LEAVE
You decided it was about time to leave. Slowly you backed away from the door and made your way back down the hallway towards the receptionist’s desk. It was difficult to overcome your curious urge to continue on down the opposite of the hallway, but you had to. It was completely unbeknownst to you when the receptionist would return, and you didn’t want to get caught up in anything you couldn’t handle just yet. You fought through the mental exhaustion the beginning of that test had put you through and you couldn’t help but wonder.
“I wonder if they WANTED to exhaust me.” One by one you started putting pieces together but you didn’t even know what you were looking for. You took a deep breath, “Let’s just take this slowly.” You calmed yourself as you entered the main hallway.
When you made it back, you sat down normally, as if you had just returned from the bathroom. You took the time to scan the room for a while just to help pass the time.
The first place your eyes went was the corners of the room. This was the most likely placement for cameras. They would have mounted the machinery right where the three points met so its fan-like vision could have the most possible viewing space. So far, the only two cameras you saw were in particular places.
One was mounted right next to the door the woman first exited through. It was pointed directly at the front door.
“As if she’s not already watching the door.” you said to yourself.
The other camera was mounted on the same side, yet it was pointing down the opposite hallway you came down. You wondered if that was all the surveillance in the area.
“That means they couldn’t have seen me.” You pondered. “Unless…” The thought crossed your mind about another camera if it was mounted down the hallway. You would have surely been recorded by that point.
For a moment, you tried to remember if you could have seen anything down that hallway the first time you went down it, but your mind was still a bit exhausted from the scantron quiz from earlier.
“They’re taking way longer to process this than it did to fill it out.” The thought clouded your mind just a bit more as your hyperactive mind continued to absorb your surroundings.
You couldn’t find yourself seated for very long. Your wandering instincts began to take you around the waiting room once again. Halfway to find out if there were cameras down that other hallway, and the other half of you just wanted to look around even more to see what you could see.
Another thought that plagued your mind was about the source of the voices. It was hard not to wonder who they could have been, and whether or not they were a threat to you. Regardless, you felt as if you needed this job in order to maintain your normality in this new realm.
One by one the thoughts began to pop into your head, and before you knew it, you found yourself standing at the front desk again, leaning as far around as you can down both hallways. Your deep colored eyes even tried their best to peer down the thin window of the door the receptionist first exited through. It took a while for your eyes to adjust to what you were seeing, the light through that hallway was much dimmer than the flickering fluorescent bulbs lining the hallways.
Suddenly you realized you were looking at the young woman from earlier as she returned from the other side of the door. Like an earthquake, she bursted through the other side as if she were in a hurry.
“Hello again!” You said almost reactively.
“We’ve run your files and you’ve been accepted in one of our entry level positions!”
“That sounds lovely!” You responded, wagging your tail.
The receptionist put down the clipboard with your papers and took out a manilla folder. She filed your papers neatly and slid the thick stack over to you as she continued.
“You can hold on to these. We have copied and faxed your information to the database and you’re all registered for everything you’ll need!”
“Okay! What am I supposed to do next?”
“I will be in charge of your training!” the woman said proudly. You were a bit shocked by that response.
“Wait a minute… You’ll be training me?” it was unclear to you if she had the kind of qualifications for training you. “She’s just a receptionist.” you thought “How could she possibly be able to-” your thought was interrupted by her explaining.
“Yes! I have a diverse position.” Despite answering your question, you still felt a bit brushed- off by her behaviour. You weren’t given a chance to think about what was going on, but you figured that this was a good situation for you. By tonight, you know you’ll at least have some form of stability for at least your short-term future.
Written by Drifting Dragon on 31 July 2021