Life has sucked until this moment
Working in city 14 had been hell,
Except unlike the others, who stopped working altogether.
I continued to work my best at my job and received 'bonuses'.
One is the Standard Re-Location Coupon or SRC for short.
This thing is the only reason why I'm now here.
Let's get some things straight about my life, I worked at a standard job, creating the mechanics of a Cremator. Yeah, those things might be a thing looking like it had just been dragged out of my worst nightmare, but with some elbow grease, turns out those 'things' are pretty easy to produce.
I was a nice man, and I was even nice to our local authorities, which is the combine.
I worked with efficiency and I didn't question anything, which is why they put me in more hard-working jobs.
I was the exact opposite of everybody else, in fact, other than the suppression field making us the last generation, I was alright with the combine. I never was salty to them, and they were never salty to me.
And then the real fun began.
One day I was called into the bosses' office to hear some good news.
"Due to your hard work, we will be putting you into a harder workforce." He told me, "In your time working at the new, Incinerator Creation Plant, you may find some aspects, disturbing." I thought I had seen hell and back working at the Cremator plant, so I thought I was alright. I mean, hey, my pay raise was going to be doubled, and I have a higher chance of getting a weekend bonus, so I was into it.
I was wrong.
The first day on the job, I puked.
I had to work with hairless, legless, armless, and even faceless versions of 'humans'.
I still have nightmares about this to this day.
However, one day, I got enough Standard Re-Location Coupons, as well as enough money, to move out.
You see, to keep us, the humans, working, the Combine created work bonuses. Basically; work more, have a chance to get something. One of those this is an SRA. Get one of those, and you can choose to be moved to another city. You don't get the choice of which, but you move. 5 coupons mean you have a select choice, not a lot of cities, but the point is that you get to choose. however, getting 10 means that you now have the choice to move to any city you want.
It took me four years to get all ten of them.
And for some reason, I choose City 8.
I've always heard about how great the City 8 was, and my friends told me that the combined were relaxed there, so I decided to use my four years of labor to relocate to the place that changed my life.
Boarding the train took awhile, but it was nothing compared to the trip. The trip took 38 hours, including multiple stops at shitty motels, shitty bathrooms, and practically nobody to talk to. however, that's the price you have to pay for freedom. Once arriving in the new city, you take a moment to breathe in. It's, beautiful. It looks like the combine didn't transform it into an industrial mess used to make more useless things for the combine, but instead, it looks like the whole point of it was to become the new Las Vegas,
The New Vegas
I pack my bags and head to my new apartment. The combine designated me to apartment 296 at the Sleeper's Resort.
I was psyched to meet my new roommates, the people who I would be staying my entire life with, coming home from work to meet with, and even play games and get drunk with.
That is how I got here, and here, is 1 in the morning at Sleeper's Resort 296th freshly knocked door.
you can hear some voices from the inside of the apartment.
"Awww shit, was it today?"
"fuck fuck fuck, just..."
"Cmon' guys! shut up!"
"... SHIT."
The door opens and a lady wearing a white shirt steps out of the room and closes the door right after her.
"Is there a problem?" She asks, with an angry tone. you notice she leans on the door, and you can't describe it, but you can tell, she totally trying her best to subtly to block the door.
"I-I was relocated here." You respond, with a nervous tone.
"Yeah. You totally were." The lady responds in a sarcastic tone. "Now beat it."
"What? b-but I was! here, check my Re-Location Coupon!"
You can't describe it, but you feel powerless. Like a kid who had just told a lie about their sister, and is trying their best to make it sound believable. then, an older looking man pokes his head through the door, and steps out, making the girl stumble back into the room a little bit.
"Listen, I'm really fucking sorry dude, we didn't know you were coming today." He says. "Shit. Here, feel free to check the place out w-while you're here, d-dude." You notice that the old dude studders in his sentences.
"Alright," you say in a tone that shows your pretty much afraid for whats going to happen next.
Entering the apartment, you see where you will spend the rest of your life. In a shithole with three grown-ups on drugs. The third one being this guy sporting another white shirt and the exact haircut as yours. He's in front of the tv, having one of his arms folded, and the other one out to scratch his chin. He quickly snaps his head to look at you. At first, you thought this guy would be the only one that you could relate to, but looking at his eyes, it's really fucking obvious he's high.
"So, is he the buyer, or, like, what."
"What the fuck" you accidentally let slip as you sit down on the red couch they have.
There is this huge silence, waiting to be broken. You just moved into a house containing fucking drug dealers.
Just one day ago, you were in a hotel, waiting SO DEARLY to move into City 8. You moved away from family, and due to combine restrictions, you can't contact them! You can't tell them about how shitty moving in was, and now, you sit on this red couch, as you watch as your four years of hard work-
"God, Clyde. Really bringing in the narcs here." says the tv-blocking man who probably had too many hits on the rec they were using prior.
"What the fuck Terry." The old man says sternly, ready to engage in a fight.
While watching this, 'thing' of a fight, the lady who was bitchy to you at the door helps you out of this situation.
"Say, do... you wanna go see where you are going to stay?
"Yeah, if it gets me away from this shit." You say. The weirdest thing is that those words just flew out of your mouth. You didn't even need to think about it, they just seeped into your mouth and you said it. No thinking about it. You pick up the bags by the door and head your way into your room.
You see the bed to the right, the cabinet to the far left, the Window on the left and a tv on a stand to the left of you. You, don't know what to say. It's like if the fighting in the background and everything was just, still. This day went by so fucking fast and probably the next thing that would happen is that the world just, died.
yet right now, you feel calm.
did somehow the shit before break you, and seeing this room made you feel, calm?
because this is without a doubt the best fucking room of all fucking time.
it's cozy, but, not too cozy, and the blue striped wallpaper brings out everything. The red bed is that type of color that you can feel warm just looking at it. The tv and its small stand are set in such a way that it feels, for lack of a better word, orgasmic. The window to the left is set as if it wanted to be a painting. Its white drapes send you back into the nostalgic likes of childhood, and the whole room just clicks together.
Before you know it, your eyes are filled with tears, and your face is facing out the window, to the dark city streets below.
"Oh shit, dude, d-don't do that." The lady says.
"Why w-what am I doing wrong?" you say in a tone that sounds exactly like sarcasm, except if you were there, you would be able to tell the difference between sarcasm, pure bliss.
"I-Its not your room, this is the guest room." She responds
"What." you respond.
"Yeah, we need this room for staying guests. B-But you could stay somewhere else!" She says
Yet again, there is an unbroken silence.
"What kind of guests." You ask in the most serious and threatening voice.
"I-It doesn't matt-"
"WHAT KIND OF GUESTS." you begin to shout. It's also in this moment that you notice that Clyde and Terry had stopped fighting, making this really awkward.
"Familyorsomekind." She blurts out really fast.
"Well, they can go SLEEP ON THE FUCKING COUCH." You shout, making the situation really awkward.
"T-That's still an option for you, y-you know..." You hear her say as if she was whimpering the whole thing out.
There's a long pause, with you realizing the room of your dreams is used for the most likely use, drugs.
Then, Terry shouts from the hall.
"You Guys done? I wanna fucking sleep and I'm tired as hell."
The bitchy lady turns up her bitchy... ness, and says, "Yeah, we're done here. This guy decided that he's sleeping with you, Terry."
"WHAT?" you say in the most surprised voice.
"Oh. What?"
"WHAT?" you say again, requiring an answer
Bitchy lady continues to be a bitch.
"You heard me."
You turn around to face Terry, and he has the weirdest face plastered upon the place where he consumes his drugs.
"Oh, and by the way, We don't have an extra mattress, so why don't you go SLEEP ON THE FLOOR."
She slams the door on her way out.
"Fuck, whatcha do to piss her off?" Terry says in a sarcastic tone.
You are super embarrassed, and you begin to question if this is real, as in, you never left the bus, and you still are sleeping.
Clyde chimes in, "Hey, you know, she was joking about the extra mattress situation, in fact, in the closet, we have a shit ton of em',"
You respond nicely to Clyde asking if he could pull them out for you, and quickly you make a mental note to avoid the bitch lady.
Oh, shit, wait, weren't you going to sleep on the couch? Shit, I-
"Well, I am excited to sleep with the new guy!" Terry says out loud.
"Wait, I-"
"Annnnnnnnnnnnddddddd here's your mattress." Says Clyde as he gives you the mattress.
"Careful, he's a heavy snorer. And that makes the night, you guys have fun!" Clyde says as he sends himself into his room.
"Alright, that has it with me, let's sleep!" Terry says in his high state of mind. This has you wondering about multiple things. First of all, why the hell are they going to sleep so fucking abruptly, once I came in, they seemed as awake as they can be, next second, they are all dying to go to sleep.
Your best guess is that this is really awkward, and they are trying to sleep-it-off, or whatever drug they were using made them tired. And why can't I sleep in the guest bed tonigh- "I SAID, LET'S GO TO BED."
Drugs, it's definitely drugs.