Robert Vlaho
patreon
[1% LIFESTEAL] Chapter 5 - Turning the Page
🕑 Added 2023-07-03 21:45:01 +0000 UTC‘The cold… The smell… Ugh…’
The word headache wasn’t enough to fully encapsulate the headagony Freddy felt as he woke up. Sparse light peered through his shades the same way it did every morning, and his hand reached for the headgear.
But something was strange. The sound that usually tormented him every morning was missing, and—
'Hold on. There’s no headgear either—'
“Oh fuck!” Freddy yelled as he jumped up into a seated position. “Oh fuck, oh shit, oh God!”
The alarm was on the ground! How could he forget to put it on!?
Rushing to get out of bed, Freddy got up, eyes darting around the room, looking for his uniform. “My clothe—!” He sucked air through his teeth as he remembered where they were.
No wonder his room smelled like a morgue. Rushing over to his dainty trashcan and hesitating as he reached to move it out of the way, Freddy revealed the pile of bloody cloth that had once been his work uniform.
“Oh man—,” Freddy said with a half-disgusted, half-panicked expression. “What time is it anyway? No, what day is it!? Thursday? Friday? It's Friday, shit!”
The locks on his door were pushed out of the way as he peeked into the hallway.
9:31
“Why!?”
If he had already overslept so long, couldn’t he at least feel somewhat good? Why didn’t he…? Why…?
The realization struck him rather abruptly, and the rush he felt disappeared. Without thinking about it, he moved over to the window and opened it, then sat on his bed and looked at his hand, mesmerized.
He hadn’t said anything about being late today, so there would be hell to reap when he faced his manager. There was also a pile of bloody, rancid clothing sitting behind his trashcan that he had to do something about.
And he was an arch.
He was an arch.
Freddy Stern—an archhuman.
The vividity of the last few days conversely served to dissuade him from the fact that it was all real. The same brain mechanisms that prevented him from blending the fictional shows he saw on the BC at work with reality now stopped him from coming to terms with it.
There was one way to undeniably prove it. His hand hovered, shakily floating toward the lid on his chest, and as he touched it, he couldn’t pull it open since it was locked, causing his hand to jolt back. With a deep breath, he gathered the bravery to get up.
Grabbing the key he had hidden under his bed, Freddy put it into the lock, and with one, then two turns, he unlocked it. His fingers rested on the lid again, and biting his lips, he pulled it up.
The scrolls he had received still sat precisely where he had placed them. Although the feeling of anxiety subsided, there was no sigh of relief.
'I see. I guess I’m an arch now.'
Good that it was real, but that was nothing to get too excited about. Not yet, at least. Several responsibilities and tasks hung over his head, and there was some serious adult decision-making to do.
Pinching the unbloodied corners of the clothes behind the trash can, he threw them into the bin, and after he got dressed into his other, barely-cleaner outfit, he took the bag of trash with him as he left the apartment and locked the door.
It was time to go to work, he supposed. Once he left the building, he threw the bag into the nearest dumpster and began his walk.
What was likely a combination of the smack he received to his head yesterday, horrid sleep quality, freezing to death, huffing stink fumes all night, and a nasty hangover gave him such a bad headache that it made him almost forget about all the other pains scattered throughout his body. It didn’t take long, though, for the walk to kindly remind him.
Habit took charge, and Freddy treaded his usual daily route.
“Oh, fucking great,” he said.
The Great Barrier, or rather, the stupid fence that blocked his path, once again appeared before him. But, this time, things were different.
Freddy—the archhuman—squared his shoulders and confidently approached the man standing guard, “I have to go through,” he declared.
“State your reason or provide verification, please,” the man responded in a practiced tone.
“I have to get to the other side.”
“Please provide verification, sir.”
‘What’s happening?’ Freddy thought. ‘Can’t he sense that I’m an arch or something?’
Given that the man didn’t even show the slightest hint of respect toward him, he either couldn’t sense anything or didn’t care.
Well, it wasn’t like Freddy could sense anything off about the man either—which meant that he was probably just too damn weak to even qualify as a true archhuman yet.
With a frustrated sigh, Freddy looked up at the man. “You know what?” He said. “Have a good day.”
Then, he promptly turned around and headed down the path around the twenty-fifth district.
***
Jason, Freddy’s manager and long-time acquaintance breathed out as he finished hearing the summarized version of the last two days of his employee’s life. “That’s rough,” he said. Are you sure you’re alright?”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
Freddy had told him about his involvement in the passage break, leaving the fact that he was now an archhuman unspoken.
“Well…” The man looked at his cluttered desktop and pulled a paper from the messy pile. “Naturally, nobody could ask you to work a day after going through something like that—” then he handed the paper to Freddy. “—but today is different. Your message said nothing about an absence, and I had to fill in for you for the past few hours.”
Freddy glanced at the warning paper detailing his transgression and penalty. Before he could even read it, his manager transcribed its contents. “You’ll be filling in half a shift in storage tonight,” he said with a slight glint of satisfaction in his eyes. “And I’ll be deducing the destroyed uniform from your paycheck.”
The headache intensified, and Freddy’s grip on the paper creased it slightly.
“Go. Get up,” the managed rushed as he got up and headed out of the room, but not before adding, “Get a new uniform first.” Then he left the room and closed the door.
Minutes passed, and finally, the door opened again as the manager walked in, finding Freddy sitting in the same place he had left him. “What are you doing!? Get up!”
With slow, measured movements, Freddy crumpled the paper in his hands and threw it at the garbage can in the corner. He missed, and the ball clattered to the ground.
“Freddy! You—!”
“I’m leaving,” he said as he got off the chair and walked past the manager, bumping into him in the process.
“Leaving!?” The manager squealed as he ran in front of Freddy. “What kind of behavior is this? Don’t think that a bit of danger gives you an excuse to shirk all your responsibilities! I’ll seriously fire you if you don’t get your shit together,” he said with a stern glare. “Then good luck finding a job with your education!”
“You’ll fire me…?” Freddy asked. “Alright, then. Sorry for my behavior. I’ve been a little out of it. I’ll get to work in a second.”
The manager wanted to add more to his warnings but was too busy to dish them out. With a venomous glare foreshadowing further critique, the man walked away, and Freddy headed to the back room to change.
Soon enough, he was at the register. The headache threatened to split his head apart, and with every beat of his heart, a pulse of pain flashed through his forehead.
A man walked over, slamming a large basket of items on the register. “Hurry up, kid. I got shit to do.”
Just as he was about to grab the item, the cashier paused, slowing down. Then, maintaining direct eye contact with the customer, the dutiful employee painstakingly slowly moved the items over the scanner.
The man-in-a-hurry kept trying to get the worker to speed up but to no avail. Freddy took his sweet time, and once he was done, the man angrily jogged away, apparently not having been bullshitting when he claimed to be in a rush.
Before long, a woman walked over carrying several cartfulls of items. Then, with a self-satisfied smile, she put a collection of coupons before Freddy.
Added together, they amounted to roughly ninety percent discount on the purchase.
Ignoring the fact that several were already expired, Freddy faced the woman. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but company policy prohibits the usage of several percentage-based coupons for a single purchase. It even states so on the coupons themselves.”
“Where!?” The woman angrily asked as she pointed at the coupons, showing that there was, indeed, no such clause on the coupons themselves—because she had removed it somehow.
Rather than arguing, Freddy picked up the coupons, tore them to shreds, and threw the pieces into the garbage as he casually turned to the woman.
She gaped, “Why did you do that!?”
“Why did I do what?” He asked.
“You tore my coupons!”
“What coupons?” He asked again.
“This is outrageous!” She declared. “I’m going to sue this company! Take me to the manager!”
“I am the manager,” he declared without as much as a hint of humor.
“That’s—! You’re lying!”
“Prove it,” Freddy said with a smile.
The woman didn’t know what to do, and faced with a crowd that eyed her in annoyance, she defaulted to evacuating the store, leaving the mountain of items behind. A pile that Freddy couldn’t be bothered to remove.
As the day marched onward, the newly ascended arch found handling rude customers simpler than ever. And with every straightforward solution applied, his headache got just a bit easier to handle.
***
“Mmmm, yup,” the manager said. “You’re fired. Get out of my office.”
“Thank you, sir!”
Not even four hours after the start of his shift, he was dragged to the office and, as expected, fired on the spot.
As he got up to leave the room, the manager said, “That’s what you wanted, huh? Well, sorry to say it, but this isn’t how it works. You don’t get compensation for losing your job like this,” he said. “After all we did for you, this is how you pay us back? I’m very disappointed in you.”
“Don’t worry,” Freddy insisted and turned around with, to the manager's apparent surprise, a grin on his face. “I got all the compensation I needed.”
***
On the trek back home, Freddy’s gait had a bounce to it.
The air smelled fresher; the midday sun, one whose powerful light he witnessed oh-so-rarely, shone even brighter than usual. He didn’t even mind that he had to walk around the twenty-fifth district.
Because, conveniently enough, that just happened to be where he had some chores to wrap up.
***
Although paying the taxes made his soul want to evacuate his body, Freddy couldn’t help but grin at his bank statement.
42,812.13$
This wasn’t just forty-two thousand eight hundred and twelve point thirteen dollars, no, no, no, this meant far more than the number itself indicated. After all, all the money he had saved until this point had been because he wanted to become an arch.
Now that he had already become one?
He could do whatever the hell he wanted with it. Of course, Freddy wasn’t rushing to spend the cash on trivial shit, but… This value hung in a sort of awkward limbo. It wasn’t enough to buy something like a house or an apartment unless he wanted a run-down shack, and it was far too much to quickly spend on daily necessities, especially given Freddy’s frugal nature.
There were plenty of things to buy, though, and Freddy looked forward to one thing more than anything. However, one more annoying chore waited for him, so he put that to the back of his mind as he focused on the task at hand.
***
Back on the stairs leading up to his apartment, Freddy munched on the cheap sandwich and glanced at the time on the clock in the hallway.
9:46 PM.
What he thought would be a minor chore turned out to be a humongulagungus pain in the ass. He lifted the trim card into the light as he glanced at it. It was his new ID. Besides the somewhat fancier color and the statement that he was a water affinity arch, nothing else was extraordinary about it.
Although interestingly enough, nobody had asked him about his talent.
Getting this ID, however, had been a monstrous undertaking. To his bewilderment, the first thing they had done when he came to register as an arch was call the fucking police! Freddy’s impoverished background and lack of education apparently triggered several alarms, and they had to investigate where he got his vestige from.
This had, naturally, obliterated any excitement he felt, and unfortunately, it wasn’t the last thing that aimed to destroy his mood.
Seven. Not one, two, three, four, five, or six, but seven different offices—all quite the walk away from one another—were necessary visits for him to finish gathering all the necessary documentation. Now, finally, with the arduous, herculean task out of the way, he was done with his immediate responsibilities.
Or so he thought.
The metallic, musty stink of rotting blood slammed his nose harder than a knee to the face when he opened his door.
“Ugh, what the fuck!?”
Freddy had suddenly remembered that, first, his room still stank, and second, he had no sheets on his bed.
“No can do,” he said.
This was no environment to begin a new chapter of his life. Such things required a certain degree of ceremony, at least some pomp. How was he supposed to believe that his life had changed at all if these were the conditions he was living in?
Yet again, he was back home dead tired, having eaten nothing but some cheap, filling crap, and was about to sleep like shit in a stinky, cold room. Although he felt exhausted, he slapped his face and squared his shoulders.
‘Just a bit more,’ he thought. ‘I’ll do what I have to do now, and I will begin my new life tomorrow.’
Hopping down to the first floor, Freddy entered the room that held the cleaning equipment. With a few brisk hops from the toilet to his room and back, he had wiped the bloody patch and finished cleaning his floor, window, fridge, and any other dusty surfaces.
Leaving the window open to let the room air out, he exited his apartment, locking the door behind him.
It wasn’t long until he was bolting down the streets. Soon enough, he reached the entrance to the twenty-fifth district. A different guard stood outside this time, and Freddy simply showed him his ID, which was enough to let him pass through.
Leaving on the other side was even more straightforward, and with a few turns, he had reached his destination.
Charat Hypermarket, the sign said. Although he wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about being back here, it was the closest store still open at this hour. With only a bit of hesitation, Freddy walked inside.
***
Consensually spending money on something was a foreign concept to Freddy. Looking at the cart of items, he felt his heart tighten in agony. After all, he was about to spend a hundred dollars—on a single shopping trip! Wow!
There wasn’t anything fancy in the cart. Really, he was just buying new sheets, quite cheaply too, and some new clothes and shoes. Plus, the food he would have for lunch and dinner tomorrow.
There wasn’t much of a line he had to wait through, so before long, he was offloading his items at the cash register.
“Wait, Freddy?” The night shift worker, his former colleague Jenny, asked him.
With an awkward smile, Freddy waved at her a bit. “Yeah, it’s yours truly, hahaha…”
“Hi, hahaha,“ she laughed a bit, but her smile quickly vanished. “I heard about earlier today… uhm… sorry about what happened,” she said.
“What?” He asked, somewhat confused at her words. “Oh, no, no, haha, don’t be sorry, I got fired intentionally.”
“No, I mean—” she said hesitantly. “I mean, that too, but about the… you know. The passage.”
“Oh!” Freddy exclaimed, “Oh, I get it! Yeah, no, don’t worry about that either, hahaha,” he laughed. “I walked out of that one like a bandit.”
“You what!?”
“I what? No, I—!” He waved, “Aaargh, no, I mean, Jesus! I didn’t steal anything!” He clarified, “No, but uh, I ended up manifesting a vestige morning after.”
“Oh,” she said as she offered to shake his hand in congratulations. “Wow, that’s amazing! Congratulations!”
“Thank you!” Freddy thanked the woman as he clumsily accepted the handshake.
Jenny grabbed one of the shirts and put it through the scanner. “So, what’re you gonna do now?” She asked him.
Stunned speechless, Freddy simply stared at the woman. He scratched the back of his head, and his face morphed into the most genuine smile he had ever given anyone in his life. “I have absolutely no idea.”
***
12:12 AM, the clock said.
As he had stopped to wash his newly purchased clothes at the 24/7 laundromat, he returned home quite a bit later than he had expected.
But it was fine. It wasn’t like he had a job to wake up to tomorrow. That thought alone left him satisfied to no end.
Soon enough, Freddy got ready for sleep, tucked himself into his new sheets, and prepared to wake up to the new chapter of his life.
Sheets warm, obligations resolved, financial problems—at least momentarily—resolved, finally, his headache started going away.
***
“I adore you, Master… But why do you betray me like this? Bathe me again… Bathe me again! Bathe me again!”
“Huwahaaba—” Freddy jolted awake. He stared around the room in panic, finding nobody there. “Oh fuck sake!” He exclaimed. “Urrrghh, why!?”
So much for waking up to the new chapter of his life in peace. However, the fright of that nightmare didn’t last long as excitement rapidly overwhelmed it.
Freddy clapped his hands and rubbed them like a greedy goblin as he shifted toward the chest.
He reached for the key, placed it into the keyhole, and turned, unlocking the lock and pushing the chest open…
Revealing the scrolls he had hidden inside.
Comments
Angelico Pezzullo
It’s captivating
Angelico Pezzullo
How manny chapter per week can we expect
