Two hours had passed since Nica found herself trapped inside the convenience store.
At first, she had desperately searched for a way out.
She had tried opening the front door, peering through the windows, and even returning to the employee break room, hoping she could somehow undo whatever had happened to her.
None of it worked. The world outside remained shrouded in darkness, and the door to the break room refused to open no matter how hard she tried.
Eventually, she stopped.
Not because she had accepted her situation, but because panicking had gotten her nowhere.
Nica had always considered herself quick-witted.
She knew how to think on her feet, how to make do with what little she had, and how to keep moving even when life gave her every reason to give up.
Those qualities had helped her survive this far, and she wasn’t about to abandon them now.
If the strange sign was to be believed, she was a convenience store worker.
And if this place insisted on treating her as one, perhaps the safest thing to do for the time being was to play along.
It was a terrible idea, yes, she knew that much. But she had no better options right now.
So, with trembling hands and a face drained of color, Nica stationed herself behind the counter and began doing her job.
Or at least, she tried.
Three customers had entered the store since she started her shift.
The first two had appeared perfectly ordinary.
They browsed the shelves, picked out their purchases, and approached the counter as though nothing was wrong with the world.
Nica had even considered asking them for help when they first entered.
"Excuse me, there’s something wrong with this place. I think I’m trapped here. Could you please...-"
But neither customer reacted.
It wasn’t that they ignored her.
They simply seemed incapable of hearing anything she said that had nothing to do with her duties as a convenience store worker.
Whenever she attempted to explain her situation, her words might as well have been the sound of the refrigerator sounding out in the background.
Yet the moment she returned to her usual customer-service greetings, they responded as expected.
She still didn’t understand what was happening, but she had begun to suspect that this place operated according to rules she couldn’t afford to break.
Then came the third customer.
An old man with a hunched back entered the store, shuffled through the aisles, and walked in a complete circle before quietly leaving without purchasing anything.
There had been nothing particularly threatening about his behavior.
He had not spoken to her, approached the counter, or even glanced in her direction.
And yet, something about him had made the hair on Nica’s arms stand on end.
Perhaps it was the way he moved...?
Or perhaps it was the fact that he had entered a convenience store in the middle of an endless darkness just to wander around before leaving again...
In fact maybe she was simply becoming too frightened to trust her own judgment.
Either way, she had been relieved when the door closed behind him.
Nica tried to convince herself that things weren’t as bad as they seemed. After all, she was still alive and she had not been attacked.
The first two customers had been ordinary enough, and the old man had left without incident.
Maybe, if she followed the rules, she could survive long enough to find a way home.
It wasn’t much of a plan, but perhaps the was the only way to survive this place...?
She continued working, keeping one eye on the entrance and the other on the shelves.
Every little sound made her tense, and she had to fight the urge to look over her shoulder whenever the refrigerators shut close or whenever the lights flickered randomly.
She was beginning to understand just how exhausting fear could be.
Then...
Ding!
The familiar chime of the entrance rang out.
Nica flinched so violently that her hand struck the counter.
"Ah!"
She immediately looked toward the door.
Nobody was there...?
The glass doors stood motionless, and the darkness beyond them remained as still as ever.
Yet she could have sworn she had heard the entrance open...
Her heart began to pound.
Then she saw something move.....
Something... was crawling... on the floor.....?
It was a woman...
Her limbs dragged across the tiles as she moved toward the back of the shelves, her body bent at a very strange and painful angle.
Nica could not make out her face from where she stood, but the sight of a grown woman crawling through a convenience store was disturbing enough.
Nica held her breath.
The woman continued crawling until she disappeared behind the shelves at the far end of the store.
Nica stared at the spot where she had vanished, too frightened to move.
She wanted to call out, to ask whether the woman needed help, but the rules flashed through her mind.
ONLY SERVE CUSTOMERS WHO APPEAR TO BE NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS.
Was that woman even human?
Definitely not...
Before she could decide what to do, another sound came from behind her.
Creak.
The employee break room door was opening.
Nica’s head snapped toward it.
She had tried opening that door herself less than an hour ago and it had not budged.
Now, it was slowly swinging inward, revealing the darkness beyond.
Her breathing stopped as she saw that someone was stepping out.
A tall man stepped through the doorway, dressed in a dark-ish blue suit.
His dark hair was neatly combed to the back sides, and a prominent scar surrounded his right eye, whose pupil was an unsettling shade of white.
He stopped just inside the room, his eyes quietly scanning the convenience store.
Then he looked at Nica.
She froze, trembling under his gaze.