Chapter Text
(Gangle) did not like the Friday night shift. In no small part, this was due to her having to wait two hours between when her shift ended at 7am and when the first bus from Rivermouth's outskirts to her small rural town came on a Saturday morning at 9.
The commute was part of the reason she took the manager position in the first place. Maybe with her new salary, she'd be able to get an apartment in the city. Or a car and lessons. Or something. She hadn't figured out what yet. She didn't really think the money was enough either way.
She didn't look the part of manager, which, combined with the fact most of the staff knew her from before she was promoted, her habit of breaking down and her job aptitude, which was only just average from her years of working here, didn't exactly make her the respected figure of authority she knew she was supposed to be. Her long ponytail, which often went days between combs, hit her back as she haphazardly removed her hairnet. She had always wanted to do something with her hair, or at least wear it higher, but the movements required to do it evaded her. She wiped a loose hair off her uniform, which hung off of her in awkward places, the smallest size they had still a bit too big for her skinny frame.
She sat down on a plastic chair, relief flooding her body after having been standing (mainly leaning) for the whole night. She stifled her yawn and began to eat her employee breakfast: Cold chips, ketchup and a black coffee. Her fingers moved with great effort- a good thing she'd brought napkins, because she dropped ketchup on the table and her uniform almost immediately. She sighed and put her head in her hands.
Some days, upon clocking out, she felt the tension seep out of her body and a tentative optimism arrive within her. Like with the few hours she had to herself, she could do anything. On these days, she often went to the nearby shopping centre to kill time before the bus and bought herself new markers in the stationary shop there, or ran some errands in the pharmacy or supermarket. Those 3 shops and a butchers were all that remained in what once was a bustling centre. The crash had hit Riversmouth hard, and the 5 years that had passed since had brought little recovery.
There was also a park nearby, squeezed into where the half-built housing estates met the abandoned industrial estates. It had obviously been built in a more optimistic time than this and was used mainly for drug dealing. But when the sun shined, you could almost pretend the trampled sparse grass was green and lush as you listened to the donkey-noise of a child using the single rusty swing.
But today was not one of those days. The way the stress of the night stuck to her skin and ran through her veins made her think that it would never leave. It was probably just the exhaustion, she half-pleaded internally to convince herself to keep going. Once she was home and showered and had a nap, she'd be fine. The weather wasn't helping - it was pissing rain in a way she hadn't imagined possible when she left the house at 8pm last night. She had only brought a light hoodie, and was not looking forward to the 20-minute walk to the bus stop.
She winced in anticipation of the pain she'd feel as she lifted herself from her seat, using more of her arms than her legs. She stood there, leaning on the table and almost panting as she reacquainted herself with the cramps shooting up to her knees. She didn't know if it was a normal reaction to being on her feet that long. Whatever it was, she wasn't going to waste money on a doctor until absolutely necessary. And she wasn't dying.
It had been 45 minutes since her shift ended when she finally worked up the energy and left the McDonald's. All of her shift-sharing coworkers (staff? Underlings?) had long since drove off. She clutched her handbag in aching hands as she tried to power through the rain, accompanied by wind so strong that the droplets were almost horizontal- and in her direction, of course. After only 30 seconds, she was drenched to the skin.
She was afraid to get out her mp3 player and earbuds in case they got wet, so she was stuck with the song stuck in her head, which was fucking Blurred Lines, which had played at least 8 times over the course of her shift. She hated that song, but she still tried to sing it in her head loud enough to drown out her thoughts, which were more repetitive and self-disparaging than helpful at the moment.
After 5 minutes, she vowed to herself to stop at the nearest available shelter, be it a shop or bus stop. She still had well over an hour until her bus and she'd have to wait at the shelter-less stop for that time anyway. She couldn't remember any shelter directly along this route, but, worst case scenario, surely she could find an abandoned building that had a roof.
She was proud of herself for making this decision, if only a bit. There was a part of her, often quite loud, that wanted her to make herself suffer as much as possible and often that part would override her similar desires for reprieve. She wasn't good at decisions either so finally figuring out what to do was a weight off her chest.
She soon came across a largely abandoned industrial park. There was what looked to be a large scale timber-related operation, and a gymnastics gym with a faded sign but cars outside. Other than that were empty buildings, mostly from defunct tech factories. Rivermouth had been a big hub for that sort of thing at the turn of the millennium. But she didn't think a single factory or office was left unscathed from that time. Rivermouth was a cityscape pockmarked by could've beens and economic recession.
Some days it occurred to her that she should just forgo the commute and get a similar role at a small chipper in walking distance of her house. But, although she had been out of school - what? Seven or eight years now?, - the thought of running into the same classmates who made her life miserable for all 14 years of it made her want to vomit or tear her skin off or do something equally as gross and dramatic. Just passing them on the street, even with their faded and bloodshot eyes robbed of past ridicule, was enough to justify days of being on the verge of tears.
Plus, it gave her an excuse to leave the town. It made her feel like she was doing something. Even if she knew she wasn't.
She ran into the first building that looked easy to access. As the cold and harsh assault on her skin turned to an overpowering rhythm on the corrugated roof, she looked around. There were several desks still set up like in an old office space, with decade-old computers on each one. The smell of mildew in the place made her think that none of them could possibly be working with the damp.
Just as she thought that, something caught her eye. One of the computers, hidden in a corner not visible from the entrance but pretty obvious once she took a few steps in, had some sort of screensaver, bright and colourful, still bouncing around the screen. Attached to it was... a pair of VR goggles. It looked anachronistic.
She tried to fight the voice in her head telling her that it was dangerous, that maybe she would electrocute herself. No-one in any manga she had read took that level of precaution. Interesting things happened to interested people.
The computer screen went blank, just for a few seconds, as she reached for the controller.
There were times when she had looked in the mirror and startled, frightened, because she was certain she'd seen a dead body. Her reflection here was one of those times, and her skin was so pale it was almost translucent. Her eyes had deep dark purple bags stretching far and wide beneath them. Her cheeks were sunken and, most telling at all, she was still and unreal looking in a way no alive person she knew was.
She grew certain. Something unusual like this would bring her to life.
She put on the headset.