He could almost feel it happening, the same way you’d get that shiver down your spine everytime someone walks over your potential grave. It was a depressing feeling, but at the same time he was convinced that it was very much real. The feeling of this gods damned job sucking the very soul from him; one tiny bit at a time.
He’d been here for only about three months now, and already he despises the place, even though the sad fact is is that he’d originally jumped at the chance to work there full time.
As a cashier in a convenience store.
It however is not one of those 24/7 shops where a person can run in, get what they want and get out as quickly as possible. Oh no. That’d be far too easy on the ‘customers’. Instead, the Minut Mart store is a gas station, truck stop, convenience store and grocery all rolled into one. Each and every surface, countertop, and isle is set so that it’ll slowly bleed the unwary customers of both their hard earned money and motivation to live.
Kolan Mists was definitely convinced that there was some sort of witchcraft or Voodoo involved in the construction of the place, given how obvious the change comes over those who come through the doors. Happy and cheerful on the outside, the smiles soon fade and the ever increasing lines of worry appear upon the foreheads of those who take a chance to glance around. It is the same almost each and every time.
By now, Kolan knew that look, and what it meant. It was the worry of not knowing what specifically to get, and the fact that the customer will be seemingly trapped in an endless hunt of going through brightly lit, colorful, and extravagant isles marked with propaganda and advertisements to find just the thing to fill that uncertain need they have. Only those few who already have a list and know what the hell they want can come out of the start of the Maze untouched by the dread that comes to the others.
Or those who’ve just run inside to get a specific amount of gas without paying at the twenty pumps outside. Those people tend to have a look of fear on their faces; the fear of paying too much with their credit or debit cards that they all somehow believe can be hacked through the pumps themselves. Even then, those that pay in cash may be better off… except they are often coerced into buying a bottle of soda, or a chocolate bar, or a pack of cigarettes at the counter.
The entire Minut Mart enterprise is a massive scheme designed to take every single dollar it can, and Kolan has been there long enough to have even felt that pull himself. It is so devious that even the employees end up buying this and that with their own paychecks! It is a nightmare, and Kolan hates it.
But even more than that, he has come to hate two very specific things. The first is breaking twenty dollar bills for a pittance. People who break a 20 for a 50 cent piece of chocolate, for example. Or for a bottle of coke for $1.05. It drives him crazy and makes him dive straight for the safe to float out fives, ones, and quarters on a near constant basis. All while the shift lead is eyeballing him as if he is doing something wrong.
The second is cleaning up after 2nd Shift. Those slobs almost never get their fuckin’ jobs done properly. They never clean the bathrooms, restock the soda fountain area, or make fresh coffee. They generally don’t take out the garbage or do their cigarette counts either. And don’t even start on the time they had gotten an order for 16 six inch cold cut subs and didn’t do them before clocking out without even warning Kolan or the rest of 3rd Shift that the customers were waiting for them!
2nd Shift has thirteen full time employees on it, including the evening manager, and yet they never do the jobs they are supposed to do! Yet the general manager and shift leads look the other way because they bring in the highest sales of all three shifts. They were like the golden goose that the managers don’t want to get rid of, even though it is breathing fire and constantly getting into trouble like some magical beast out of hell!
It was enough to give the 26 year old grey hair after only three months.
Tonight at least Kolan had something to look forward to, given that he had an entire week off after the night. A full seven days and seven nights of freedom! He’d finally be able to play those games, watch those animes, and read those books he’d been putting off ever since he started working in this miserable place. It was enough to make him smile in obvious defiance against the curse of the Minut Mart.
For all of five minutes, right up until the shift lead Cindy shows up at his register.
“Kolan, I need you to go clean up the men’s bathroom. Something is wrong with the urinal and it won’t flush.” (Cindy)
*Sigh* “Okay, I’ll check it out. But if someone tried to flush another wrapper down it to hide the theft I’m going to start wracking people on the back of the head…” (Kolan)
“Yeah, whatever. Just get it done and make sure you mop up the mess on the floor.” (Cindy)
Cindy’s disinterested voice was mirrored by the lack of even a glance from his two fellow co-workers. Kolan couldn’t really blame them, given that it could have just as easily been one of them who’d been picked to clean up the mess. Especially the new guy, who’s old enough to be Kolan’s grandfather.
At least it gets him away from the register and those accursed 20 dollar bills, right?!
He desperately tries to hold onto that feeling as he moves into the back room, through rows and rows of boxes and shelves holding all the inventory. It is in the opposite direction from the kitchen, which thankfully 3rd shift doesn’t really use much. Besides the pizza rolls, which are in constant demand. Those things disappear out of the heat boxes with distressing regularity.
Still, coming into the ‘cleaning room’, as it is joking referred to, Kolan grabs up the kit usually used to clean up the bathrooms and even goes ahead and fills up the mop bucket. It is one of those wheeled ones, so it is fairly easy to move across the store. He does have to hold the button down on the dispenser though, given that the latch is broken and the company hasn’t seen fit to pay out for a new one.
That leaves him leaning against the wall when something just seems to shudder. For a moment Kolan thought it was him, but he notices that he moved, along with some of the shelves and the brooms hanging on their rack nearby.
It was low, not even an earthquake, but it persists for several long moments before suddenly his vision also seems to shudder.
|+|+|+|
Warning: World Seed Update in Progress
Please sit down and stop all movement in two minutes for the update. Do not be alarmed. Everything will be just fine.
|+|+|+|
A glowing blue text box just pops up in front of him, and for several moments all he could do is stare at it dumbly. He’s so entranced that he doesn’t even notice the short scream that echoes through the back room as one of the others also notices it, or the sudden silence that comes from the store proper as every single person gets the same message.
Then it disappears, as if it had never been at all, and for a moment all Kolan can do is blink before he shakes his head.
“What the hell?”
He mutters to himself, but shakes it off. It just had to be his mind messing with him, right? RIGHT?! There is no way in hell something like that could happen in real life. It was like out of those stories he fancies online. So just like the dumbass he is sometimes, he dismisses it and only then realizes that his mop bucket is overflowing and leaking onto the floor around his feet!
“CRAP!!!”
It definitely takes him longer than two minutes to clean up the mess, with the end results being an even worse mood and very expensive, sodden shows. He’d gotten the very nice pair of gel-infused memory foam Skechers’ from his soon-to-be stepfather when he’d first gotten his job, and the fact that he’d already almost worn them to pieces only adds to the embasement that the cleaning agent in the mop soap is likely to end up doing even more damage to them long before they are dry.
The reason he’d needed them at all was because he was overweight. Okay, to be honest, he’s rather fat, and simply standing for eight hours a day had nearly driven him to suicide during the first six days he’d worked. That or overdose on ibuprofen, which is nearly as bad… without the lasting liver damage caused by the pain medicine.
After that first while though, he got used to it and doesn’t even bother with the meds anymore. That and he got a cycle to ride to work on, given that he lives less than half a mile from the store. All told he’s probably last close to sixty pounds (little over 27 kilos) in the last three months, but is still obviously obese. That however doesn’t change the fact that he wishes every day that he could go back to his sedentary life before finding this job.
He’d literally done nothing, for years. He played on his computer, reading, watching movies and anime, and had basically let the world crush him down ever since he’d dropped out of highschool and gotten his G.E.D. (General Education Diploma or high school equivalent, btw). He’d spent years as a nobody, doing nothing and letting his body go to waste.
He’d even lived with his mother up until he got this job, which had been what originally prompted him to do whatever he could to get the hell out of there. His mother had recently met an older guy whom had been her supervisor, and in a whirlwind romance had decided to get married with only about seven months together under their collective belt.
The fact that her fiance is a retired prison guard was one thing, but it was more so the fact that he’s a complete and utter hardass that had pushed Kolan to change his life. Or rather, to get to the point where he could get out from under their collective grasp. Really, Kolan would rather have stayed locked in his room from here until he’d passed away from a heart attack or something.
There isn’t much of a choice left anymore, though.
He’d already moved out on his own, and basically needed this job just to survive. That little fact made him hate working at the Minut Mart even more.
Getting everything under control finally, he grabs the kit and the mop and makes his way across the store to the restrooms. He’d already basically forgotten about the message box and the two minute time limit, so it surprises him just a little to find several people, including whole families sitting down looking all kinds of nervous and scared. It wasn’t really interesting, given that he’d already seen even more extreme behavior from customers before.
It does make him have to go around several of the isles to get to the restrooms, cause people were blocking his path while looking at him as if he’s stupid or something. He just ignores it, like always, and keeps his rather nice, if fake smile on his face the entire time.
Yes, that is one thing that has been drilled into his head since he started working there. Always have a smile. Be nice, courteous and respectful to the customers. Always. ALWAYS.
So he does so, with that self-same closed lipped smile. He nods and constantly repeats ‘good evening’ as well, after checking his watch. 3rd Shift works from 10PM to 6AM, and it isn’t even midnight yet. So it is still evening, at least to him.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
He’s so good at the ploy that he actually manages to calm some of the customers down as he makes his way on obvious business, and many of them start to question if they’d even seen the message themselves.
Not like it really matters to Kolan. He has work to do and a very bitchy shift lead who’s rather anal about it being done regardless of what else is going on at the time.
Kolan could almost swear that it is some sort of torturous hypnotic suggestion from his week-long binge of training. He almost doesn’t even question the sometimes absurd commands that come his way anymore. At least on the surface.
Then again, no one can really be arrested for what they think about doing to some stuck up blonde bimbo with ponytails and an attitude that’s in desperate need of a forceful readjustment, right?
Yeah, let’s just leave it at that.
Getting to the restrooms, he turns down the short hall leading to the men’s and instantly wipes the smile from his face even as his nose wrinkles up at the smell. Sewage and other shit, eww. He doesn’t even have to see it to know that something had gone rather wrong with the urinal, and actually ventures to let out a visible sign once he’s well away from the cameras.
Oh yes, the cameras. There’s one every two feet, lined in neat rows on the ceiling that watch EVERYTHING. They watch the customers, the employees, the back room, the pumps, the parking lot. There’s more cameras in constant use and being constantly monitored than the fucking Pentagon has. The only place they cannot go is in the bathrooms, and Kolan would have bet someone a dollar to say that there probably was one hidden someone.
But only a dollar.
Still, it does let him let down his guard, so he instantly switches to that ‘omg, eww’ look that comes with knowing that crap has hit the fan… and probably the walls, ceiling, and floor all at the same time. The fact that he can see a puddle of murky water reflecting the sterile white light from overhead only encourages that.
Well, it isn’t as if his shoes aren’t already fucked up. He does however stop to pull out a pair of elbow-length rubber gloves from his kit before trudging forward with his mop bucket. The first step into the wasteland even squelches. Really, SQUELCHES! As if someone had let out a fart. It smells like a fucking swamp mixed with a sewage pit.
Yeah, too bad Kolan had lost his gag reflex very quickly after starting working there. The things people will do in a bathroom not there own… Yeah, there’s a reason why he brings his own toilet paper to work with him. And a reason why he’d basically built his cleaning kit from the ground up, and why he literally hides it in a camera blind spot to make sure his co-workers cannot pick it apart piecemeal for the things they’ll use when doing the limited cleaning they do.
Gloves were only part of it, and very soon he sits his kit down on the bathroom counter before starting to pull out bottles of this and that. Disinfectant with bleach, drain cleaner, sealed alcohol wipes, scrub pads, brushes of various types and sizes… he’d literally packed a hospital’s worth of cleaning products into the basket he’s outfitted with a backpack-like covering full of pockets.
It had been almost two decades since he’d last sewed anything on a sewing machine, but he’d been so disgusted with the way that cleaning was done when he first started that he’d pulled out his mom’s old machine and designed the whole thing from the ground up before putting almost a hundred dollars into the materials and all the things he needed to go into it.
The usables that he uses constantly he generally filches from the inventory that comes in twice a week. Most of the cleaning supplies are brought into the store constantly, but very few people actually use them. He’d actually caught one of the manager’s throwing a whole unopened box of cleaning wipes away when they found out that they actually had too many one time.
So Kolan had gotten quite good at getting to the new supplies first and taking what he needs to refill his kit twice a week, and a little extra just in case he cannot get to it like on a day off. But then there are also the questions… or rather lack of questions regarding the basket he carries around with him when he’s on cleaning duty. His primary co-worker, a woman almost exactly ten years his elder once asked him where he got it. He’d simply said that he’d found it in the back and decided to use it.
She hadn’t even expressed an interest since.
It was really like anyone who’d been in this job longer than six months didn’t have a soul left in their bodies to spur them into an emotional state as complex as simple curiosity!
That was just another example that he’d put up on a pinboard at his tiny one bedroom apartment.
The men’s restroom though was a mess. It was obvious that someone had definitely done something to the urinal nearby, but the mess had already spread to one of the stalls. The men’s room was actually rather small, with only two toilet stalls and a single urinal. One of those stalls was handicap accessible, of course, leaving the second one to be squeezed in the corner and thus rather small.
The women’s on the other hand is much larger, with five whole stalls, two of which are handicap accessible. Personally that’s where Kolan would have bet that there’s a camera or two, hidden from even the employees. Then again, maybe he’s just jaded cause the original owner/manager is something of a fat slob who seems to be the type only interested in profits. Wayne owns all three local Minut Mart stores, and rules them with an iron fist that has probably broken more than one pair of kneecaps in the past five years.
Still, armed like some bathroom cleaning knight, with a brush in one hand and a nearly full bottle of Drain-O in the other, he makes his way toward the crazed urinal and prepares to make his last stand. He does make sure his armored rubber gloves are snuggly fit, however, cause this is one battle he couldn’t afford to lose.
Too bad he never makes it into the urinal cobby. Just as he was about to turn around the wall, the entire world shudders again, this time it isn’t some little tremor however. It’s a hard jerk that literally knocks him against the wall and then almost flat on his face as the world shakes and shudders.
Covered in gross shit best left to the imagination and almost getting a mouth full when he yells out in a mixture of pain and confusion, Kolan is utterly surprised when things stop and calm down just as quickly as it had started.
*DING*
|+|+|+|
We apologize for the inconvenience. The update to the World Seed took longer than expected. Things should return to normal shortly… mostly.
However, before the details are disclosed to all parties concerned, we have decided to introduce ourselves. We are the Collectors, and we have decided that your realm is the perfect testbed for our experimentation. As such we have bought your World Seed from the Celestial Bureau of Creation.
We now own you all.
We once more apologize for the inconvenience.
|+|+|+|
|+|+|+|
As the World Seed is currently being updated and modified, each of you will find things to be chaotic and a touch crazy for a time. As such, we have introduced a Progression System into the World Seed that should enable at least some of you to retain your lives during the interim.
The Progression System will take full effect in two hours, but activities in the mean time will influence the starting stats allocated to each individual. More information will be forthcoming once the System is properly active.
Be aware however that the changing nature of the World Seed will cause instability and paradoxes to appear within your realm. We apologize for the inconvenience.
|+|+|+|
|+|+|+|
P.S.
Do not be alarmed if various monsters, beasts, mutants, aliens, zombies and other such creatures suddenly appear. They should only be moderately harmful to your health and continual existence.
Thank you for your understanding, and once again we apologize for the inconvenience.
|+|+|+|
|+|+|+|
Time until the Progression System is active:
2:00:00
|+|+|+|