"Hey, Damon."
A voice. Distorted. Deep.
It echoed in his ears, bouncing off nothing and swallowed by the darkness. There was nothing around him. Only himself and his confused consciousness, drifting in the void.
"Hey, are you alright?"
That same voice again. But this time it slowly smoothed out into something fuller. Warmer. Manly. Human.
The darkness retreated. White light. Astigmatic flashes. A blurry figure. Then he felt his cheek being slapped. Not hard, but gently.
"Hey, kid. Wake up!"
He knew that voice.
"B-Boss J-Jay?"
The figure before him unfolded into a form. A man, bald, around his fifties, fat-faced with a single strand of hair on his chin.
He was crouched over Damon, still gently patting his cheek, coaxing him back to the living.
"Hey, kid. You alright?"
Damon snapped back to life like a bucket of cold water had been thrown straight at his face.
"B-Boss Jay!"
Then it hit him.
'Shit. Did I just fall asleep?'
'B-but How?
He tried to remember what happened but his head was aching so bad he couldn't piece anything together. All he could feel was a stinging pain all around his head, as if being punctured by a thousand needles.
Still wincing, he dropped his head into a deep bow.
"Sorry, Boss Jay!!" he said, full conviction behind every syllable.
He knew he'd messed up. Falling asleep on the job was already bad enough. But getting caught by the boss himself? That was a different level of disaster.
He had nothing to say for himself. No excuse worth making. All he could do was bow and pray—pray that today wasn't the day he got fired.
But lucky for him, it was the opposite of his unwanted thoughts.
His boss, Jay, let out a long exhale.
"You scared the hell out of me, kid." Jay muttered, pressing a hand to his own chest.
Honestly, he thought Damon was about to die. The kid was pale and shivering on the backroom floor when he found him.
"Are you alright?" He asked Damon. "I mean look at your face—you're all drained. Your eyes are dull and sunken. You're all skin and bones. Have you been eating or what?"
Then he slapped his own forehead.
"—or maybe it's all that energy drinks I saw piling up at the counter?"
A deep exhale.
"Look, kid. I like you. You're a good worker." Jay said, scratching the back of his head. "So please, for the love of everything, don't make me send you to the hospital. You know how much that paperwork is? I'd rather not."
He then reached into his jacket and pulled out a bottle of water, shoving it toward Damon.
"Here. Drink this."
Damon caught it and dipped his head. "S-sorry and t-thank you, Boss Jay."
"Don't mention it."
Damon cracked it open and drank. His boss, meanwhile, turned and walked out of the backroom, still talking over his shoulder.
"And hey—take care of yourself, alright? You're no good to me half-dead."
Damon followed behind him, wiping his mouth. "Y-yes, Boss. It won't happen again."
Damon stepped out of the backroom.
And stopped.
The store was a mild mess—nothing catastrophic, but enough to notice. A few products on the floor, shelves slightly out of place, like something had rattled through the night and left its fingerprints on everything.
But outside was a whole different story.
Through the glass door, the street looked wrecked. Garbage piled along the gutters. Fallen trees blocking the road. Broken branches scattered across the flooded asphalt like the storm had thrown a tantrum and left without cleaning up.
His boss crouched down, picking up a fallen product from the floor, clicking his tongue as he slotted it back onto the shelf.
"Jeez." He exhaled. "The storm last night was really something else, huh?"
Damon stared out through the glass, bottle still in hand. A storm? He squinted, trying to fish out a memory. But nothing came. Just a low thrumming in his ears and a creeping vertigo, like the blood was slowly draining from his brain. He was about to pass out—but he immediately smacked both sides of his temples, crawling himself back to his senses.
CLAP!
Then exhaled hard.
His boss glanced over at him. "Are you oka—"
He stopped mid-sentence. Watched Damon for a moment. Then exhaled through his nose, long and heavy, the way a man exhales when he's already made a decision.
He scratched the side of his head, pulled out his phone, and dialed.
"Can you come to the shop?"
A pause.
"Yes."
"I need some assistance here."
"No more questions, dumbass!"
Then he hung up.
He grabbed a paper bag from behind the counter and turned to Damon, holding it out.
"Here. Take this."
Damon stared at it. "W-what's this?"
"Leftovers from last night. Just take it."
Damon blinked. "I-I appreciate it, but I can't take that. I'm already so much in debt with all your help, Boss Jay. A-and I still need to clean all this mess—"
"Damon."
One word. Quiet.
But it landed with enough weight to cut him off mid-sentence.
"Just take it."
"But—"
"Damon." His boss said his name once more and gave him a look. Firm but not unkind.
"I called Pio. He'll handle it. What's more important right now is you getting some rest."
"Look at yourself." He gestured at Damon from head to toe, expression caught somewhere between concern and exasperation. "You look like someone who hasn't slept in a week and forgot what food tasted like. Frankly, you look like a drug addict."
Damon dipped his head, somewhere between embarrassed and grateful. "So—"
"Don't say sorry." His boss cut him off before the word could even fully form. "Just take the bag and go home. That's all I'm asking."
Damon closed his mouth. Took the bag. Bowed his head. "...Thank you, Boss Jay."
"Don't mention it." His boss waved him off, already turning back toward the shelves.
Then, almost as an afterthought, he held up a finger.
"Oh — one more thing. You're off tomorrow and the next three days. I've got a relative's burial on Wednesday, so I won't be around."
He glanced back at Damon. "But don't worry. All four days are paid."
Damon clutched the paper bag and bowed his head one final time.
"Thank you, Boss Jay. Really."
His boss just waved him off, already crouching back down to sort the mess on the floor. "Aight. Now you should go home and take your rest."
Damon lingered for a second, watching his boss quietly pick up fallen products and arrange displaced shelves. He wasn't the warmest man. Wasn't the type to throw around big words or grand gestures. But he was good person. And right now, that meant everything to him.
Damon exhaled softly and pushed through the glass door.
"I'll go now, Boss Jay."
"Aight, take care."
Outside, the morning air hit him immediately. Cool, damp, heavy with the leftover smell of last night's storm.
The city was slowly waking up around the wreckage it had been left with. A few early risers picking their way through the flooded gutters, a cab crawling carefully around a fallen branch.
He adjusted the paper bag under his arm and started walking.
It wasn't long before he got home.
He dropped the paper bag on the small table, kicked off his shoes, and collapsed onto the mattress face first.
'Man, my head aches.'
Then he remembered. Thermo class. This afternoon.
"I still need to attend my thermo class this afternoon. I want to skip it. But—"
He never finished the sentence.
Sleep took him.
But it wasn't a restful sleep.
It came in flashes.
The backroom. The fluorescent light. The wooden box rattling violently on top of the colas.
Then the lid blowing open.
Then the creature—dark, phlegm-like, amorphous, legs that shouldn't exist—lunging across the floor faster than his brain could process.
Then his own mouth. Forced open. Choking.
Then darkness.
He jolted awake, gasping, drenched in cold sweat, one hand clutching the front of his shirt.
He sat there in the dim morning light of his small room, chest heaving, staring at nothing.
'...What was that.'
He pressed a hand to his forehead. The needle-like headache was still there, dull and persistent, sitting right behind his eyes.
He exhaled.
'...Just a dream.'
Then a voice.
'Not a dream. You didn't dream, kid.'
Damon froze.
'A voice?'
He swiftly looked around. Left to right. Up and down. To the windows. To the door. But not even a trace of shadow. Just his small, narrow room staring back at him.
Then the same voice again.
'Look here. In front of you. In the mirror.'
He followed it. His eyes slowly drifted to the mirror hanging on the wall across from his bed.
Silence. Fear.
He wished he hadn't looked.
He wished he didn't followed.
From the mirror, he saw himself.
Same tired eyes. Same worn face.
But the other half was wrong.
A vertical divide ran straight down the middle—one side flesh, familiar, his. The other swallowed entirely in shadow. Dark, living, clinging to his skin. It moved. Breathed. Like it had its own consciousness. Like it was looking back at him with just as much awareness as he was looking at it.
Two halves. One face.
And the shadow side was smiling.
Wide. Too wide.
Damon's mouth fell open.
His vision tunneled. The room tilted.
Then his eyes rolled back.
And he hit the mattress.
Out cold.
TBC...