"I've always felt a rush of power if a customer walked by her, that electric spark of longing, of helping out. Retail jobs aren't for everyone."
"Why me..."
As she sulks and laments and breaks down, so does the equipment around the store. As she runs away, the refridgerators malfunction, the inductions stoves burn through their covers one after the other, a wave of tiny explosions spread in the wake of her wail. Another self-checkout breaks. Another one of her temporary bodies gone, consumed in the torrent of her insatiable yearning to forget, to be alive.
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Saba rushed out of the store. Zipped out really. Like lightning, by the ice-cream machine, and then standing in the parking lot. He didn't even know this is where he needed to be. Nope, he was there because the sound came from here, and this is where he meant to go. He rushes into the explosion, and gets pushed away by the shockwave, frustrated and flabbergasted by this weird world that seems to reject him, not letting his touch or feel, and yet binding him to the whimsical rules that put walls where there shouldn't be any. He so wishes to know the fate of Jason, that he breaks through the chains and vanishes in an inaudible Zipp.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
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In the backroom of the store lies an even smaller cubby with the staff toilet. On the toilet sits the weeping figure of Joy, who only just realizes that the explosion was not her imagination. So much has happened lately that she is overwhelmed. Her life feels haunted. The store seems to reject her, things moving on their own, alarms going off randomly, sounds following her as she makes her rounds. She tries to be good. She is nice to people. She volunteers at charities and foster homes and blood banks.
That's how she met Jason. Jason who got her the part-time job with the rich megalomaniac comic book villain. Who they killed. When did life get so messed up? What did she do wrong?
And now, as she runs out, she sees the very car she rode here on, lit on fire. The loud explosion blew the roof off of it, which barely missed her on its way down, landing with a loud crash. She crashes beside it, unable to bear the burden anymore.
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