I raised my pen behind me and parried her knife to the side. The knife vibrated at a high frequency and chipped into my pen, but the difference in force made her knife fly across the room, landing beside the door. Her formerly equipped hand blew to the side from the parry, while her off-hand pushed my shoulder, creating a small space between us. Both her hands were pitch-black. I clicked my pen and carried out a cross-sectional slash.

Julia performed a diagonal leap away from my pen, over my desk. She landed, sliding beside her knife. The slash from my pen cut open the sleeve of her lab coat, revealing an arm covered in pitch-black scales. Julia's stance resembled a cat on the verge of pouncing, as the scales began spreading further across her body, tearing her tights and reaching her neck. She grabbed her knife and glared up at me.

“Couldn’t you have done this before I edited the papers?” I complained.

Julia remained silent and took an en-garde stance.

Okay, she’s not in the joking mood. Fair enough. I sighed and raised my pen to shoulder height.

“Are you that loyal to the United States? Are you being threatened to stay here?” She questioned.

“It’s nothing like that.” I shook my head.

“Then why? You don’t even like your research.” I froze, but she continued on, “I meant what I said earlier. There’s a lot more to life than just research, and I’d really like to be with you. We can do research together as much as you find bearable, and we watch the stars together each night.”

I remained stunned for a second. Despite her monster-like appearance, she remained beautiful. Even the way her dark hair matched the scales and both contrasted with her stark white lab coat was stunning. My arm slightly lowered and my grip loosed, but after a moment I steeled my arm back. All I could do to reply was raise a half smile.

Upon seeing my reply, Julia bit her lip, and the black scales continued up her neck until they plated her entire head. She reaffirmed the grip on her knife and began to charge at me. But before a single step was completed, I snapped my shoulder and wrist holding the pen and sent it flying at her forehead.

A sonic boom sounded. The pile of papers stacked on the desk flew in all directions. Julia shot back into the wall with her head leading her body. A thud that began to turn into a cracking noise instantaneously rang out, and the room slightly shook. But her head remained suspended to the wall. A few instances later the cracking noise abruptly halted.

Click!

The pen shot back to my hand which had only moved slightly since throwing it. Julia’s body caught up to her head, hitting the wall before it lumped to the floor and remained motionless. I set my pen on the desk. As I approached her, the scales on her body slowly receded. A small, circular dent was inlaid on her head. The wall's paint had scratched off revealing a layer of metal underneath.

I picked Julia up in a bridal carry, but as soon as I reached my desk again I noticed the dilemma. So, I threw her over my shoulder and used my now free hand to take an envelope from a drawer in my desk and shoved it into my jean pocket. I proceeded out of the room, feeling her gentle heartbeat on my back.

I walked down the lit-up hallway surrounded by dark rooms. I entered the elevator at the end of the hall and descended the 50 floors to reach ground level. I adjusted her back to a bridal carry and exited the elevator, coming up to the locked metal entrance. Armed security behind bulletproof glass regulated the entrance.

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“Do you need us to send her somewhere?” The security guard asked.

“That’s alright.”

“To think… She was always a favorite of ours.” He looked over to his diverse group of coworkers monitoring inventory or surveillance behind him.

“Mine too.” I gave a weak smile and carried forward.

The security guard hit a button, and the metal doors opened up. I double-tapped my car keys and a black supercar pulled up to me the next minute. I gently placed Julia in the passenger seat and buckled her in.

God, imagine making your boss buckle you in.

I took a black pen from the glove compartment, then removed the crammed envelope from my pocket and wrote “Final Paycheck” across the front. I placed the envelope onto her lap and spoke to the empty driver’s seat, “Take her to the Argentina embassy.”

After closing the door, the supercar raced off. I stood in place for a moment, watching the car disappear into the distance before I walked around to the side of the building. I reached a dimly lit section of the building and stood squarely on a tile. I firmly pushed into one of the bricks of the building, making my muscles flex and my blood vessels dilate.

Immediately after, the tile whipped open diagonally, sending me flying into the night sky of the city. Below, the cars became small and lights rushed by before they became less and less dense, eventually disappearing as I landed on my metallic brick driveway. A muted ringing noise reverberated for a few seconds.

Apart from my metallic driveway, my home was basically a standard one-story suburban house. I opened the door to a dark kitchen. I turned the lights on and kicked off my shoes. I walked past a fridge paper calendar that had “December 2090” at the top, with up to the 19th exed out below.

Walking past the living room, I reached my bedroom. I changed out of my jeans and into pajama pants with emojis on them, kicking the jeans to my mesh laundry basket. I took off my socks and shot them like basketballs to the basket as well. None of them landed in.

Looking down, an amalgamation of t-shirts, pajamas, socks, and jeans were strewn across the floor. Stepping through them, I reached an empty space on the floor before my nightstand. Taking up the majority of the room atop the nightstand was a figurine of Luffy and his crew on Laugh Tale. I centered my feet into this clothes-free area and stared at the figurine briefly before the floor opened.

I dropped through the dark tunnel for roughly ten seconds and arrived in a lit-up metal box, bending my knees as I landed. The metal felt cold on my feet. The box had a door in each cardinal direction, numbered one through four. I was never one for architecture.

I walked up to the door with a messily spray-painted black four on it, and the door automatically receded into the walls. I entered another metal box with a large metal tank built into the wall that had a large tube running into the ceiling. The tank had “DLP*” spray painted in large font across.

I approached the table beside the tank that just had a black spray paint bottle and an ordinary, green watering can atop it. I took the watering can and lowered it below the tank’s nozzle. I filled the watering can up and approached an unlabeled metal door.

The door receded, however this time there was no metal in sight. Spanning far into the distance were meadows of grass and blue skies. Far into the distance were mountains and forests. A sun at its zenith illuminated the room, and at the center of the room was a lone fig tree.

The door behind me closed, becoming one with the scenery. I moseyed over to the tree, enjoying the sensation of warm grass and earth beneath my feet. I ‘watered’ around the tree until the contents ran out, and looked up at the tree. Despite it being a fig tree, it only had a single fig on it.

Well, today is the day.

I reached for the fig slowly while my hand began to lightly tremble. I removed the fig and my gaze locked onto it. The fig was made up of multitudes of shades, with it now being predominantly purple. My tongue began to incessantly salivate. I kept swallowing down the saliva, but it didn’t stop.

Happy half-birthday Me.

I raised the fig to my mouth and bit down.