S.I.M.O.N.

Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I hate formatting things cause it doesn't make sense in my brain. If it looks weird, no it doesn't <3

The cold floor of Warehouse 1134 was busier than normal today; bustling with people going back and forth constantly, the machines being worked to their fullest extent, and hourly orders being barked out through the speaker system. Repeated at the start of each hour, the orders asked every worker to keep attending to the machines, to not laze off, and most importantly of all, to not forget to serve the Simonian Empire with gratitude and respect. Of course, those announcements were mainly for the new hires - assigned to this warehouse upon their nineteenth birthday - so it played as familiar background noise to Samson, working his way through the walls and walls of tightly bound fabrics.

As he absentmindedly ignored the crowd he had recently trekked through, he inspected a number of fabric bolts lined up on the wall, attempting to find the perfect match for an ensemble he was preparing. It was a simple garment in mind, but the fabric he needed was a bit harder to come by nowadays, especially since the priorities for textile production have shifted with the upcoming season. Any velvet he wished for has most likely been changed to more sheer and breathable fabrics, especially since the upcoming summer has been predicted to be warmer than usual. Still, he thought, I might as well try to find it.

His careful eyes continued scanning each and every bolt, looking for the rich blue velvet he envisioned so perfectly. Of course, he expected to find it in the storage sector of the old building since Samson swore that it was there before - but that was back in the middle of the winter, meaning that everything could have been rearranged twice more after spring had made its slow welcome into the continent. Still, he was persistent and he needed to find the bolt that called to him, so he continued deeper into the near-claustrophobic halls, where the lights dimmed into an almost haunting atmosphere. Thankfully, since there was no one else present, Samson could have an easier look at the fabrics perfectly arrayed.

However, he could only dream about the luxury of time. He would spend the entire day looking through the halls and be ceaselessly amazed by the amount of fabric the textile workers produced, but alas, he was on a tighter time budget than even the main labourers. As a tailor, Samson was able to work a less grueling and allconsuming job, but he had less time to make garbs, garments, and overall products. Still, there were small comforts in his job, even if he was forever delegated to the whims of the Simonian Empire, as every other human was.

If history class and memory served him well, all of humanity was saved from itself in the early portion of the century. Not even fifty years ago did the Simonians offer grace to the human race and gave them purpose, meaning, and structure. Of course, born into their own savage ways, the human race had fought them at first, keen on keeping their own self destructive methods and lifestyle. Of course, in an effort to better them, the Simonians had little choice but to subjugate the race and keep them under their thumb until they were able to learn.

And they did, subdued into a life of supervision, structure, and best of all, purpose. Samson recalled being excited in finding his purpose and being an important asset to the Empire, itself. He would wish that he'd work with the Simonians, themselves, almost as an equal. He dreamed of being a lawyer working with the magistrates, or even a research assistant with the leading scientists of the Simonian Research Institute. However, his aptitude test apparently showed that he was best suited for the warehouse jobs as a tailor, no less. Still, he found it to be much better the more he grew into it, especially as he saw his factory-based neighbors walk home with severely aching muscles, or even a loss of limbs altogether.

Snapping back to the task at hand, Samson found himself in a section where even the lights refused to follow. He turned back, looking at the glimpse of the brighter lights up ahead, almost considering running back to it and finding a replacement fabric that would look similar to the velvet he required. However, he turned back to the shadows and continued working his way through the darkness, attempting to fish out a small flashlight from his boilersuit's pocket. He fumbled with the pocket for a second, the tool proving itself to be elusive as he struggled to find it in the thigh pocket.