I tried to cast my thoughts about the gnomish girl from my mind, as the elevator opened to the 3rd floor. I stepped onto the administrative floor. Originally, I was going to go to the Alexandrium, but I decided it was probably better to requisition the new pass first. I'd probably end up stuck there for the better part of the hour - better to just get it out of the way, I told myself. Besides, it left me with some idle time to clear my head.
The administrative floor was unlike much of the rest of the building, a place where the dull greys were instead replaced with sleek whites, designed to look chic in comparison to the otherwise draining appearance of the rest of the place. It was a strange place. Since the building didn't service anybody except those already trapped in nightmarish jobs here, I'd always wondered why they made such an effort to make the administrative floor look so nice - so separate from the rest of this quotidian hellscape.
I guess that was another question I'd never truly find an answer to.
In the middle of the room sat a touch-screen ticketing kiosk with a sleek design and a set of options on it. Staring down at the glaring lights of the screen, a massive crack ran the length of the screen's left side - a pulsating, flickering fissure tearing through the middle of the "Request Replacement ID" option. It wasn't very busy here, and so instead I approached the office desk, wandering up to desk number 5 of 8 - each of them staffed, each of them serving no-one.
"Hello?" I asked the older woman sitting behind the desk.
As she sat there, she barely moved her eyes from the screen as she answered with monotone indignation.
"You have to go through the machine, miss," she said. "I can't help you unless you go through the machine."
"But there's nobody here?" I inquired.
"You have to go through the machine," she repeated.
I groaned, staring back at the kiosk, before turning back toward it out of resignation. Wandering over to the machine, I pressed the Request Replacement ID option, and as I did - a small ticket printed out from the machine. "I349," it read. This place was keen to reduce everything to just a number.
Sitting in a chair against my wall, I crossed my legs as I picked up a brochure from the side table. Standing on the front of the brochure, I could see Dalton's grinning face staring back at me, with that arrogant beaming smile of his. A sparse green hill sat beneath a bright golden sky, the only thing brighter than the sky being the shimmer of Dalton's perfectly whitened teeth, his enamel glistening beneath the sunlight. Written at the bottom of the brochure was the company name and slogan - both penned with immaculate gilded calligraphy.
"Isekai Incorporated - Creating truly memorable experiences," it read.
Those words made me want to vomit more than the Inspeculators ever could.
As I flipped over the page, I briefly read some of the text on the rear. Perusing the brochure, it felt like staring into a whole other world, one that had departed from reality as it chased idealistic delusion - weaving an idyllic fantasy as it perverted the concept of language to whitewash the horrors that this place was built upon.
"Here at Isekai Incorporated, we create immersive and memorable content that aims to provide unique experiences to Immortals. Our expert team of Reincarnators are capable of rendering the emotive and vivid world of the mortal condition in stunning detail, capturing the very essence of what you've been searching for. Discover a new world, new feelings, and..."
I stopped reading. I couldn't stand the corporate zealotry of it, plastering over truth itself for the sake of their pitiless creed, more hellbent on selling an ideal than showing the reality. Seated amid the stifling silence of the waiting room, I tossed the brochure on the side-table as I waited for my number to be called out. Sitting, watching, waiting... an odd malaise unnerved me as I sat there, indefinitely awaiting some announcement that seemingly might never come. I looked across the room. The clerks sat at empty desks, serving nobody as they stared blankly at their computers. I could see how they hated it, just as much as I did, and yet - bound by the shackles of protocol - they were forced to wait, just as I was.
"I349 to Counter 7," the announcer said.
I stared down at my ticket, not that I needed to. Gripping the ticket in my hand, I stood up as I wandered toward the 7th desk. I was something of a stranger to these people. I approached at the call of my barcode. I had ceased to be Malarie here. To them, I was I349. I felt as if, in this place, I had ceased utterly to be a human being. Perhaps I had. As I approached the counter, an elderly man sat opposite me - at least seventy or older, with a wrinkled face and greying hair that hadn't quite fallen out - yet seemed awful close to it.
"You need a new ID, I hear?" He rasped, straining his eyes to focus on me.
"Mhmm," I replied. "I need a replacement, the last one broke in the washing machine."
"Oh yes," he said. "I've done something like that, many-a-time. Well, we'll just get you punched into this system here and have you made right-as-rain in no time."
"I'd appreciate that," I replied.
"First of all, could you give me your ID?" The man said.
"My ID?" I said. "But I came here to get a new ID?"
"We need to enter you into the system to get you a new ID," the man said. "I'm afraid if we can't scan you in, we can't get you an ID."
I was shocked. The stupidity of it was laughable, and yet, there was genuine sincerity upon his face. The old man was telling the truth, at least from what I could gather. It was circular logic, but in this world where nothing was designed to make sense, and everything was designed to make misery, I guess it made as much sense as everything else in this place.
"You can't be serious," I murmured under my breath.
