✧ ————— ⋆ ❝ you wait for the lady to be out of her office. you follow her footsteps in your mind (you've been here before, both with && without intention) halfway to the waiting room when you slip inside. the room is so quiet, echoing timelines of ruin. without a word, you unzip your spacesuit && remove something from within its depths. a vented cube of plastic, with a wheel that turns && a small mammal that peers up at you as you place it with uncharacteristic care on her desk. ❞ 〃@etvidentium
nothing quite feels right anymore .
there’s a saying among her kind that nothing remembers better than glass . usually in reference to the sprawling estates her species inhabits , those of incredibly lengthy lives and embarassingly short recollection times , zaura feels she understands the meaning more than ever . her office is now a wasteland . the trenches have been filled seamlessly ; there’s no crumbling drywall , no splintered wood , no electrical wires bared to the world . her remotes are all tucked neatly in her righthand drawer , her chair tucked perfectly in place . every last piece of candy is accounted for , with not a crack to be found in its dish .
but the land holds the score . it knows something happened here . she can feel it hum and crackle around her , an unearthly aura posessing her better sense to remind her that she has been here far too many times , no matter what the physical evidence may show. >her space begs for her memory , desperate to know it too isn’t insane for feeling like it’s no longer whole . her pristine office , her pride and joy , is now as bloated and artificial as a missing hiker’s casket.
three weeks ago , she defiantly and discretely stuck a thumbtack into the wall beside her lightswitch ; every morning , she turns on the lights , and lets her fingers brush over the slightly raised surface beside it . nothing has changed in three weeks.
nothing had changed in three weeks .
the hairs on the back of her neck prickle as soon as she places her hand on the doorknob . something is off - the lights hum residually above her head before she even flips the switch , the air feels freshly turned , and zaura feels the clammy hand of fear wrap firmly around her middle . the room wouldn’t feel like this , she reminds herself sternly , if they’d reset again . the room would feel new , not refreshed . nothing is different about the room .
a squeak of metal from her desk makes her scream , but she’s fine .
zaura studies her new roommate with barely concealed glee the whole day . her inital fear was gotten over almost instantly , replaced with an unsettling amount of joy for an unknown , live package . the hamster has been manhandled , pet , observed intently , and very well fed throughout the remainder of her workday by both herself and her coworkers , and was now crawling around happily within a small maze of old books and office supplies . with no gift label , and no return address , zaura had left the hamster to its cage and own devices overnight , quietly hoping no one would come back to claim it.
she checked the thumbtack in the morning , then the hamster . both seemed in good shape , and no one returned to take away the latter. nothing’d changed .
she brought a bigger cage in the second day , and it was still there when she returned on the third . it was much easier , she realized , to make sure a hamster was the same than to scan her office every morning .
two months into owning the hamster , she took the thumbtack from the wall .
she did , however , add a sticky note under her nameplate , bearing the title of puffle , senior lead hamster .
if the walls insist on remembering , she hopes they will take as much comfort in him as she does .
