Chapter 1235 (1/2)
Roy sat sharply up, his every instinct screaming that something was very wrong with the surrounding situation. A dull computer screen stared back at him, currently showing an excel sheet filled with meaningless numbers. With his left hand, he rubbed the bridge of his nose and ignored the dull trill of telephones in the surrounding area. Beyond that, the low voices of several dozen people using their ‘phone-voice’ formed a rather harmless soundscape around Roy.
The nearby ringing incessantly continued. After several bleary blinks, he surreptitiously wiped a bit of drool from the corner of his mouth; he had fallen asleep in his cubicle at work and the harsh ring of a nearby phone had served as his alarm clock. His head foggy, Roy pivoted in his seat and leaned back in the swivel chair to peer down the inoffensive walkway of tan carpet.
He saw numerous identical black swivel chairs holding numerous workers wearing the same expression of boredom. Slowly, Roy’s gaze wandered past them toward the window sitting proudly at the end of the long aisle of cubicles.
A drizzling rain spat against the window. It was a chilly day in early March, Roy belatedly remembered. Walking from the parking lot to the building had been hell. It was a day like every other day. Because nothing in Roy’s life ever changed. At this point, it was hard to remember how long he had been stuck here.
“You fall asleep again, Roy? Yanno, If you don’t like this job, you can just find another one.”
Suppressing his unease, Roy turned to face his manager Carla. He contorted his face until his expression settled into something like a greasy smile. “I… I think I’m just running a bit of a fever. I was just pressing my forehead against the table to cool it off a bit.”
“I’m sure.” Carla folded her arms and shifted her copious weight. Then Carla jabbed her finger at Roy’s desk. “And what are those?”
Still feeling profoundly confused and out of touch, Roy turned to look at his desk. Then he flinched when he saw the scattered post-its sitting prominently on top of his workbook. Perhaps due to his own inner perfectionist, Roy had clearly taken the time to arrange the thirty-six odd post-its in six rows of six. Each post-it was almost perfectly spaced from its fellows, evidencing the significant amount of time Roy must have dedicated to the project.
The horror he felt as he realized what was happening was a chilled bucket of ice water dumped over his head. Because the post-its were for the comic that Roy was working on. Perhaps because he had been comparing concept art, all of the small comics he made during work were arrayed in a neat grid on his desk.
The one at the top left depicted a smiling young man who resembled a ten-years-younger Roy alongside the bubble-lettered title: “The Day I Became a Hero”.
Carla sniffled lightly, waiting for Roy to respond. But Roy couldn’t think of anything to say. “Uh…”
Carla produced a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose into it noisily. Then she tossed the used tissue into Roy’s trash and said, “You are gonna need to throw those post-its away. They aren’t work appropriate”
“What?” Immediately, Roy became panicked. The only reason that he had taken the job at the call center was to save money so he could apply again to AC Comics as an illustrator. Although these drawings were done on post-its, basically all of his best work was done while he was supposed to be answering customer support calls. When he went home, he needed to copy these over to more expensive paper for the application. No, I-”
“Here, let me help you.” Before Roy could respond, Carla jabbed her hand out and snatched the middle portion of the post-it grid and threw the fistful of drawings into the trash can. Then, for good measure, Carla made a deep slurping noise that sounded and spat into the trash.
With trembling hands, Roy began to reach for the trashcan. But then Carla snapped. “You stupid Man-child, why can’t you just accept what you are? A loser who has to keep me happy in order to stay at this job. And you are doing a pretty shit job at it. If I catch you pulling those shitty drawings out of the trash, you’re fired.”
Roy looked blankly up at Carla. The entire call center around them had gone quiet as the surrounding people furiously listened in to distract themselves from their own misery. It was a terrible cauldron of depression that bubbled gleefully to Roy’s misfortune. “Why…”
“How old are you Roy?” Carla said with faux concern. “You’ve got a bit of a belly, don’t you? Probably growing out that beard to hide your double chin? This is me helping you. The sooner you admit that none of the fantasy stuff is real, the happier you will be. Instead of drawing cartoons, put in some effort here, in your real life.”
“But-” Roy began, but Carla’s pudgy hand slapped down on Roy’s desk again and snatched the title panel. She spared it a frowning glance and then shook her head sorrowfully.
“Heroes don’t exist.” Carla ripped the picture of the smiling young man to pieces and tossed it into the trash. “You know what? I’ll just go bring a janitor. Better to toss this shit out now. Then there won’t be any more distractions, will there be, Roy?”
Without waiting for him to answer, she turned around and waddled off toward the office manager’s desk. The other employees immediately did their best to act busy and spoke loudly into their phones, as though everyone hadn’t been watching the entire dressing-down out of the corner of their eyes.
Blankly, Roy looked down at his desk. He suddenly felt ten years older than he had felt this morning. He needed an entire comic book for the application. Remembering the plot wouldn’t be difficult, but when he had quickly glanced at the panels earlier, he had noticed some really impressive perspectives in action sequences. Somehow, Roy knew that this would be the application that would land him a job.
Yet as soon as Roy thought that, a bleak depression crept up from the bottom of his heart and reached with cold hands to tug at that optimism. How many times had he thought the same thing in the past? Yet here he was, working another temp job in order to make enough money to avoid eviction from his apartment.
And everything was still so fuzzy from his earlier dozing…
Roy turned and looked once more toward the window. Rain dripped over the glass pane and beaded across its surface. It seemed to confirm his worst fears; there would be no sudden miracle even if Roy risked losing this job to recover the post-its.
“Maybe… there really isn’t magic in this world,” Roy said softly. He flinched when someone nearby snorted.
As he gathered up the rest of his comic panels with trembling hands, Roy began to cry. It hurt to admit it, but maybe Carla was right. After all, what did he know? Even though he had been told his entire life that trying to make it as a comic book artist was a waste of time, Roy hadn’t given up. But now, at thirty-seven, with nothing to show for all his hard work…
There was nothing tragic about surrendering, right? Some things weren’t meant to be. That was just karma.
Sniffing loudly, Roy shook his head and hunched over his desk so he could pretend like his coworkers hadn’t silently witnessed everything that happened. Or that they couldn’t see that he was crying now.
But as Roy held the handful of comic panels on post-its over the trash, he couldn’t help but hesitate. The pure joy on the main character’s face made Roy’s heart ache. He brought his ink-stained finger down and lightly dragged it across the post-it note.
When was the last time I smiled like that? When was the last time I was that happy? Roy thought to himself. Finally, he sighed; with his head so fuzzy, he couldn’t think of the last time he had been truly happy
Roy pivoted and held the poisonous false-hope of his next illustrator application over the trash. Yet right before he tossed the post-its away, Roy realized there was something strange about these comic panels. Very quickly, he flipped through the first half-dozen. His frown deepened as he realized that the plot of these panels was slightly different than he remembered. Had he done some of these while half-asleep earlier…?
Roy’s original idea for a story was a normal office worker transmigrating to a fantasy world with game-elements. But in the comic held in his hands, the main character didn’t travel to another world; a System came to Earth. And it wasn’t just the main character that had access to it. Everyone on the planet began to Level up and fight against monsters. Rather than it being a blessing, the System seemed to be making a serious attempt to wipe out the human population on Earth.