something, a sharp pain would jolt across my arm like lightning, and every breath would cause me to hack up a painful and longer cough.
( Just a little more, Usika... )
Starting to lose consciousness from the intensity of the pain, I climbed the apex of the short pile of junk, and threw my avatar's body over the top with our remaining strength.
"I don't know... KUH... if we can go on beyond this point, Pablo..."
Usika spoke, hacking up another cough once more, as we laid still on the pile of junk we so painfully made our way onto. Though my body was on fire, stinging, sore, and exhausted, I felt something else I didn't expect.
( Wind? )
A gentle breeze rolled over my ragged avatar's body, and with it came the scent of something crisp, fresh, and salty.
( Are we... by the ocean? )
Focusing my eyesight on the direction of the wind, I tried to look between the various piles of remaining junk and notice there is a lot less of them... along with the once unseeable horizon being met by a long row of something shiny and reflective.
And with that, I had an idea, albeit a dangerous and quite frankly stupid one.
( This could be our only chance... Usika, do you trust me? )
Usika, seeing the same long stretch of water before us, spoke quickly.
"I trusted you enough to spend what little energy I had to climb up this pile of trash... let's do it."