"You are real, aren't you? I have such real dreams very often. You might be one of them." or "I wish I could go to sleep before you leave me..." with Dreamwalker and MC maybe?
Inc: Dreamwalker, MC, many NPC Warnings: None WC: 1.8k Summary: Because the best way for a man to get your attention is to force you into a mock interview for a position you never applied to, and had no idea existed to begin with. For the plot.
The first thing that should have exposed the flaw in this design was the 13th hour on the clock. One would think that if someone were to orchestrate an entire world for another to reside in, they would be meticulous on details such as that. The only explanation is that it was an intentional oversight—or maybe he was just as tired as you were.
You squint at it subtly from where you sit in an expansive lobby area. Beyond glass walls you could see individuals moving around, some with papers in their hands, some with tablets. A woman with her hair done up in a high ponytail types at her desktop with a glazed look in her eyes. In the corner, two men and another woman appear to be gossiping about something; one of the men leans forward with his eyes wide, as though hearing something he cannot believe, and you feel a pull of curiosity as to what they may be saying. You glance back at the old wall clock again, and at that number 13. No one else seems to notice or be bothered by it. They walk on by like this is just another day in the office.
“NEXT!” A woman's sharp voice calls from a desk. She sits behind a plaque that reads ‘Secretary’ in large, bold lettering. Her official title, not her name. You look around to see that you’re the only person sitting here, and so you rise dutifully before her shrill voice can really pop your eardrums.
“Um, hi.” You’re holding a paper in your hand. A quick glance down shows it to be in the template of a resume, but the writing is all garbled and moving sluggishly across the page. Your brow furrows. “I’m here… for a job?”
The woman’s sharp blue eyes snap up at the hesitation in your voice. She looks between your face and the paper you hold in your hand before snatching the resume up. “What job?” She snaps, the sound of her chewing gum seeming to grow louder with her agitation.
Her question draws you to a stop as you look at your now empty hand. What job? You don’t remember applying to anything, let alone showing up to this corporate death with the intention of joining its ranks. Sure, you want to know what the gossip is, but that doesn’t mean you want to dedicate 8-10 hours working to get it.
“Seh…” You squint. “Security.”
The secretary lowers your paper from her face and gives you a deliberate once over. You can read the skepticism all over her features more clearly than you can read whatever is on that resume. She raises one perfectly plucked brow before tossing the resume into a drop box behind her. It vanishes with a cheerful chime, and then she rolls back to her desk before hitting a button beneath the keyboard. “Third door down to your right.”
Upon saying this, she returns to her work, leaving you standing dumbly for a few seconds before it clicks that she isn’t going to speak further. You give her a tight, polite smile before turning and following her curt directions towards your apparent interview. You have no notebook, you have no knowledge of what this company is, you have no pre-selected questions or awareness of what your own qualifications are. You’re about to raw dog this entire process, and the only thing you can do is hope your improv abilities suddenly come to fruition.
The door you stop at is a large, mahogany beast that stands easily twice your height. It’s a far cry from the glass windows and corporate misery that you’ve been wading through on the way here. Your fist raises to knock twice, and after a pause, you hear a deep voice call from within.
“Come in.”
The knob twists with ease as you nudge the door open and poke your head inside. The office space itself was sparse and clean. A black bookcase dominated one wall, while the far wall consisted entirely of a window overlooking what you might call a swirling black void. Colours occasionally flash from within, like tiny supernovas, before it recedes back to nothingness as quickly as it arrived. You gape at it for a moment in confusion until a voice clearing draws your gaze downwards. Sitting at the desk before the window is a man who is about as average and plain as a man can get. He wears a dark charcoal coloured suit, expertly tailored, and a blue tie. His wavy hair is pushed back, his lips are set to a frown, and his golden eyes watch you with a touch of impatience in their stare. “You’re letting the eyes in.”
“The…” You look back and see that the individuals behind the glass walls have all stopped to stare at you. The woman at the desktop, the three people gossiping, and even the man you had watched fighting a fax machine for ten minutes. Only the secretary continues to work with a bored expression on her face. A sharp pang of unease fills you and you step into the office, closing the door harshly as you do. Silence hovers over you both before you inch towards the spare chair at the desk and take a tentative seat. The man watches you with that same impatient stare up until you take that seat. Only then does he grab a paper next to him and raise it to give it a read.
“So.” He hums, the words leaving him in a soft tone as his gaze skims over your resume. You have no idea how he’s reading any of the jargon on there, but his eyebrow quirks upwards in interest before he drops the paper on his desk again. His lips, full and dark, curl to a polite smile. “Security.”
You stare at each other until you realize he’s waiting for you to speak, and you shift to sit up straighter. “Um, yup. Security. Graduated from…” You roll your lips and try to think of a plausible name. “Constellis Academy. Did two years of warehouse security at Pinkerton, and now I’m looking for more challenging experiences.”
Lies, lies, lies, but then again, who doesn’t lie in the job market? The man observes you with slight amusement as he lifts your resume. While he does this, you take a second to look around some more. There are no personal artifacts in his office, but you guess that this dream wouldn’t be able to make any up on the fly. You also note that he lacks a plaque like the secretary has. Maybe your mind can’t think of any name for him, either.
“How do you handle high stress situations?” The man asks, not looking up from the paper. You raise your eyebrows. God, you wish you had a walkthrough to tell you the best answers here, but you guess that you can wing something based on what the man seems like.
“I’m someone who takes a moment to assess the situation before diving right in. I like to cover all my basis to ensure that if anything goes wrong, I have a plan on how to handle it.” You blurt, channeling all the police movies your sibling used to laugh at in your childhood into this moment. The man hums before turning the resume upside down. The action makes your brow furrow and your head tilt.
“How do you handle conflict with a coworker?” He asks next, still not meeting your eyes.
“I try to see things from their perspective. Everyone has unique experiences, so to understand why they may disagree with me, I should try and understand their logic. I think working to an agreeable result is the best approach.” You glance past him towards the void again as another burst of color erupts. The man nods as if absorbing your answers and actually giving them consideration. This, you decide, is a weird ass dream. Maybe the ghosts of your months job hunting are returning to haunt you in your stressful present life. Job hunting, after all, is a lot easier to stress about than hunting your sibling in an eldritch and powered minefield.
“How do you handle conflict with your sibling?” The man asks next. Your mouth opens to reply automatically before your brain stutters to a pause. Your brow furrows again and you turn your head slightly, giving the man a sidelong glance.
“I… my sibling?” You ask, eyes narrowing slightly. The man finally sets your resume down as he clasps his hands on his desk, leaning forward a touch. His golden eyes are no longer brimming with impatience. Now, you see a touch of coldness in them that seems to leak into the air around you both.
“Yes, traveller. Your sibling. How do you handle conflict with them? How do you handle months of no responses to your texts, your memes, your calls? How do you handle the fact that they’ve dropped off the face of this earth and you’re wasting your time chasing after a ghost? Wasting my time making me constantly sweep you off my tracks?”
His words sink into your brain like fingers, digging deep and squeezing the matter tightly. Another burst of color erupts behind him, flooding the room in red, except this time the color seems to look more like a monster writhing than a nebulous burst. Your jaw works silently as you glance at your resume again. The jargon has arranged itself to spell ‘MISSING’ across the top, with a picture of your siblings smiling face beneath it. You look back up at the man's face.
“"You are real, aren't you? I have such real dreams very often. You might be one of them."
The man blinks languidly before leaning back in his seat. His hands settle down to rest on his thighs, and he tilts his head, giving you a smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes. It might even be called charming in another scenario. “So, security, right?”
His one hand rises to brush his fingers across the surface of his desk. He pushes a pen holder aside and presses his index finger down on a small, elevated panel beneath it.
“Consider yourself a person of interest, mi cariño.”
_____
You jolt awake to the smell of burning oil from the kitchens beneath your room. The distant shouting of Deadlock is accompanied by a cackle that you can only pinpoint as Helios. You remain lying in bed for a moment as your brain buffers back to life, replaying the strange, interview-esque scenario you were just dragged through. It isn’t fear that fills your heart - it’s confusion. Frankly, if someone was trying to get your attention, dragging you through the hellscape that is the employment arc is certainly not the way to do it.
You groan, rolling over in bed as the sound of Deadlock’s shouting increases alongside the burning scent of oil.
“What a fucking nightmare,” you grumble, pressing your face deeper into the sheets.













