UNKNOWN WANDERS

  CHAPTER 1 Begin Already!

  She woke up after sleeping like a log after a long day at work still felt sore more so mentally than physically. Yawning and relaxing in bed she always had a hard time getting out of bed, today was no different.

  Yesterday was her first day at work and she was excited to be a part of something meaningful; her yesterday self tough like that. After getting out of work, her earlier enthusiasm was lost just because of the manager in work acting so high and mighty like he is some hot shot throwing orders. That irritated her to no end. She always hated those type of people looking down on others from where they stand.

  But she endured and decided to give a chance to work there. She was lying to herself of course, she did not have any other choices besides working for that company as an assistant. The salary was not high, just average wage but she needed every bit of it to pay her rent and daily necessities alike.

  She got out of bed and look around trying to find her clothes all over the single room that she lived in. It always felt like a prison to live there so she generally did her best to not stay in the room and pass time outside wandering around thinking and swearing to things. Lately even a simple thing like waiting in line made her annoyed. ‘Whatever’ she though and gone to the bathroom to take a shower.

  After showering and dressing the less used clothes of her that is black tank top and pants she felt comfortable in as fast as possible, she left the room and went outside. She used to feel nervous walking in the narrow streets to reach bus station when she rented the room first time but now she felt like she was getting used to it.

  Her phone rang and it made her smile when she looked and saw her only real friend Jessie’s name on it.

  ‘‘How is my working lady doing!?’’ Jessie said with a cheerful voice. After a slight stop ‘‘I’m ugh just fine, you know how it is already’’ she said with a bored expression that made her really charming in a strange way.

  Jessie smiled knowingly and said with the still same cheerful voice ‘’I know you had a hard time till now but u need to be more tolerable towards others and u know it Alice’’

  ‘’Yea but its easier said than done. I will do my best anyways’’. Alice said dismissively just when she saw the bus that she was waiting has arrived. ‘‘Alright my bus is here see you soon okay?’’ said to Jessie. ‘’ Wait wait I was about to tell you that, lets meet tonight after u done with your work at the coffee shop near the station? ’’ Jessie said hurriedly. ‘‘Yeah yeah see you tonight than’’ Alice said casually then found a seat and sat down started thinking about what was going on in her life.

  Alice made a habit of thinking about random thinks while in bus. Her father died three years ago and her mothers flower shop in countryside where they were live in was not doing well and slowly falling into dept. That is when Alice decided and talked to her mom Madeline about it. She said she wanted to go to the city and find a job there since nothing was going well for them.

  Her mother first decided against it and didn’t want her to go since there was only two of them and wanted her daughter to go to collage. But things didn’t go well for them and the flower shop brought more dept than profit. Eventually they reluctantly separated. Alice came to city and started working as a waitress for two and a half years before finding her current job with a better salary. She met with Jessie when she was a waitress. Jessie had no interest in making money and worked as a waiter for a few months just to gain new experiences.

  However, the few months they spent there did not prevent Alice and Jessie from getting closer and becoming good friends, and they continued to meet with each other even after Jessie quit her job.

  Alice was always independent and wanted to do everything herself. However, this did not prevent her from missing her mother. Just as she was thinking of calling her mother, Alice felt that the road the bus was traveling was stretching and undulating like a tire, and the sky was also vibrating. She quickly closed and opened her eyes a few times and everything went back to normal. ‘I guess it was an optical illusion’ she thought, and while rubbing her temples, "I should stress less. Stressing won't change anything, working hard and making money will." She took a look at the people on the bus and relaxed in her seat.

  A man sitting in one of the seats ahead was secretly looking at Alice.

  However, Alice had already noticed and with her generally bored expression, she thought, 'It never gets old, there is always a person like this every time I get on the bus' and looked expressionlessly into the man's eyes. Realizing this, the man's eyes widened and he immediately turned in front of him. Alice knew that she was attractive and was used to such looks. She has black shoulder-length straight hair and blue eyes, white and smooth skin, a well-shaped body, and a relatively tall height. Before her family's financial problems began, Alice used to exercise and take care of her health. But since moving to the city, she had been doing nothing but small exercises at home, but she still hadn't lost any of her charm.

  After traveling by bus for a while, she came to her workplace and got off the bus at the stop. The place she worked was on the top floor of a giant plaza. She was working as an assistant to the manager of a company that was trying to expand internationally but had not been successful so far.

  Her manager, Neil, was known for mistreating the employees under him, even though he was only the manager of a single department. However, since he was distantly related to the owners of the company, he was turned a blind eye unless there was a problem in the operation.

  Stolen story; please report.

  When Alice was called for an interview, she had no expectation that she would get the job because she only had a high school diploma. Of course, she improved herself in the subjects she was interested in or could help her find a job, but her diploma was one of the most important documents for employment.

  Neil had also attended the job interview and the questions asked after seeing Alice were too general and superficial for the job. At first Alice did not find this strange and thought that the questions were like that for everyone.

  After learning that she got the job, she immediately called her mother and excitedly explained that she had now found a job with a decent salary where she could pay off their debts and earn money, and her mother was very happy about it. However, on her first day at work, the way Neil looked at her and his close behavior disturbed Alice and made her suspicious. When she asked her colleagues how they were asked and treated in their interviews, she realized that Neil was more about her than her job.

  This made her angry and asked her colleagues. ‘Same thing again?’ She thought. She left her previous job as a waitress because one of the waiters tried to get himself touchy with her and she kicked his ass and both of them were fired. However, when she thought about leaving her job as an assistant, she remembered talking to his mother and put her resignation on hold. She was strong enough to deal with some wimpy guy as before anyways, if it comes to that.

  Yes, Alice's father was interested in combat sports when he was alive, and when Alice was little, she emulated her father and received fighting, and self-defense training from both her father and from instructors. Even though she quit some time before her father's death, she was still confident in defending herself.

  She walked towards the office room where the other assistants were also working. Everything felt new. The corridor and walls were generally in shades of gray and felt like hospital corridors. This was a depressing situation for Alice because of her father, she and her mother spent a long time in the hospital and those times were not very pleasant.

  "You are strong, you can overcome everything," Alice motivated herself even if she didnt believe that self fulfilling bullshit and came to the assistant's room. Two other colleagues were there. After greeting them politely, she went to her own desk and reviewed the general report of what was on that day's schedule. She had learned the names of her coworkers during the first meeting, but she couldn't remember them now and couldn't find a polite way to ask.’Anyway’, she thought, ‘I will learn while working.’

  "Hey Alice, these documents are a summary of yesterday's work. Can you get these to be signed by the manager since the screening is complete?"

  One of her coworkers asked. Alice gave her a meaningful look and took the documents from her hands. That girl, whose name she did not remember, looked at Alice, looked away quickly and returned to her table. No assistant wanted to deal with the manager unless necessary, and since Alice was a new employee, these meetings were left to her. She was aware of this, but the other assistants could understand it too. She sighed and knocked on the manager's door with the documents.

  "Come in," said the manager and Alice entered and after leaving the documents on the manager's desk, she walked away a few steps and said, "These are yesterday's documents, your signature is required for final approval’’. The manager looked at Alice without looking at the documents and said, "There will be a meeting at the business dinner this evening. Can you come with me as my assistant?" asked

  "There doesn't appear to be a meeting on today's schedule," Alice said, suppressing the irritation in her tone. ‘’Oh I know it's not a formal meeting but can't you come because it's work related?’’ asked the manager

  "I'm sorry, but I can't come unless there's an official meeting," she said, and returned to her own table without waiting for an answer.

  "Looks like I need to work on her a little more," he muttered. Without knowing that his man parts was in danger if he continued like that.

  After returning to her desk, she tried to calm down and stared at the employee who gave her the file for a long time. That girl trembled for no reason and looked left and right in confusion and continued her work. Alice found this situation amusing and said to herself, "Oho do I have superpowers or something" and though ‘Lets try it on the other one’ with a small smile and fixed her gaze on him.

  Nothing happened.

  --

  After a day of mundane assistant work and avoiding the manager, she finally left his workplace, took a deep breath, and stretched. The weather is very nice, she said to himself and decided to walk to the newly opened cafe nearby. As she walked slowly, she found Jessie in the speed dial section of her phone and called her.

  "Jessie, I just got off work and I'm walking towards the newly opened cafe near my workplace, how about we meet there?"

  "Oh, I've been wondering about that place since it opened, okay, let's go, let's go, I'll be there in fifteen minutes!" said Jessie enthusiastically.

  Jessie's cheerfulness always helped lift Alice's mood. Alice smiled and said, "Okay, I'll wait for you there, don't be late," said sternly but she couldn't hide the joy in her voice well enough. ''Heheheh okay okay see you there!'' said Jessie and hung up the phone. Even though they hadn't known each other for that long, Alice began to see Jessie as her little sister without realizing it.

  After walking for a while, she suddenly started feeling dizzy and sat down on a nearby bench. While she was waiting for the dizziness to pass, she looked around and saw that the roads, buildings, cars, everything that moved and stopped were constantly stretching like rubber and returning to their original state.

  Suddenly she started vomiting and her vision blackened. After a few seconds, Alice slowly began to regain consciousness and reached for the water bottle with trembling hands. When she felt slightly better after drinking some water, she looked around more carefully and saw that the people who were stretching and shrinking were continuing their normal lives as if nothing had changed.

  Alice saw a black dot in the distance and it was growing rapidly towards her. She suddenly stood up and started running in the opposite direction, with the surprised looks of those around her. She grabbed the collar of the first person she came across and asked in a shaky and insecure voice, pointing at the rapidly approaching darkness, "Do you see that?" The man was surprised and looked towards where Alice pointed and turned back and said, "There is nothing there, are you okay?".

  Even the man's voice was straining and distortions appeared in the air. Alice ignored the question and started to run away, running as fast as she could, and then she tripped and fell to the ground. She tried to get up but couldn't and collapsed again. ‘Shit shit shit’. Her dizziness was increasing, she turned and looked back and saw that the darkness was getting very close and everything in front of her had disappeared, but no one that still exist noticed anything.

  At that moment, her phone rang and she thought of Jessie and quickly answered the phone. ''Jessie, don't come to the cafe, get as far away as you can!

  "H-Hey what is going on? Are you okay I am already there waiting for you?" said Jessie worried.

  ‘’If so, can't you see this darkness too? asks Alice erratically.

  '' Wha. ar. y.. t..k... ab..t ple..e tell m. w.e.. ..u a.. '

  The connection was lost and Alice stood there, not knowing what to do, and just when she thought she was starting to lose her sanity, darkness covered everything except her.

  Just when she was about to see a fissure in the middle of the darkness, There was nothing but darkness...