It was one of those days, or night shifts actually. Juliana had to stay at her bay making sure fries, hamburgers and everything else were in order to deliver on the 24/7 drive-through. It wasn't a good job, it payed poorly and more often than not quite stressing, and let's say that working frying shit all the time did wonders to your skin and hair. No wonder why kitchen’ staff always looked miserable.
The frying machine wasn't working well that day, it would off the gas randomly, and she’d need to relit the entire thing again, manually, with a lighter because god forbid the manager would waste money doing proper maintenance.
She knelt below the counter, slide the small opening to the left, a whaff of gas right on her face, the thing must have been off for longer than she noticed. Juliana wasn't stupid, she waited the gas to dissipate a bit before trying to light it. With her left hand she got the lighter close to the ignition valve and… BOOM. It always did that, a small, but inoffensive fireball inside the container, the first times it was nerv wrecking, now just a boring routine.
“Hey bitch, where's my fucking sauce?!”.
A rude grave voice yelled through the window, a middle aged guy, tattooed as hell and looking way scarier with his unsettling shaking. Another addicted to who-knows-what trying to alleviate his munchies. She was sure to have given him his goddman sauce, but he probably was one of those fuckers that loved being a Karen.
“Sorry sir, have double the sauce if you let that slid-”
The guy had a gun pointed at her just when she turned around holding the two sauce cups. Juliana didn't know anything about guns but that one looked big and lethal enough for her to freeze.
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The crackhead probably wasn't even trying to rob her, just a nutthead under the effects of whatever he used.
BOOM. The guy pressed the trigger and a small projectile erupted from the muzzle and struck her chest. She recoiled instantly, letting sauce fly all over her, her hand going straight to the injury only to find a red dot expanding on her uniform. But no pain. Adrenaline? Perhaps. She panicked, she didn't even scream, only a mute groan scaping her mouth. She touched her shirt and felt the red stuff smearing on it to be quite… weird. Carefully she touched the impact zone to feel the damage. There was no injury.
She smelled what she thought to be her blood. It wasn't. Paint. A fucking water ball gun prank in her late night shift.
When Juliana got up, just about to yell she felt a strain on her chest, it was like a knife going through her hearth. Tachycardia, when you hearth starts beating way too fast specially when under high stress. Her hand clung to he chest, it was so hard to breath, the pain at her left side unbearable.
Hearth failure, the cause of death of every elder in her family, and this time her as well.
-
When's Juliana woke up she was amidst a White room, there was nothing else than herself but a ball of pure light floating just in front of her.
It was all so confusing, nothing made sense, all she remembered was her Midnight shift, working on one of those all night open fast foods. Even her working clothes were there, red and yellow with a big stylized “M” in her chest as well on her cap.
“Oh...”, was all she could say.
Her mind went Overdrive thinking what was happening, many absurd ideas did cross her mind: abducted by aliens, tripping by accidentally ingesting drugs and... death. The last option was a little more believable, but dying at McDonald’s drive-trough service was probably one of the most accursed ways to depart the living world.
Juliana laughed, overwhelmed with the absurdity of the situation, for all the struggle she had, to die while working was... more than she could handle. She sat there, in the middle of that white nothingness for a while, her life flashing before her eyes. She wanted to cry, but the tears did not come, only the frustration of it all, life wasnt fair, she was born poor, in a even poorer country, had to work since she could talk, did so many shit jobs to have something to eat, all her savings used to by-pass the immigration using coyotes, survived a perilous journey to enter USA, where she would still get shit jobs, but payed a bit better.
Juliana laughed again.
“I tried so hard and in the end it didnt even matter...”. god this fucking music is me right now, huh.
A mechanical voice, genderless and dry reverberated in the white nothingness, accompanied by a large blue panel.
PLEASE, SELECT THE FIRST ROOM:
Graveyard - Rarity: common
Forest - Rarity: common
Slaughter house - Rarity:
uncommon
“Que porra é essa?”