Never had I wanted to murder a man more than the day I was fired, and the day the system came. I stood outside the hallway of the main meeting room, tapping my fingers against my cup of lukewarm instant coffee. My old corduroy pants and B52s shirt were covered in old thermal paste and cold from sweat, because although I was under the clear impression that I was to be sitting in my cramped little cubicle inhaling solder fumes and the smell of burnt plastic as laptop covers were engraved, unfortunately we were put on a big delivery instead, one that had gone horribly wrong for everybody.

  One of my coworkers, a guy named Hank, swayed out of the conference room. Seeing his expression, my stomach dropped. Hank had been fired once before, then rehired due to the reasons why being a legal gray zone, and his face was a mirror of that day, pale and dull with the addition of a wispy mustache. Something told me that wasn’t going to happen a second time.

  “Hey… Hank, buddy, are you okay?” I said awkwardly, Hank was only a year younger than me and acted even younger and I didn’t know what would happen if I tried to comfort him, he was unpredictable. I did, however, accurately predict him crying.

  “This is the best job, I’ve had,” he whimpered, “how am I supposed to pay for my car?”

  He had a new mustang, and the dealer had ripped him off, so had the insurance agent. Fresh off the lot, and it had already shat itself. Not particularly relevant, but don’t buy a Mustang if you can’t afford Mustang problems. None of us in the back could, that’s why I was more than happy with my ‘11 Civic. Well, maybe not happy.

  I pretended not to see him cry, and thankfully he walked towards the back to clean out his desk before I could answer. I’d try to find a way to help him out in my way later.

  “You can come in.”

  There were three people at the table. The important ones were my department head, Jared, the owner of the business, Bruce and one of the HR girls, who weren’t actually HR, but again, not relevant. Usually there would be more for a firing, but it was nearly ten at night now, everyone except us four had gone home hours ago.

  Bruce rubbed his bald head and looked at me, smiling. “Guillermo, tell me a little bit about what happened earlier today.”

  “The delivery went about as well as could be expected for the most part.”

  Before I could continue, Bruce said my words back to me. “Why do you say that?”

  I could hear the anger in his voice already bubbling underneath the surface, so I decided to hurry along, “Well, everything went well in the morning. We packed up at the loading deck, stopped one time because one of the trucks was near empty and ate there cause we weren’t going to have time to get to Savannah before the Board of Education closed otherwise.”

  “Then the incident happened.”

  “Well, yes. The schools needed their devices and the pallet jack broke.”

  “The near 6-grand, two-week-old electric pallet jack just… broke?”

  “Yup. We started offloading the computers manually, and we tried to get in contact with ya’ll around 3 o’clock Georgia time but no one answered.”

  “I didn’t receive any call,” Jared said, already taking out his phone to show everyone.

  “None of us could,” Bruce said, “It was like all the power in Montgomery was out for an hour. Not even cells worked. But that’s not relevant.”

  Seeing Bruce lean over attentively, I continued. “Then the truck moved, like of its own will, Jerked forward at what could’ve been thirty miles per for about 30 feet and slammed into a tree.”

  “Who was in the cabin, Guillermo?” Bruce’s eyes narrowed.

  “No one,” I shook my head, “I was in the back, so was Rawlins.”

  “Who?”

  “Jason Rawlins, he’s one of the three Jasons in the back.” Jared supplied supportively.

  “Here’s what’s gonna happen, Mr. Roberts, you’re going to tell who was in that cabin.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  “No one was in the cabin, sir.”

  “Is there any chance you’re trying to cover for someone here?”

  “Sir, my record is spotless here. I was a one-man team for a while, when my team lead was on paternity leave, and the others couldn't give enough of a damn to come in, I even went on a travel job that I was very unqualified for, and I learned how to work on motherboards on the fly–”

  “Which doesn’t give you the right to dishonesty!” Bruce barked.

  That was when I realized what he was doing, the sudden switch to hostility may just’ve been Bruce’s temper, but I had heard it before, it felt wrong. He wasn’t actually mad at me. He was trying to get me fired.

  “Sir, have you talked to the others yet? There were five of us.”

  Jared shook his head, and Bruce shot him a dirty look. He didn’t notice. “No we haven’t. We don’t need to. I think Hank may have been the one in the cabin, and I think you’re covering for him.”

  Bruce nodded, all calm now, “Which isn’t right. Hank has always been trouble, and you’ve had so much potential, but with your per week numbers going down…”

  I nearly exploded, and though I calmed myself, I spoke in quiet fury. “You mean, because I had gone back part-time to finish up my degree, which was something I cleared with both of you, you’re shocked my numbers went down? Listen, if you’re going to railroad me, do it, if you’re going to fire me, say it. Otherwise we have nothing else to talk about.”

  Of course, nobody calmed down after that. There was some mostly one-sided shouting about how no, that’s not why they were firing me, and they were very clear on that front due to legal reasons, and how unthankful I was after allowing me to work there for years. I then gave them a firm yelling of my own about how they were the unthankful ones, and we didn’t need a six-thousand dollar pallet jack when we could’ve had six regular ones for a quarter of the price. They gave me fifteen minutes to clear out, after that it was clear that Bruce was going to give Jared a good reaming for that horrible monetary investment.

  After ripping some pulp fantasy book about a dark-elf ranger that I had on my desk apart and leaving the pages strewn over the floor, I helped Hank empty his desk, and Left.

  Before I got in my old car, I couldn’t help but wish for a new world. A better one. I stared upon the night sky, and in that moment I felt myself a parody of a man. I was short, fat and ugly, I wasn’t undriven, but the drive itself was directed at something new at the drop of a hat. I was now jobless, with no way to pay the rent, I had a new degree, but the job market in any sector was far from good and the whole country was deep into a recession, probably the worst in our history. My half of the rent was 1200 dollars for fuck’s sake.

  I had gotten this job because of two close friends, but they had moved on to bigger, better things. I had not. I was stuck in a job I hated that was also the best one I ever had. I was impotent, in ways I had never imagined, that my young mind had always told me would happen to someone else.

  I shook myself and turned the ignition.

  Maybe an hour or two at the gym would help…

  The car failed to start, and the engine didn’t make the sound, and as I popped the hood and began to examine what was going on, the lights outside of the building went out. I tried to turn on my phone and call my roommate, but it didn’t even turn on. The power was out in the block, the night sky finally showing itself.

  Before I could leave our lot and find the nearest building with light, my surroundings were aflame in brilliant light. I gasped as I looked up and saw a giant meteor coming right for me. It moved like magma downhill before I could reach the backdoor, it was upon me and in my final moments as there was a flash of pain, light, and absolute darkness. I thought of, not my family who were all alive and well all over the South and Puerto Rico, but of Hank who was still in the building, sobbing.

  Whatever’s going on Hank, I hope you live buddy. You don’t deserve this.

  Then there was nothing.

  ***

  I woke up in darkness, very naked. At first I considered the fact that I may have been alive, then I firmly discarded the thought. I was obviously dead, because I could see myself in my pale splendor despite the pitch black. That’s dead people shit.

  Of course, I wasn’t in heaven or anything. I didn’t even believe in God before I was obliterated, so according to my Abuelita who is by far the wisest person I’ve ever met, I was in purgatory. My mother said she was wrong, and according to the bible, I was currently in hell, but what did my mom know? She couldn’t even win a custody battle, and I know my Abuelita won at least one.

  My musings were soon cut off by the appearance of what I would call an intrusive mid-2000s RPG prompt. A giant green box cutting off my view of the darkness apparated in front of me.

  Congratulations! Your universe and the four planets holding sapient life therein have been selected for implementation into the Greater System! Would you like to take part?

  [Yes/No]

  Warning: choosing [No] will cause instant death!

  So I wasn’t already dead. So I was just naked? How embarrassing. Ignoring the disturbing amount of relief I felt when I thought I had died, I reached out for the ‘yes’ option but before I could hit it, I sneezed, and my left hand swerved to the right.

  You’ve selected [No]! Please prepare for imminent destruction!