Chapter 4 – Everyday life seems to… tingle?

The thought that this really wasn’t going to be his day, seemed to hold true. Because the first thing that Michael had to listen to, after arriving at work, was a scolding. His instructor asked him, if him coming late would happen more often now and told him, that this was leaving no good impression of him on his direct superiors. Well this didn’t really come as a surprise for Michael though, as he didn’t come late for the first time. He didn’t even really pay attention to the scolding he received. No, he was far more occupied by thoughts about what happened this morning. He thought about how it was even possible that he was stuck to the ceiling of his room. Even if he knew that the weird dream he had that night was somehow connected to it, he still didn’t know how it managed to do it. That made him quite curious.

“Hey, are you even listening?! I’m still talking to you!”, Michael was thrown back into reality by his instructor, who seemed to have noticed that Michael wasn’t really listening to his scolding “You know, people expect us to be in the office at 8! We’re here, working at in the IT-Department of a big company, so a lot of people rely on us if they have any problems with their computers. Please try to be on time in the future.”

Michael was only listening to him half-heartedly, since he suddenly felt a soft tingling sensation deep inside him. Well, after a short while, he simply decided to ignore it and actually start working now. Michael was learning to be a system administrator in the headquarters of a company that had over a thousand employees. His instructor, Tom Bill, a man in his early forties, was usually a pretty relaxed person, but that was only so long as everything went according to plan. In cases like this, where Michael was late though, he could get pretty angry.

Anyway, He decided that he should switch the topic of their conversation and start his work while doing that. What should he talk with his instructor about though? Michael started thinking about it. In cases like this, where he had to strike up a conversation, while there really wasn’t anything to talk about, he had trouble starting the conversation. To say it in another way, Michael wasn’t really good at starting or holding a conversation. So he thought about what they could talk about. Whilst doing so, Michael looked out of the window of his office and saw that mysterious object that was still there, high in the sky, still the same as when it appeared the day before. But that was it! He could talk to Mr. Bill about that thing! Well… he was sure that neither of them knew anything more about it, then what was visible from where they were. Still he decided to talk about that while working.

“So, Mr. Bill… what do you think about that thing up there? We were on break in school yesterday when it appeared and a friend of mine was so scared by it, he literally dragged me back into the school building with him. How was it here?”

Michael simply started talking, to somehow start the conversation. He called his instructor by his last name, simply out of respect for someone older than him. This was simply how Michael was raised and he stuck to it most of the time. It was kind of awkward, when there was no response from his instructor for nearly ten seconds. But at last, he replied to him, which made Michael’s awkward feeling go away, though not completely. Well it could also be that Michael simply confused the tingling sensation he felt with awkwardness.

“Well, here it was mostly the same. Quite a few of us got a bit scare and for safety reasons, those people that weren’t necessarily needed for the day were sent home. Though I had to stay, since it would’ve been pretty bad if I went home and things would stop working. But it was quieter than usual, which was a good thing.” Luckily Mr. Bill seemed to get quite into the conversation and quickly hopped on to the topic of the mysterious flying object. Though it seemed like he knew just as much as Michael about it, so all they could really do, was speculating about what it was, what it wanted here and whether it was dangerous or anything. But there was indeed something that Michael wanted to know from his instructor.

“So, uhm… if everyone got sent home after it appeared, how come that they are all here again today and didn’t stay at home?” was what Michael asked Mr. Bill.

“Well, that’s because nothing happened after all this time. Even though it suddenly appeared, it has yet to do anything else. Well except for that light that suddenly appeared. Though I don’t think that anything happened when the light blinded us.”

Well, that was not entirely unexpected for Michael. Though he didn’t actively follow the news, he was sure that he would’ve noticed it one way or another. It would’ve at least shown as a popup on his smartphone, of that, Michael was sure. But that there wasn’t any kind of news at all was… weird, to say the least. Wouldn’t there normally be Politicians appearing on TV and give interviews, where they talk about how they will investigate what that thing is and stuff? Wouldn’t there be tons of articles about the appearance of a strange and mysterious object in the news and stuff? Yet there was nothing. Nothing at all. Now that Michael thought about it like that, he started to get suspicious. Just what was going on right now? And just why was it, that nobody seemed to be disturbed by it, even he himself, as he just went to work normally. Wouldn’t one normally be more cautious with something that was so big and looked so ominous in the sky? The more he thought about it, the more suspicious and curious he got about this whole situation. Something was definitely wrong, but what was it? He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. And anyway, he had to get back to working again, if he didn’t want another round of scolding.

The first half of Michael’s workday went by without anything big happening, though this made the day pretty boring for him and if not for his smoke breaks, he would’ve accidentally fallen asleep after a few hours. The only thing that even came to close to something big, was that one of the employees of the company called and told them that the screen of his computer wasn’t working correctly. That it always kept shutting off and on. This, though was only because the power cord wasn’t plugged in correctly.

Calls like these always made Michael want to just end the call, since sometimes, the problems described where just ridiculous. Though Mr. Bill told him to just remain calm in such a situation and that there was no helping it, since quite a few employees were completely clueless about electronic devices, computers especially.

After around four hours, Michael went into a Lunchbreak. He was actually quite hungry, since the last thing he had eaten, had been the breakfast he had in school yesterday, before the mysterious object appeared in the sky. And because he was feeling so hungry getting a bit annoyed at the tingling sensation, that was still there, he was getting a bit impatient with thinking about what he should buy for lunch. Deciding, that he really didn’t want to wait long for his food, he simply went to get himself some fast-food, even though, he was usually not that big of a fan of that cheap stuff.

When he arrived at his destination, he saw that it was quite full. Once again, suspicions about how the day went by like any other, even though after yesterday, this shouldn’t be the case at all. Michael’s stomach was growling, while Michael was stuck in his suspicions, and pulled him out of those kind of thoughts. For now, he decided to simply eat something. That thing in the sky could wait. Food was way more important to him right now.

Michael let out a satisfied sigh. He had eaten way too much, so much even, that he felt like he gained quite a bit of weight. But it was definitely worth it. His stomach wasn’t growling anymore, though there was still a tingling sensation inside him. While thinking about what it could be and hoping, that he wasn’t about to fall ill, he made his way back to work.

The second half of his workday went by just as eventless, as the first half. Nothing major happened. Just when Michael and his instructor Mr. Bill where about to finish up and close their office, one of their colleagues came running to them. Still trying to catch his breath, he started to tell them something.

“Y… *pant* You have to *pant* see this!” still gasping for air, he pointed outside, his hand still shaking because of exhaustion.

“Calm down first. Then tell us what you’re talking about.” Despite having a curious look in his eyes, Mr. Bill still told their colleague to calm down before everything else.

After a short moment, their colleague, who went by the name Mr. Rott, finally caught his breath again and started talking in entire sentences again. Though his excitement left no doubt that he had big news to tell. “You have to come out and see this! There is a convoy sent by the Bundeswehr driving through the city. It seems like they are about to make an announcement regarding that thing in the sky! …Though I don’t think that they will announce anything too bad, since nothing bad has happened until now. I am sure they just want to clarify something.”

As Mr. Rott finished talking, his excitement dropped to a level, where it just seemed like he was talking about an everyday matter. Though Michael was sure, that this wasn’t supposed to be such an everyday matter. Why would they send out the military in such a case? Though Michael couldn’t quite put his finger on why this wouldn’t be a normal matter. Wasn’t it just, that the military never got sent out before to make announcements? Sure they could do that all the time if they wanted to. They just never did. Michael found nothing out of the ordinary as he thought about it. Though when he reached that conclusion, the tingling sensation inside him became stronger, becoming quite a nuisance to him at this point. Shaking himself in a try to get rid of that feeling, he started to walk outside to see what they convoy was going to announce and his instructor, together with Mr. Rott started following him.

When they arrived outside, Michael was pretty surprised by the amount of people he saw on the streets. It was a first time for Michael to see so many people gathered in the streets. When he looked around for a bit, his gaze quickly fell upon the convoy his colleague was talking about. It was a fairly large one. At least that’s what Michael thought, though he had never seen a military convoy before, so Michael’s opinion about the size of it was pretty much worthless.

It took a few more minutes until the convoy was close to where he was standing and Michael could hear what the military had to announce. “To all the citizens, living in our country, here speaks the Bundeswehr. Under orders of the Ministry of Defense, we are to travel to every city in the country, that has a population of more than 10.000 people living in it and make a statement regarding the mysterious flying object, with an, as of yet unknown origin, that appeared in the sky, yesterday, at the tenth of April at approximately 1:00 o’clock pm, Central European Time. With the knowledge we possess as of now, there is nothing dangerous to be expected from it. So with that being said. Everyone should just continue with what they were doing. Please do not worry about anything. The government has it under control. End of the announcement. Everyone, have a good day.”

Akuiya

So just to clarify things a bit: the german equivalent of the army is called the Bundeswehr. the direct translation would have been "armed forces" which is kinda random, so i just stuck with the german name for it. And for those of you wondering when "it" is going to happen...

Spoiler

don't worry my friends... i got your backs ;) ... it wont be along until he becomes she. I just dont want to rush anything C:

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and the thing with the not-so-tech-savvy-employee... sadly a very common occurance in that trade. You just want to facepalm when someone like that calls ;D. Anyways... I hope you enjoyed the chapter. It's around 2100 words long this time c:. And as always: if you find typos or have suggestions, please don't hesitate to share. feedback is always welcome :D.

And thanks to my supporter: Ritsuka Morgan