Cecil had now gone twenty five hours without sleep. Three of them had been spent packing his entire life into the back of his old pickup truck, twenty-one had been spent driving across several states, and one had been dedicated solely to finding a road that his map insisted should exist but that he had obviously been too tired to find the first five tries.

At long last, he was finally here: Night Vale Community Radio. The radio station was the entire reason he had packed up what little he had to his name and spent most of the last day driving to parts of the U.S. that he had never seen before. This was his newest place of employment, and he couldn't wait to throw himself into work.

Presumed place of employment, Cecil reminded himself as he pushed open one of the doors and went inside the building. And what perfect luck, there was someone right inside of the lobby, looking up at one of the ceiling tiles. It was a younger man with bright red hair and a badge clipped to his shirt collar that read INTERN: CHAD 2.

"Good morning," Cecil smiled. "I'm Cecil. I believe I should have a meeting with Mr. Rout?"

Chad didn't respond. He didn't look down from the tile at all. Cecil glanced up at it, half expecting a spider or even a lizard—this was the desert, after all—but there was nothing. Not even a water stain.

"Uhm… hello?" Cecil tried again. "Chad, right?"

At the sound of his name, Chad blinked once. Then he blinked rapidly, tearing his gaze down from the ceiling to instead look at Cecil.

"Oh, hello!" Chad smiled. "You must be Cecil. I'm Chad! It's nice to meet the Voice."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Cecil grinned. "I was told there was one last interview thing I had to pass before I would know if I actually got the job or not."

"One last…" Chad looked confused for a second before realization struck him, "Oh, the test! I completely forgot! Crap, oh, management is going to be so mad…"

Chad's gaze traveled to their right and he noticeably paled. Cecil had never actually seen someone pale so drastically before, and he followed Chad's gaze expecting to see something absolutely horrible—but it was a completely normal hallway with a door at the far end. The door had a plaque that read MANAGEMENT on it, and there was a red envelope half sticking out of the crack at the bottom.

"Oh, man, a red envelope…" Chad actually gulped. "I'm so screwed…"

"Mr. Rout seemed pretty nice," Cecil tried to reassure him. "I don't think he'd get mad over one small misstep."

"One small misstep!" Chad's eyebrows furrowed in dismay, "Oh, but this is a big one. I should have already had Carlos here!"

"Carlos?" Cecil repeated, eager for more information. "Is he the head honcho around here?"

Chad shook his head, "Look, I think I can save us both if I just get him here as soon as possible. Can you follow me?"

The intern didn't actually wait for Cecil to agree. Chad started walking down the hall to their left, away from the door he seemed so afraid of.

Cecil knew he would probably be better off just going straight to management and introducing himself, but he could remember his summer as an intern and how terrified he had been to mess things up, so he followed Chad instead. He would do what he could to try and make things easier for him.

Chad made a left down another hall and stopped abruptly at a door labeled SUPPLY CLOSET. When he opened the door, Cecil could see it was a supply closet. There were shelves on both sides of the wall with various cleaning supplies. A wet floor sign and a large roll-able mop bucket took up most of the room on the floor. There was barely enough room for one man to stand in there, let alone the both of them.

But then Chad reached in and pulled the chain to turn on the light and the room became illuminated. Where before Cecil had seen what was obviously a supply closet, now he saw that it was actually a much bigger rectangular room. There was a table set right in the middle of the room with two chairs facing each other, a fake blue plant—was that a person hidden behind it?—with large leaves, and an old radio sitting on a little stand against the wall on the left. The entire back wall was littered with symbols he couldn't make heads or tails of.

For a long, ponderous moment, Cecil didn't know what to think. The person standing behind the fake plant was wearing a tight, leather balaclava and was clad completely in black. There was a metallic smell in the air, as if the symbols that looked like they were written in blood were actually written in blood.

And then he realized what must be happening, almost giving himself away with a laugh. It was all so done up, executed perfectly!

It wasn't the first time he had been hazed for being the newbie, but at least this one hadn't resulted in him being blindfolded and shoved in a trunk, so it was already turning out much better than the time in college had. He wasn't quite sure how they had pulled off the illusion trick to make the room actually look like a supply closet in the dark. Projections of some sort? He would have to ask when the whole thing was over.

"I'm going to contact Carlos, can you wait in here while I do?" Chad looked nervously over his shoulder.

Cecil had to give it to him: he was really committed to his part.

"It's not a problem," Cecil assured, going and taking the seat furthest from the door.

It was a strategic choice, putting his back to the balaclava person. It would be much easier to pretend he actually hadn't seen them if he couldn't see them at all anymore; after all, he was nowhere near as good an actor as Chad.

Half an hour later, Chad came back in the room with a glass full of a green looking substance. Cecil peered into it, trying to decide if the consistency was more like a smoothie or yogurt.

"Cactus eye juice," Chad rushed out. "Good for hydration in this awful heat!"

He left before Cecil could even thank him. Cecil stared after him, and then looked back at his drink. He sniffed it cautiously and smiled to himself—petrichor. He tilted it just enough to get a lick. He wasn't sure how to describe the taste of a cactus, but the bursts of sharp flavor made him think of their spikes. There was also just a hint of saltiness.

Cecil hummed to himself. He never would have thought that cacti juice would be so delicious, he was learning so many things about the desert already!

A little later, the door opened and one of the most handsome men Cecil had ever seen entered the room. He had perfect caramel skin and gloriously thick, dark hair that had a dignified, if premature, touch of grey at his temples. He was wearing one of those white lab coats, and Cecil had never thought of them as flattering before, but it really suited this man. The only other interesting thing about him was the bright orange briefcase he was carrying.

Because he was weak, Cecil allowed himself one second of imaging his hands tangled in those wonderful locks, and then he blinked the image away, stood up, and put on his most charming smile.

"Hi, I'm Cecil." Cecil held out his hand to shake, "You must be Carlos!"

"Today I must," the beautiful man agreed.

He stared at Cecil's hand long enough that it became awkward. The silence stretched on and Cecil lowered his arm, wiping his suddenly sweaty palm on his khaki pants.

Never one to stay silent for long, Cecil forged on. "Chad didn't really tell me what your role here is, and Hank—sorry, Mr. Rout—didn't mention anyone else who worked here. What do you do?"

Cecil hoped he hadn't just messed up. Calling a potential boss by their first name was normal where he came from, but Night Vale could be more traditional. The little game they were playing with him was unnerving him, and it was making him forget his manners.

Luckily, Carlos didn't react at all. He just opened his briefcase and pulled out a clipboard and pen, taking a moment to rifle through the papers.

"I suppose your idea of things would probably label me as a scientist." Carlos finally said, "I am here to make sure you're compatible with our little community. To do that, I need a small sample of your blood."

Cecil almost smiled in sheer relief. They could try to dress it up all they liked, but he knew now that this was a drug test.

Carlos glanced over Cecil's shoulder, where he knew that balaclava person was hiding. He spoke loudly and deliberately, "We have some paperwork to go over before I can take your blood, and as you are new here and do not yet have the approved stamp to sign things with, the usage of a pen is allowed in this instance."

The clipboard was pushed over to Cecil's side of the table and he grabbed it up immediately. There were multiple pages and Cecil bit his lip, wondering if he should just sign and get it over with, but then the little voice in the back of his head that sounded just like his sister started to speak up and he resigned himself to reading every last word.

This, just as with everything else so far, was very thorough. He was honestly very impressed. Whoever had wrote up these papers had made it seem like they were actually legally binding, with clauses to protect him so that his blood was not used in: rituals, regardless of whether their outcome was meant to be good or bad; drinks; mind control of the blood or the owner of the blood; summonings, regardless of whether their outcome was meant to be good or bad; the opening of doors; the making of homunculi; or the making of a super crop of invisible corn that would out rival a John Peters' crop.

"This all looks to be in order," Cecil tried not to snicker as he signed and dated at the bottom of the last page.

When he looked up, he realized Carlos had been busy taking more things out of his briefcase. There was now a needle, a mortar and pestle, a scroll that looked close to disintegrating, a liquid that shone like moonlight in a small stoppered bottle, and a mason jar of sand sitting on the table.

"Excellent," Carlos didn't even look at him, too busy pouring the silvery liquid into the jar of sand and shaking it up. "Have you consumed anything of Night Vale?"

Knowing he wouldn't be seen, Cecil rolled his eyes, tiring of this little game.

"Yes, Chad got me some cacti juice."

"Cactus eye."

"That's what I said."

"No," Carlos raised his head and enunciated clearly: "Cactus eye. Well, the tears to be specific. We've gotten much better about not having to take the whole eye."

"I guess that explains the salty taste!" Cecil forced himself to laugh.

Really, this was all getting to be a bit much. The only thing he could think of was that this was going to be the first segment on the air that he did—a good laugh at how they had messed so thoroughly with the outsider.

Or maybe one of those prank shows? He tried to glance around without being too obvious about it, looking for a hidden camera.

Carlos finished shaking up the silvery liquid and the sand mixture, pouring a small amount of it into the mortar. It immediately turned a dark black and smelled pleasantly of lavender and oranges. He grabbed the scroll and ripped off a couple of pieces, sprinkling it into the grainy substance in the mortar. He used the pestle to grind everything together, releasing more and more of that lavender scent until the oranges disappeared entirely.

"Alright," Carlos set the mortar down with a definitive click. "Roll up your sleeve."

Cecil rolled up the sleeve of his left arm, lying his forearm out on the table and making a fist to help the vein pop. He turned his head away as Carlos leaned over his arm, not wanting to see the needle go in. He could still hear his blood filling the reservoir, but it was over in a moment.

Cecil looked back at Carlos just as the man held the reservoir filled with his blood up to the light, staring at it with wide eyes and an even wider smile.

"You have beautiful blood," Carlos complimented.

That really should not make Cecil want to blush. He bit his tongue and pressed down on the little spot the needle had entered, trying to decide how much energy it would take up to be angry. Carlos hadn't even used one of those little sanitary pads to wipe his arm beforehand!

But the problem was that Cecil was tired. He had spent the last day awake just to get here, but it was more than that. It was all the things he didn't want to think about, too, and it was easier just to go along with the hazing or the prank TV show or whatever it was because being angry would just be harder. He was too tired to be angry anymore.

So he kept his mouth shut and watched as Carlos placed a drop of his blood in the mortar. Two drops. Three drops.

The black grainy substance in the mortar began to undulate, quivering and wriggling this way and that. It turned purple, expanding in the mortar like dough might in a bowl, little bubbles forming on the surface. The first bubble popped with the soft sound of a distant scream, and then another bubble popped with another scream, and then another and another.

The radio turned on with a loud blip of static and it made Cecil jump.

"The City Council announces the opening of a new dog park at the corner of Earl and Summerset, near the Ralphs."

Was that his voice? Had those been his screams? Where did they get his voice? Where did they—

" —Do not approach them. Do not approach the dog park— "

The purple mixture began to smoke, yellow tendrils curling into the air—

" —not look for any period of time at the hooded figures. The dog park will not harm you. "

The mixture began to glow violently, growing, expanding, and Cecil tossed an arm up to cover his eyes as the light bore into them and then there was a loud POP as the mixture gave in and exploded and Cecil could feel a small splatter that landed on his hand burning him, branding him—

The radio turned off with another harsh blip of static. The room fell silent.

"Cecil…"

Cautiously, Cecil lowered his arm. When he realized the bright light had faded, he peeked one eye open slowly and then the other, staring down at the table in horror. The substance had exploded over the table in an almost ellipse-like shape, with the majority of the goop landing in a weird heap in the center of the ellipse. It was still smoking, and the mortar had melted into a sad stone crumble.

And Carlos was staring at him with an enraptured expression, "You're perfect, Cecil. Perfect for Night Vale."

Cecil stared at him. He didn't know what to say or what to do. He didn't know what to think. His mind felt like it was buzzing, humming, like the static of the radio was filling every last corner.

Idly, he rubbed the small bit of goop that had landed on his hand off. His eyes returned back to the rest of it that had landed on the table. Something unnerved him about the shape. What was it? The curve of the ellipses, the different levels of the substance in the middle? There was way more of the mixture than he thought made sense. Too much. Was it still growing?

"Cecil?"

"Is this-" Cecil's voice cracked. He had to swallow once, twice. "Is this going to be a segment for my first show, then? You guys really went all out for this prank."

"Fascinating…" Instead of giving up the charade, Carlos just looked even more besotted. He reached across the table and put a hand over the one that Cecil was still scratching at, "Do you want to go on a date?"

Cecil looked down at his hand, but his gaze went back to the purple goop on the table. He realized all at once what the shape reminded him of, what had been making his skin prickle.

It was an eye.

And it was looking back.