“Take a ticket, you’ll be called when it’s your turn.” The secretary behind the desk said, not even bothering to look up from his phone.
I blinked, what? What was going on? Where was I? This definitely not look like my bedroom, it actually looked like some kind of waiting room, the kind of whitewashed sterilized place that all hospitals employed. The place seemed mostly empty with only a few people sitting on the benches, each more forlorn then the last, completing the picture of monotony and utter despair.
“Take a ticket, you’ll be called when it’s your turn.” The secretary repeated, an old man in white overalls, he looked just as bad as the others. Even his phone beeped in a dejected sort of way.
“Excuse me but where am I?” I tried asking. No response. That was kind of frustrating, did he not care that he will lose his job? Maybe he didn’t, maybe he hoped to get fired. Well I could understand that well enough.
I tried again. “Where am I?” Still no response. Fine. Be a dick, see if I care.
Taking a slip of paper from the ticket machine, which seemed to be on its last legs as well, I slowly walked away to sit on one of the benches. I glanced around once more taking in the other people who were sitting with me, there were a surprising number of them, and they looked to be from all ages and races, little kids, big kids, old people, young people, even oldish young people. I spotted a family, a couple and several kids, sitting a few rows away. They all had a sort of vacant expression on their faces, it made me shudder.
Just as I was about to sit down next to a quite pretty girl a strange crackling sound filled the air. “Number 37. now taking number 37.”
I looked at my slip, number 37. Wow, that’s just unfair to the other people here, but I shouldn’t complain should I. Shrugging my shoulders I walked back to the counter, this time the receptionist just pointed his thumb towards a door next to him, a door which I didn’t even notice before. Kinda creepy but I was still too angry at the jerk to care.
I opened the door and contrary to my belief it didn’t creak ominously, instead when I stepped through I saw another man sitting behind a desk. This room was whitewashed as well, but this time it felt like I was in someone’s office cubicle. A few cabinets stood in the corner with stacks of paper placed against them, while a single kitten poster with the words ‘You can do it’ printed under it stood proudly on the wall. And a white board showing some sort of pie chart took up most of the adjacent one. A desk was right in the middle, it had no monitor on it, instead it had a bunch of documents with an inbox and outbox, with the inbox being significantly fuller than its counterpart.
The man behind the desk was old, balding and wore suspenders, nothing stood out about him.
“Sit down Mr Beck.” The man said without looking up.
Ooh I did not like this at all, but nevertheless I sat down.
“Please fill out this form.” He handed me a pink piece of paper whilst still looking down.
I took the paper and read it; it was a questionnaire of some kind.
The first question was ‘If you had a chance to save the world, would you do it?’
I snorted at that, “Is this some kind of joke?” I asked indignantly.
Still the man wouldn’t look up. “Just answer the questions please.”
I was really getting fed up with this shit now, nevertheless I complied. I picked up a pen next to me and wrote in big, fat bold letters ‘NO’.
Next question, ‘If the previous answer was yes, then please state your top three reasons for doing so.’ I skipped the question.
‘If you could choose any superpower, what would it be? Please circle one of the answers below.’
1. Invisibility
2. Super Strength
3. Super Speed
4. Shape Shift
5. Time Manipulation
6. Elasticity
7. Teleportation
8. Power Mimicry
9. Water breathing
10. Invulnerability
11. Night Vision
12. Telepathy
13. Omnilinguism
14. Atmokinesis
15. Precognition
16. Talking to Animals
17. Immortality
18. Mind Control
19. Force Field
20. Intangibility
21. Flying
Now this was interesting, I’ve never given it much thought. And I didn’t even know what some of these did. But wait, if you thought about it… Come on, it has to be immortality, or precognition, one or the other. Ack, why not just both?
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“We do not appreciate cheaters Mr Beck.” The man said, stopping me from circling the second answer.
I looked up only to find the old man looking back at me.
“Oh, so now you’re gonna speak? Well why shouldn’t I choose two huh?” I shot back, feeling a smug sense of satisfaction for eliciting a reaction from the guy.
The office worker leaned back at that, crossing his hands behind his back. “Because. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Well why not?” I asked crossly.
He frowned at that. “Because it isn’t.”
I was getting so sick of this farce. “Alright, I just about had it with you. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on? Am I taking some kind of test? Is this what the government does to people who download movies illegally? Come on tell me!” I was practically yelling at the man by the time I finished my rant.
But the old dude in front of me wasn’t getting angry, in fact he looked kinda high. “Look Mr Beck, I’m willing to cut you a deal. You can have two but I’ll have to answer the rest of the survey for you. Don’t worry I’ll answer it a way that will best suit your interests.”
Just what the fuck was going on? How was that a deal? Why were we even talking about super powers?
“You know what? Sure, fine, whatever, go ahead.” I said as I pushed the pen and paper back to him.
He nodded at me then filled out the rest of the paper, reading each question carefully and only writing an answer after much consideration.
“Now tell me Mr Beck.” The man said, still writing on the paper. “If you were being robbed, would you consider fighting back?.”
I blinked. “Um, no, not really.”
He nodded, “Now tell me Mr Beck. If you were captured and forced to watch a villain carry out his master plan, would you rather live and watch the world crumble? Or sacrifice yourself to save the world.”
“Does it even matter?” I sighed.
“Mr Beck, please answer the question.” The man responded impassively.
“Argh, fine. The first one.”
The man nodded before placing the pen down on the desk and handing back the sheet. Just as I was about to take it however, it suddenly morphed in to some kind of bus ticket.
“What the hell?” I jumped up, trying to get as far away from the thing as possible.
“Please take the ticket Mr Beck.” The man said.
Ever so slowly I reached for it and hesitantly took it, before immediately dropping it and hastily picking it back up.
“Thank you for your time Mr Beck, please see yourself out now.” The man said before returning to his work.
I stood still for a couple of seconds, waiting for the thing in my hands to transform again. “Fuck you too buddy.” I said to the man before opening the door and leaving as if I was carrying a bomb in my hands.
When I opened the door I found myself somewhere other than the reception, instead of that perpetual pit of depression it looked like I was in some kind of shopping center. With boutiques and stores on either side of me, the place also had a white appearance but it wasn’t depressing this time, the tiles looked sleek and the ceiling was made of glass to let sunshine in. It was also completely devoid of life.
“What the fuck is going on?” I wondered out loud again in genuine confusion. I looked behind me only to find the door behind me completely gone. I was getting really scared now.
After a few seconds of gawking about I slowly started walking. At first keeping close to the wall but I soon lost my sense of precaution. For all intents and purposes I was in a mall, a massive mall but a mall none the less, and as I kept walking I soon found myself lost in the shops, browsing through the windows. I occasionally went inside as well but never found anything interesting, it was usually clothes or shoes or candy stores anyway. I found myself in a book shop at one point, browsing some fantasy books, I even found what looked like a grimoire at one point called The History of Magic, but I was pretty disappointed when I opened it, as it only showed a few seemingly ‘magical’ scribbles and a note that said that if I sent in my feedback on the book to this address, I could have a chance to win another one of the collection, with the other parts including The history of Dragons and The history of Pirates.
At one point I entered a supermarket called ‘Hoffs’ and found myself browsing the junk food section. I found a packet call Quantum Rings, it looked like a kind of chips with holes in them, with a kid in a scientist lab coat saying “Now with 75% less fat!” Shrugging I took it to a self-serving register and scanned it.
‘Please scan your voucher.’ It read.
What voucher? I frowned as I looked around, wait, couldn’t I just take anything I wanted since no one was arou-
My roaming hands slowly lifted the barcode up to my eyes, with trembling hands I pushed it towards the laser of the counter and with a single beep it read.
‘Purchase confirmed, thank you for using Hoffs, have a great day!’
I let out a breath of relief as I took the chips and plonked myself on a bench outside. Honestly, what was I expecting? I thought to myself as I teared open the packet. I really need to calm down, it’s been too stressful lately, good thing I brought this Quantum Rings stuff, it tasted really good.
And then my brain exploded.