Pawn shop in space

Jim was sat behind the desk in his office. It was his desk in the sense it was the desk assigned to him, but he didn’t truly own it. In fact at this point in his life he didn’t own much more than scant dignity. He didn’t own the office he worked in, didn’t own the computer he worked at nor the chair he sat upon. Yet, all these things were ‘his’. The chair he sat in was supposed to hold his butt from the hours of 6 to 2 because it was his, the computer was supposed to be logged into by him because it was his and the work on the computer was supposed to be done by him because it was… his.

Jim sat there and stared at the screen, contemplating his life and the ownership of it. Eventually he stopped thinking of anything at all, his mind running dry of idle thoughts. He looked blankly at the open file on his computer and the file looked blankly back, waiting for input-no work was done.

Eventually ‘his’ work began blinking at him, declaring to the world despite existential doubt that it did belong to Jim, and that Jim wasn’t doing it. A signal was sent to his supervisor and a swift reprimand was sent on route to the slacking employee. Melissa was coming. Jim was about to get a firm lesson in how swiftly his pay check could become someone else’s.

Or at least, that was what was supposed to happen: Jim’s daydreaming would be interrupted, his ego diminished, and another warning would be added to his record- the 20th one so far to be exact. Jim wasn’t joking about it being a terrible company, nobody wanted his Job. But just as a shrill voice echoed down the hall explaining how the ai’s paperwork wouldn’t fill in itself, everything shifted. Jim went weightless, floating for a second above his chair. One moment his neurons were firing, processing the flashing screen and generating an appropriate adrenaline response, and the next his senses were silent.

Jim was suddenly stood in a room much different from the cream and green office block he was just dozing in. Grey walls surrounded him, the metal/plastic look of them not something he had seen before in conventional buildings. The floor was littered with overflowing boxes of wires and curios. There was a massive fridge pushed up against one wall, sleek steel without a handle. The floor leading to it was just as cluttered as everywhere else and there were no shelves or organised storage arrangements anywhere to be seen. Near the corner of the wall across from him was a set of bunk beds, the only boxes with lids were stacked on the top bunk where a mattress should have been. There was one made up bed on the bottom bunk with brightly coloured sheets. The Garish decor was somewhat out of place within the sci-fi setting and the wooden bedframe was a soft contrast to the spaceship esque walls.

Where the @!&#$ am I

Jim was in a storage room, one a million light years away in a completely different galaxy. Gazing at the random stuff surrounding him Jim tried to processes the change in his environment. After the disorientation passed he started wondering the space and poking in boxes, examining the various stored objects and grounding himself by feeling things that were physical. He didn’t feel as if there was anything wrong with his body and it certainly felt like the place he was in was real. It didn’t seem like he was dreaming. Was he drugged? Did Melissa finally snap after reviewing his consistently disappointing outputs and off him?

He struggled to make sense of what had just happened. How had he just, teleported here? As time went on and Jim looked over more and more nonsensical objects, he began to stop hoping this was a twisted kidnapping or a bad prank. Between his hands he held a large egg shaped object. It was clearly painted in a golden shade but it still felt cool under his hands as if it was metal. There was blue swirls at three equidistant points around the egg. They were raised patterns that resembled stylised air flow. You could press them down like buttons and twist them to the side but messing with them didn’t do anything.

Jim set the weird egg down. He felt useless, much like the egg. He had no idea where he was and no idea how to go home. Even when he did get home it’s not like his life would get suddenly better. He’d go back to his dead end job and empty home and hope that he’d meet someone that brought something to his life, which was kinda hard these days when 90% of life was logged to the internet. It wouldn’t have been so bad if Jim felt like he had the power to change it, to save enough money to move to a high res neighbourhood. A funny way to describe a space with high residential living spaces, one that showed how far they had fallen. It was a place where people weren’t all logged in and there was some semblance of community; The real world was the high res now, the best and most expensive immersion you could pay for being the joy of an ordinary life.

Jim felt helpless to change it, his fate, his lot in life. It was just him and his little pod slot apartment, and also the cat that came round on the weekend. He felt like that was all it’d ever be. There was no employment anywhere else, and no amount of savings that could beat off the debt hanging over him. He recalled a conversion he had with a coworker once about the cat that visited his apartment. They’d asked why he didn’t give it a name and he just shrugged at them, telling them it didn’t feel right to give a name to what was free. They’d taken on a rather judging expression before asking if he fed the thing at all. When he replied he kept some food ready for it their one judging eyebrow became two eyebrows.

“Why don’t you keep it then. Name it, might as well be yours if you’re gonna feed it.” Jim has opened his mouth to try and explain but the coworker just plowed on, not interested in an explanation. “You should just grab and sell the thing anyways. Pets are rare these days, people pay good money for ‘em. Every since the logged stopped caring for ‘em they’ve been dropping like files, city probably pay you something for the clean up.”

Jim didn’t even know if he wanted to get back. The people felt so alien to him, detached from reality. How did you explain to someone the act of admiring something just because it was free, of feeding an animal simply because it needed feeling. It felt like he didn’t understand the simple things in life because what everyone else did didn’t feel simple. He wasn’t a purist, or a hippie. He didn’t live in a cave or cause terror. He just couldn’t fathom having a machine tell your brain it’s breathing fresh air when you could do that yourself. He didn’t want to go back to the world where the real simply wasn’t fantastical enough, and thus everyone had to submerge in the fake.

He didn’t know why he felt so existential all of a sudden, but looking back over his life it started to come into perspective that he didn’t like what the world around him had become very much at all, nor the existence it had forced him into. Maybe it wasn’t a new realisation, but one he had kept at bay for a long while, compartmentalised into hundreds of little displeasing boxes. The parts he had been keeping separate were finally joining all together. Brooding on the floor of the stupid prop filled room, Jim figured that getting kidnapped must be a trigger for these types of realisations.

See Jim, nobody needs therapy. You just needed to be confronted with your mortality through an inexplicable experience!

Jim snorted. It looked like the key to happiness wasn’t suppression after all! Now he just needed the guy who drugged him and threw him in a b-list space production’s basement come explain his demands to him and let him go.

A chilling roar echoed throughout the space Jim was in, making him think such a possibility was unlikely. The very walls seemed to vibrate as borato screams tore out of an inhuman throat. The frequent screams began blurring into a resonance that filled Jim to his core, his whole body started shaking from the sound. Jim’s human brain could only push him towards one response, to flee the sound and the being it heralded. Jim felt as if he was to be hunted by the eldritch. The blaring of a hunting horn cascaded around him and yet the source of the sound was deep within a creatures lungs.

His eyes darted around the room, searching for any exit. The Jim before who had held such complex thoughts on the state of humanity was gone. He was a man incapable of such thought now, consumed by the desire to survive. Spinning around the room he caught sight of a door that couldn’t have been there before. It was composed in a similar sleek style as the fridge, although the metal it was composed of was different. An almost invisible line ran through it, zagging in the middle. The door was next to where Jim had materialised, and on the other side of it the sound emanated. His back was against the wall furthest from the door in a second. Feeling still too exposed Jim dove under the nearby bunkbed, pulling boxes around himself.

The roars eventually died down into barely discernible whispers. The sounds on the other side not penetrating nearly as effectively as the shouts had. At any moment Jim expected the door to start folding inwards as the beast on the other side tried to get to him, eventually sniffing out the prey hiding from it. But as time went by, the pounding of Jim’s heart slowed, no longer painfully thumping against his chest.

Jim didn’t know what the beast was doing, but it didn’t seem like it was hunting him. It seemed content to just sit on the other side of the wall and wait. Maybe it was simply happy to stay behind the door until its prey came to it. As his higher functioning started to return Jim started to plot out next steps and consider other possibilities. The first thing he did was stop hiding under the bed. The alien being clearly didn’t have a way to get through the door, didn’t know there was a door-or the more concerning truth, didn’t want to bother. Hiding under the bed wasn’t doing anything but make him feel silly.

Surveying the room around him, Jim assessed what could assist his survival. Hundreds of seemingly useless objects littered the floor, and the scattered wiring was beyond his ability to do anything with. He tip toed through the boxes toward the fridge, precariously balancing on one leg at a time as he tried to only step in the clear spaces of floor. Although he didn’t think it mattered if he made much noise as the thing probably knew he was here, he wasn’t going to tempt fate without good reason.

Finally reaching the fridge, Jim felt the small sense of triumph within him quell. The fridge didn’t have any bloody handles. Jim of course knew this, it was one of the first things he’d noticed upon appearing in the room. In his panic however he had forgotten, and know he felt stupider then he did hiding under the bed.

Come on Jim, the fridge is here for a reason it must be openable somehow.

That is of course if the object even was a fridge, a possibility Jim hadn’t even considered. At first Jim tried waving his hands infront of the object in order to get it to open. Unfortunately for Jim the fridge was not motion activated, so his efforts were null. Still, he kept waving his hands all over the various parts of the fridge, perhaps in an attempt to evoke magical help that would open it for him. Then when the waving had been done to his satisfaction, Jim began to knock on the front of the fridge. Gently a first, a little two tap. Then when this elicited no response he began to knock in more complex patterns, trying to find some secret code that would ease it open.

After a while Jim stopped knocking as gently and began softly banging on the fridge from every angle, repeating the whole magic hands incident. After making sure there was absolutely no secret button he had missed Jim stepped back and scratched his head.

“Open sesame?” Jim’s words met the thin air as the fridge stayed silent. Sighing in frustration Jim walked to the side of the fridge. “Well, I’ll get you open somehow” Having decided the time for diplomacy had passed Jim started pushing against the Side of the fridge, attempting to topple it over. This whole time the eldritch alien waited on the other side to potentially eat him, being forced to listen to Jim’s grunts of exertion as he tried to knock a fridge over. At this point Jim had completely forgotten his plight, more concerned with getting inside the fridge then securing his survival.

Fortunately for Jim, the fridge was far too heavy to be rocked over. This meant that despite his spirited efforts, Jim couldn’t raise the statistic of people crushed under vending machines every year. Huffing and puffing Jim rested his palms against the front of the fridge, unable to fell it from any angle. After a minute or so of rest the surface under his palms heated enough for him to feel despite sweaty palms. Jim’s head shot up and he looked at the fridge with a mixture of concern or excitement. He kept his plans on the fridge, his failure to get it to do anything making him willing to endure the heat for a little longer. The fridge didn’t change temperature between his hands much at all, it hit a few degrees hotter and then stayed hot for a dozen seconds. After that the fridge cooled, fading back to the temperature you would expect metal to be.

Jim drew his palms of the surface and looked them over for any changes. Apart from some of the sweat having left them, they didn’t seem any different. Perplexed Jim started waving his hands all over the fridge again. His enticing display was once against useless and even rubbing his palms on the surfaces didn’t do anything. At this point Jim had to admit that the fridge was never going to open. His plan to gain sustenance had failed, the kitchen appliance had defeated him. His confidence knocked Jim considered what to do about the other problem hanging over him. His hopes to out wait the creature were dashed and so he had to deal with it another way- not doubting it could go without food much longer than he could.

After standing next to the fridge for a while boredom started to overtake him. While Jim had been messing with the fridge the whispers on the other side of the door had receded until there was only silence left. Not fooled for a second Jim knew the beast must be hiding on the other side, attempting to lure him out with the illusion of safety. Jim had seen enough people play horror games to know how walking through that door would go. Still, he wasn’t achieving much by standing still and waiting for it to leave. He might as well look in the boxes for some sort of weapon, then once armed he could try and listen for the monster-perhaps he would be lucky enough to catch when it left or sounds that indicated it still waited there.

It took Jim a lot of tedious searching before he found something he felt confident in wielding. He had many objects that seemed offensive in some nature. A tube that when twisted began to beep frantically and start glowing, Jim was prefect sure that one was a bomb and if you twisted it back the other way you could disarm it. There was also a black, long rectangular object that when held started humming. It shocked Jim after a while of him holding it, the humming quickly dissipating after it shocked him as if he’d annoyed it. He found what looked like a pool noodle but without the foamy texture. It was still soft but not as tactile. It swung around like a pool noodle but when Jim hit something with it the kinetic force tracked through the object and nestled in the middle of it before exploding. The force it transferred into objects was also disproportionately larger than how hard he hit them. Jim swiftly set this one down, as the pool noodle had no safe end. Finally after finding a defective gun like weapon and a toy robot with a large mouth that tried to bite whoever activated it, Jim kicked something that was nestled underneath a pile of wires. Investigating and grabbing the object Jim found it to be similar to a baseball bat. It was much thinner in design and was painted with neon green highlights over a black base. The highlights were small and they weren’t many of them but they were spread out on one end on the bat in non matching lines. Jim grabbed the non highlighted end and swung it, as he figured a baseball bat like object should be swung. A faintly detectable wiring came from within the bat and the power of Jim’s swing was magnified, causing him to rotate in a circle and fall onto the floor. Where the bat fell to the floor a bright green light flashed.

Jim pulled himself up from the box of ceramic alien he had just shattered and picked the bat off the floor. There was a scorch mark where the neon end had fell. Coming back to stand in front of the fridge Jim shouldered the bat eagerly. Grinning Jim swung the bat at the fridge, not overdoing the motion as the bat motored itself to the target. The weapon slammed into fridge and a jolt fired from the neon lines that impacted the surface of the fridge. The resistance to the powerful attack set Jim off balance and he stumbled backwards, his shoulders aching a little. The fridge was looked completely unphased by the assault. It smirked at Jim mockingly, flaunting its superiority with its unblemished surface.

Grumbling at the insufferable appliance Jim turned his back and walked towards the door to the world beyond. He had to take a moment to calm himself and slow his steps. He wanted to approach the door carefully, not stomp over. After creeping closer to the exit Jim paused once again. This time he breathed deeper, collecting himself. Having pushed thoughts of the fridge out of his mind he felt the fear of the unknown start to mount. Even if separated by a metal door, the idea of closing the distance between him and the mystery assailant seemed insane. The alternative though, was worse: To wait here until he was starved and then approach the door anyways-especially when he wasn’t sure if there was food on the other side of the room or anywhere nearby? That felt suicidal. Jim was gonna leave this place as soon as he could, and if that meant sneaking closer to the monster then so be it. Besides, Jim knew he didn’t have a long wait in him. If he had to stew in this room for longer then a day, dread mounting every moment, he would eventually go crazy. Better to take matters into his own hands while he could.

As armed and as dangerous as he would ever be Jim stepped closer to the door. The boxes were fewer here, a clearing forming around the rooms exit. Rolling his feet as he inched forward, Jim aimed for that open space-careful not to make a sound. With both feet planted in the clear he stopped and listened. He strained his ears to make out even the faintest breath, but heard nothing. Willing his hearing to his limit he sound he couldn’t sense anything. Jim inched forward before focusing intently again, repeating the process until the door was right before him.Jim twisted his head to the side and willed his enemy to reveal themselves. Leaning closer and closer to the door all Jim heard was silence.

Then, just as Jim twisted his spine to lean even further towards the door it slid open. The sound of the mechanism reeling the doors was unnoticeable and the only thing Jim heard was the whistle of air as they flew passed. Jumping, Jim swung the bat in front of him. His whole body was ramrod straight and the bat almost tore out of his hands as it whiffed into the air. Jim managed to keep his grip on it, his shoulders protesting the action.

As Jim struck out, he locked eyes with an incomprehensible being. His body struggled with the momentum of the bat but his head remained still, allowing him to keep eye constancy with the figure. A light on the things wrist blinked out and the creature stared Jim down, still as death. Jim recovered from his swing only to freeze in fright. Jim’s brain was screaming so many things right now it was all he could do to stay frozen, unable to process the alien I front of him or decide what to do. Across empty space and a blank desk a hulking figure stood. Its eyes were a bright white with tiny dotted pupils. Its whole body was pitch black and hunched over like a gorila. It was easily twice the size of Jim and spikes stuck out from all on its body. It has two arms like a human and Jim could see the start of two legs. Its teeth were as black as its skin, only visible because Jim could see its pale white tongue in its open mouth. On its back there wasn’t spikes but a bed of thorns. Twisted black roots came out of it, spiked leaves covering them, as if a tangled bramble bush had grown from its skin. It’s facial features were impossible to discern, too dark or make out. All was clear was its large mouth and its overly wide face. One arm rested on the table, spiked and composed of corded muscle. The other arm joined it as the giant lifted it, the once glowing spot on it forgotten. It leaned forward heavily as if it was supporting itself on its arms and it bagan growling at Jim after a few seconds had passed, attempting to communicate.

Jim’s arms shook as if buffered by a breeze, his bat waving in the air over his shoulder. He tried not to wet himself at the sight of the monstrosity, struggling to even hold the bat aloft as he lost all his strength. Jim was comically unprepared to fight off this alien. Thankfully for Jim, fighting was unnecessary, for he had just met his first customer.