Day: 3224
Days Left: 2256
Lives Saved: 17
After his final week of working in the sanitation unit, Henry started his trial shift at the requisition office. For his trial, he was to shadow Rin as she showed him the ropes. Once Henry introduced himself to the other workers, a small team that liaises with the much larger scavenger team, Rin went through all of the procedures of recording down stock. Henry had to stop himself from making any comments on the system. They were just minor tweaks, but it was wise not to try and take control as a new employee. Rin and the others knew their job the best, but Henry could not help himself in seeing improvements everywhere he looked. The perfectionist could never be satiated and would love to be satisfied with something in his life, to declare that something was complete and as great as it could be. No matter, he would either learn to control himself and not be annoyed by these thoughts or make these tweaks himself if he rose to a high enough status to do so without offence.
As Rin wanted to hire Henry mainly for the customer service aspect of the job, she showed him the procedures for the opening, having called him earlier so that they could open on time. The instructions were simple enough, but Henry still felt the need to jot everything down in his notebook, which seemed to grant a great deal of amusement from Rin. While he was making notes, he would catch her staring at him so intensely.
"Everything alright?" he asked, feeling slightly exposed after such a study.
There was a smirk to Rin's lips. "You really must be related; Corinna would always be writing in her notebook too, even writing down useless things that anyone could remember."
"Well," Henry cleared his throat. "They're never useless."
"You're making a copy of the record code as we speak. The key is posted everywhere in the warehouse and right next to the log book." Rin folded her arms. "You don't need to write it down."
Henry shrugged. "I was... going to study it at home so I can remember all of the shorthand."
Rin let out what was perhaps almost a stifled laugh, before rolling her eyes. "Don't worry, there won't be an exam." She headed over to the door, turning over the sign in the window to show that the requisition office was open. "Just relax. It's only your first day."
There weren't any customers straight away, so Henry helped Rin prepare and pack deliveries for later. When a customer did come in, Rin let Henry do all the work. Henry was a bit flustered to start with as he thought he would be shadowing Rin and not her shadowing him until he made a mistake, however, Henry's natural charm snapped on and he followed a simple flow chart of customer service interactions; first asking how their day was, mostly a rhetorical question, followed by how he could help them, and then resorted to either his notebook or Rin on what the customer needed. Henry and Rin took it in turns with serving the customer whilst the other searched the warehouse, with Henry only needing to ask a few times for help in finding the required items.
After a couple hours, Rin took Henry to help deliver items around the city. There was a separate office that specialised in deliveries, pulling carts around The Warren, though their focus was on the businesses, construction, and welfare of the city, meanwhile the deliveries that the requisition office made were of more personal matters, of larger items that they could not simply take with them from the office. Rin would normally not be the one to carry out these deliveries, and Henry would likely not also when he assumed his role fully, but he had to learn all of the ropes in case the usual workers were unavailable and their positions needed filling. Fortunately, the deliveries were relatively light so Henry and Rin, neither having masks that granted much strength, had no issues pulling the small wagon. The first few stops were to residents, a few of which were not a home and so their items were left by their doors, the city so trusting that no one would steal it. One of the customers that was home was one of the friends Henry made during his time in the sanitation unit, the brownie in charge of the night shifts.
"How's the new job treating you?" he asked.
"Can't complain," Henry joked. "The boss is right behind me." He pointed at the unamused Rin.
The other deliveries were to those who were at work, having requisition items to have at their job, but classified more as personal rather than necessary and work-related, hence it was Rin and Henry's duty as opposed to the delivery office. There were a couple of familiar faces, some of them who had given Henry tours at their respective tours and were impressed that Henry had remembered their names; in reality, Henry had wrote them all down and quickly reminded himself of them before greeting them. After teaching him what to do, Rin let Henry take the lead for all the deliveries, only correcting him if he was about hand over the wrong parcel or go the wrong way. Henry was unsure if she was throwing him in the deep end, to help him learn quickly on the job, or if she just hated interacting with people that much she would rather a newbie do it. Likely the latter.
One of the last deliveries was to the education centre, which Rin seemed to hesitate to go inside.
"Something up?" asked Henry. "Are we at the wrong place?" He checked the label, seeing that it was correct. "Sumit... ah!" Henry retrieved his notebook from where he remembered the name. "The language teacher."
"That's the guy," said Rin, finally making her way in.
Henry quickly grabbed the package and followed her, through the door and hallway, to a classroom, empty beside Sumit who was going through and marking mock exams.
As soon as Sumit noticed them, he shot up from his seat. "Rin!" His eyes were wide at first before he broke into a grin, then simmered into a slightly contained smile as he saw Henry standing behind by her side. "How's it going?" He cleared his throat, and leaned against his desk, too awkward to sit back down after such a display of enthusiasm. "What can I do you for?"
"Parcel," Rin simply replied, motioning to Henry.
Henry handed it over, being one of the heavier deliveries.
"Oh, you're here on deliveries," said Sumit as he accepted it; he sounded disappointed. "Thank you," he added eventually when he remembered. He unwrapped the protective paper revealing a large mirror which he placed against the wall, then handed the paper, quickly folded, back to Henry.
"Alright, just a few more deliveries left," Rin said to Henry. "Then we can head back-"
"Oh!" A man popped his head in the doorway, then entered gleefully, hobbling with the aid of a walking stick. He was dressed in a formal and flowing white shirt with long sleeves, paired with a tunic and trousers. "What fortune, I was hoping to bump into you at some point!" The man then glanced to Rin and added, "ah, Miss Rin! Lovely to see you again! I did hear that you were the one who took him under your wing."
"His first trial shift," said Rin.
The man turned to Henry again, extended a hand in greeting. "Pleasure to properly introduce myself; Calixte Barbeau, at your service."
"Henry Best," replied Henry, shaking his hand.
The man's skin was quite cold to the touch, and he felt a bit weak too, as if the man hadn't eaten in years, and then it all started to click in Henry's mind once he caught a glimpse of Calixte's limping and spavined leg. Something must have been tied around it for so long, something heavy to have bent it out of shape and weaken it so, and Henry knew what it had been. Calixte had been a water nymph at some point in his imprisonment, now still recovering; a rope tied around his leg, a weight attached, keeping him down in the waters, forever drowning until he somehow broke free.
"We have met before, but you likely do not recognise me in my human form," said Calixte, as he motioned to his mask attached to his belt; the amphibian creature with the glowing antenna.
"Ah, you're a guard," said Henry, remembering Calixte during the blood moon and at some of his interviews.
"Yes, though I more call myself a music teacher," said Calixte. "At the moment, I am three-quarters a guard, one-quarter a piano and singing teacher, however I am hoping to be a full-time one once again when the city is large enough to need one. Mr Sumit here became a full-time language teacher recently with our population growing."
Sumit made a small wave at being mentioned.
"Are you interested in learning to play piano, Mr Henry?" Calixte asked. "Or perhaps sing? I do have a long wait-list, but for Ms Corinna's cousin, I would gladly teach you in my personal time- I used to live with her if you did not know, she is a dear friend- a dear friend to us all. We were the first friends she made in The Abyss actually." Calixte motioned to Rin and Sumit, though faltered as he looked at Sumit, who glanced away, his arms folded. Calixte cleared his throat. "Yes, so... music lessons?"
"Thank you, that is very kind," said Henry, wincing at the offer of jumping up the wait-list because of nepotism. "I shall think on it, but I would love to hear more about Corinna when she... when she was still new to the Abyss."
"Oh, yes! Yes! We should have luncheon together at some point, or I shall pop over to the requisition office." Calixte gave a polite bow, and after saying his farewells to Rin and Sumit, he left the room.
"Right, we should head back," said Rin. "Can't dilly-dally."
"Actually..." Henry glanced at Sumit, who had returned to his seat and resumed marking papers. "I'll be just a moment please." He smiled at Rin.
Rin frowned, more in curiosity at what he wanted to talk to Sumit about, before shrugging and nodding.
Henry app[roached Sumit's desk. "Excuse me, Sumit, was it?"
Sumit looked up at him.
"I was wondering if you taught sign language, and if so, if there are any slots open."
"Oh, yeah, definitely." Sumit rummaged through his draws, taking out a whiteboard with a weekly schedule on it for all the lessons. "It's the most popular one. There are multiple variants though, and I am only fluent in one of them- trying to learn the others with what resources I can- but yes, I still have plenty of slots left for you to join. It's not uncommon for people to lose their voice in the Abyss, either through injury, bad mask transformations, or almost permanently becoming a monster. At the moment, I am trying to make it the universal language so there's no country bias. May as well start learning it now before it becomes mandatory."
"Thank you. I wanted to learn so that Corinna doesn't have to write all the time when I talk to her."
"In Corinna's case, you will need some private tutoring," said Sumit, making a note. "I helped Lili in adapting all of the hand signs since Corinna doesn't have hands. You will have to focus more on context and lip-reading with her. I can set aside an extra half an hour each week for you, outside of class to help you with that."
"Oh, you don't-" Henry swallowed. "Thank you, that's kind of you but I wouldn't want to take any of your personal time from you."
"No, it's okay, it's for Corinna. I'm sure she'll appreciate the effort you will be going through."
After finding out what days worked best for Henry, Sumit wrote all of the information on a small piece of paper, and Henry and Rin finally left to continue with the remaining deliveries.
*
Sumit had been in a better head space as of late as he had made it a part of his routine to go to the archery range with Kai; it wasn't a complete replacement for the fighting ring with how much it helped him mentally, but what Sumit needed most right now was something with a social aspect. However, Kai was currently switched to the night watch shift which meant that Sumit went alone to the archery range and was beginning to fall out of the habit.
A lot of his friends had been kicked out of the Warren due to the fighting ring incident or avoided him, not wanting to be involved with anyone associated with violence and rule breaking and so Sumit's social life was at an all time low. The rest of Sumit's friends, the founders they had been dubbed by everyone else in the city, were often too busy or had differing schedules; Oscar, of course was avoiding Sumit which was understandable; Ivette usually hung around with or near Oscar; Corinna and Lili overworked themselves and so they barely had any social life unless it was with each other; and Kai was on the night shift which left Calixte and Rin.
Rin was often a difficult person to understand; she had stated that despite Sumit's recent behaviour that she would still talk to him out of obligation to the former Sumit, but she would sometimes go days maybe even weeks without contact, then turn up one day as if all that time of nothing had not passed. And then there were the times like just now when she came to deliver a parcel that she seemed distant and cold, as if they were strangers then back to normal the next day. It was difficult to be her friend some days.
Calixte however never treated Sumit any differently, always overly friendly and polite. When Calixte would come in before giving someone a music lesson he never failed to greet Sumit and have a small chit chat which was nice and they spent time together outside of work. However, there was one downside and that was Guard Lieutenant Alfreda, the princess, the person who Sumit occasionally blamed for everything wrong with his life when he wasn't blaming himself. Calixte and Alfreda lived together and looked after three of the imps in a weird and odd friendship and surrogate father-daughter kind of way, despite both looking the same age whilst Calixte was in reality old enough to be Alfreda's very great grandfather. Because of this friendship, Sumit could barely go out with Calixte without the looming fear of her turning up and ruining everything. At the very least, Sumit still had his students to satiate his social gauge, though that couldn't fully replace the constant and regular intimacy of real friendships.
After finishing marking the stack of mock exams, Sumit made it in time to one of the parks in the city where the meditation and yoga session was being held, mandatory for him and a couple of others involved in the fighting ring; they all avoided him and each other. Their meditation instructor leading the session greeted Sumit by name, marking him on the register for if he missed even one he would be kicked out of the city.
They began with a few basic breathing exercises, then onto yoga poses that helped with relaxation and usually would finish with meditating; sitting still for ten minutes in silence, either with eyes shut or open and vacant. Sumit opted for eyes shut, though he could not help himself from peeking out of curiosity and caution. It was impossible to concentrate on anything with the hustle and bustle of the city around them, the breathing from the people near him, the wind, the blades of grass underneath him, everything was so much more pronounced and vivid when he tried to shut it out; this was not relaxing, he was not alone with his thoughts, he felt more overwhelmed than ever before; but he could not let anyone notice that. This whole charade was supposed to prove to people that he was fine, that he could act with mansuetude, that he was safe to live here and not be kicked out. What did relax him? Think about that. Think. Or not think at all. Let your mind empty and everything else should go away too, right? Just be an empty shell, an empty body.
How long did he have left? How long could he keep this up? He didn't want to be left alone with this thoughts, with himself.
Sumit slowly opened his eyes, squinting to see the egg timer and that only two minutes of the total ten had passed. How agonisingly slow. Holding a plank was probably faster than this. And then something caught Sumit's gaze. Sat beside the egg timer was a small dog with scruffy black fur. A dog? Despite there being now over four-hundred residents in The Warren, Sumit knew vaguely what monster masks existed within the walls and he had never seen one like this. Was it Henry's? How did he get permission? Was it a real dog? Sumit had heard there had been a Rottweiler called Reggie that had been imprisoned, perhaps this was another dog previously owned by a displeased noble.
"Sumit? Everything alright?" asked the mediation instructor. "You seem distracted, love."
"Yes, sorry," said Sumit, biting his lip. Perhaps it would have been best to lie. "I was just distracted by the dog."
"Dog?" the instructor frowned, turning around. "What dog?"
The other people in the session looked around too in excitement, because everyone loved dogs.
None of them could see the dog.
Was this some prank? A test to see if he could keep calm and collected when something odd and unexpected happened?
But why a bloody dog? That did not make any sense.
"Sorry, I-" Sumit paused, resuming his meditative posture. "I think I just mistook that bush for a dog."
The instructor looked at the fairly square trimmed bush with scepticism.
"You know how when you shut your eyes too long and when you open them you get those black blobs obscuring your vision," Sumit bluffed. "It was probably that. Sorry for interrupting the class."
This seemed to work and the instructor just seemed to think Sumit was a bit odd and not hallucinating and insane.
But Sumit was starting to think so.
Because the dog was still there.
He could not close his eyes now, not when that creature was staring at him so intensely. Despite the size, it did not seem like a friendly canine. It seemed like it was waiting for something, watching patiently.
After staring at it for a good three minutes, Sumit dared to close his eyes, hoping it would be gone only to open them again and see that the dog was closer now, no longer at the instructor's side but in front of her.
It's just a dog. A small, harmless dog that was probably just another prisoner that was messing around. They all were, pretending that they couldn't see the dog.
Why couldn't they see it!
Why was it looking at him!
Why could he only see it!
What did it want from him?
When the egg timer finally chimed, Sumit jolted in fright, his eyes darting away for the briefest of seconds before returning to see that the dog was gone.
There was nothing there.
Perhaps there had never been anything there.
The dog was gone.
So stupid.
So pathetic.
It was just a bloody dog.
The instructor finished the session with some crap about inner peace before dismissing everyone. Sumit heard others jeering about 'the dog' as they passed him, and the instructor called him over before he could leave.
"Is everything okay, Sumit, love?" she asked. "You are sweating quite a lot. These sessions are supposed to relax you, not the opposite."
"Yes, yes, no I am relaxed," lied Sumit. "I think I just wore too many layers and got a bit hot, that's all."
Once again, the instructor seemed sceptical but did not comment further.
Sumit left the session with even more stress than ever before.