Aya woke to the softest b she'd ever felt, draped across her body. She rubbed her eyes and sat up, letting the fabric pool around her waist.

  After a moment y yawning, she looked around to find she was in Mars's apartment still.

  "Oh that's right I'm supposed to quit today," Aya said tiredly. She couldn't remember the st time she had slept in.

  'Not since I was 17,' Aya thought.

  Mars was already cooking something when Aya found the strength to get up. The st of eggs and toast wafted through the living room.

  Aya followed her nose and stomach to find her friend frying a breakfast of eggs and ba. The sizzling pan made the apartment hot, so Aya opened a window before making her way to where the irl was.

  "Good m," Aya said. Mars gruhe only aowledgment Aya would get from the irl at the moment. Mars was deep in tration as she cooked.

  Aya sat at the table deep in thought, would she really quit her job today? She didn't know if she had enough to live off just yet and quitting would seem dumb when she had worked at Nue Corp for over a year plus now.

  The thoughts swirled in her head until Mars spoke.

  "Coffee's in a pot over there if you want some." Mars said. "Shower's on too. I'll fix you a pte when you're out."

  "Thanks," Aya said. "I'll probably grab some clothes from my apartment before I head off to work."

  "To quit right?" Mars prodded, finally fag away from the pan to speak to the girl.

  "I'm not so sure I should, I barely have anything in my at. This is a huge financial decision and someone like me won't get severance." Aya said.

  Mars sighed.

  "Then I'll lend you the money, I have enough," Mars said. "You pay me back, I'll open up a tab. No i fees."

  "Mars!" Aya said gasping. The brown haired girl sputtered, trying to form a cohereence.

  "You ime to get to the bottom of this Aya," Mars said. "Besides there will be other jobs, better jobs thahat treats you like you're nothing,"

  Aya ducked her head, knowing Mars was right. Being the mail room girl ed her barely any respect, she may as well have been the cart she ushing.

  "I have to do it," Aya said.

  "You do. If your parent's randmother's words are really within the game then you have to do everything you to py it and find out." Mars said. She poihe hot, oily spatu at Aya, then at the hall.

  "Go shower."

  Aya nodded, walking slowly towards Mars' bathroom.

  Like all bathrooms within Lydia's apartment plex, the shower was a tall gss cubicle with a simple shower head in a fixed position above it. Mars' bath products were arranged in a little row on a rack she installed within the shower.

  On closer iion, Aya could see that the shelf hung on su cups. She smiled, finding it amusing that Mars would rely on such a thing as uable as su cups.

  After a long shower, the girl stepped out to be greeted with a pte of ba, eggs, toast, and juice.

  Her mouth watered, when was the st time she had anything other than cereal as she was rushing out the door to work?

  "Thanks!" Aya said, digging into her food with great zeal. The ba in particur didn't stand a ce as she ruthlessly attacked with her fork.

  Mars ughed, she set dowe and tried to calm Aya down.

  "If you eat that fast yoing to choke and I won't have you haunting the apartment!"

  "Mean!"

  Mars stuck her to in respo Aya slowed down her biting and chewing siderably. The girls had their breakfast in fortable sileh only the king of forks and gsses around the kit.

  ----------

  Aya stood at the usual bus stop and waited for the afternoon bus to take her into the city. She wondered what the old man who drove the m bus would think after she didn't show up.

  The afternoon was warm as Aya waited in clothes other than her uniform, she packed it up in a separate bag she kept beside her on the ground.

  "So this is it huh?" she said to herself.

  The noon bus pulled into the bus stop allowing Aya to board it. The driver, a rosy cheeked man with strange facial hair and watery blue eyes appeared startled by her presen the bus.

  "Wow, I don't usually piyone up from around here," He said, pyfully tapping his hands oeering wheel as Aya boarded the bus.

  Aya smiled iing.

  "I don't usually board the bus at this time either," she said, finding her way to her seat. The bus started up again, its engine hummed as Aya began the usual drive to her office.

  She pced her head against the seat rest and thought about how she was walking into her office to quit.

  "Maybe my boss will get up and do something for on his life." she thought, a wave of guilt hit her.

  'Why do I even feel bad, it's not like this job was doing me any favors,' she thought, her internal turmoil tinuing as she reviewed the reasons why she was quitting.

  "I always find another shitty job, those e in spades," she said with a shrug, but it doesn't shake off the seality of it all. This was the pany she had worked at the lo. Even though the pay was shit.

  It was one way from her house too, making the ute insanely easy.

  "I wonder if the old guy at the junk shop is hiring?" she said folding her arms and thinking. Soon more passengers board the bus, mostly younger people and housewives.

  Aya listeo the chatter with great i sidering she was usually oher early or super te buses. Ohing that seemed to be on everyone's lips was the game Moon Valley.

  "Oh I just love pying as an elf mage, it reminds me of my final fantasy days." An older woman just behind Aya said to her friend. The woman beside her nodded and casually mentioned how she would borrow her son's VR headset to py on her own at.

  Beside her, a pair of teens pared stats on the Moon Valley app on their phones.

  Aya was surrounded by Moon Valley's popurity, it amazed her. She khe game had taken off but hadn't sidered to what extent. Hearing about the game from the standpoint of the average person's lips was shog.

  The vehicle reached her stop, the bus stop just outside Nue Corp. Aya disembarked. She walked from the bus stop until she stood fag the pany building once more with her uniform in a bag.

  She walked in, past security whnized her. They snickered whilst looking at the time of her arrival. Joking about how she was about to get ed.

  On her way in ae burst through the front door. A flurry of men in bck suits rush through, the exit of the building.

  The men at the security checkpoint jumped from where they had been sg off. They stid, saluting the ente detail clearing guarding some important.

  Of course, the men pay them no mind, too busy clearing the path for the super importahey were guarding. To Aya they looked ridiculous, it was the middle of the afternoon and no oood in their way.

  Aya stood still letting them pass, it was only then that she noticed Ats following along with an older man, deep in thought.

  "Ats," she said.

  Over the chatter, Altas heard a voice call his name softly. He saw her, out of uniform with what resumable her pany gear in the bag beside her.

  Fearing she had been fired, he tried to break away from the men in bly for a vice-like grip to seize his arm.

  "Mr. Nue, where are you going? The limo's that way." One of the bck suited men said to him.

  "I'll only be a minute I have to speak to a member of the staff." The girl on his arm released, Ats straightened his suit and walked towards Aya.

  "Busy day?" The girl asked with a smile.

  "Busier still." He said grinning. "What's all this." He asked.

  "I'm officially quitting," Aya said proudly, Ats looked taken aback by her words.

  His only potential friend in the pany was quitting.

  A deep frown overcame his face, Aya didn't like to see anyone so sad but she had made up her mind and this was final.

  "Why?"

  "Well, I don't make enough for one," Aya said instantly. She felt like she could say that now. It surprised her how bold she was in front of the pany president. "I don't even make minimum wage."

  "I could give you a promotion," Ats said in an instant.

  "There's a word for that, I swear I've heard it before." Aya ughed. "You keep in touch you know," Aya said. She plucked his pho of his office pocket and prese to him so he could unlock it.

  The sound of his keypad beepi him know she was typing out a phone number.

  "I told you to add me on Moon Valley but I guess you fot," Aya said. "Call me?"

  Ats took his phone from her hands, stunned by her boldness. He nodded. Aya fshed him another smile and noticed the ente impatiently waiting for Ats to return to them.

  A sleek limousine had pulled into the front of the pany's front ne.

  "I think they're waiting on you. You should go." Aya said. Ats nodded.

  "I'll...call," he said softly.

  "I'll be expeg it," Aya said. The man backstepped, heading towards the ente. Aya watched him ehe limo and drive away. She tinued her way into the pany.

  ----------

  "Aya where have you been the mail room's been backed the hell up!" her boss yelled the moment she walked into the office. Aya gred, nothing against him but he was pt in the whole thing.

  "I'm quitting," Aya said pinly. The man sat up in his chair.

  "Bullshit," He said, l his sun gsses. Aya pced the bag taining her uniform oable with a sm.

  "Damn straight." She said smirking, it felt so good to be able to do that and now that she didn't want to work here, no one could say anything about that.

  "Not if HR has anything to say about that." the man said. Aya rolled her eyes already pnning out her resignatioer.

  "What do you mean?"

  "A cuse was added to your tract the moment the pany noticed people kept quitting this post." her boss said. Aya gred, she should have known Nue Corp wouldn't have let her off that easy.

  "But I could be fired on the spht?"

  "Look Aya, go to HR, review your options." Her boss said. He kicked his feet off the table and stood. Aya folded her arms.

  "Fine."

  ----------

  The HR department treated Aya's grievances with the same callousness one would expect from corporate. She sat in front of two women, who stared into their paper thin, high tech monitors.

  Behihe mail room boss sat flipping through one of the plimentary magazines. He muttered to himself as he did, creeping everyo as he did.

  "Aya brown is it?" the first woman started, Aya looked away from her boss and at the woman who sat in front of her.

  "Yes?"

  "We've reviewed your cuse and termination from your post only occur in the event of certain pses in performances, or if you are deemed a dao the pany."

  "A dao the pany? But I've never even spoken back to the people who made w here a nightmare!"

  "Not so," the other woman attending to Aya's case said. " Acc to our records, you've been written up a few times by Ms. Vanderwood,"

  "Who's that?"

  "The president's secretary," the woman replied.

  A devious idea formed in Aya's mind.

  "Why don't we see what she has to say about this," Aya said leaning bato her seat. The HR women exged gnces with each other, w what Aya to.

  One picked up a strange devid tapped around the gss surface. Viviana's face appeared on a proje.

  The blonde woman looked up from the s and stared at the woman calling her.

  "Yes?" Viviana's impatient tone hissed.

  "We are requesting you e down here due to a staff dispute." One of the HR women said.

  "I don't have time for this," she said with a fake yawn. She was about the end the proje when the HR staff spoke.

  "Need I remind you it is in your cuse, that HR staff resolutions are mandatory."

  Viviana paused, a snarl of anger left her mouth, she pressed her plump lips together firmly trying to tain her anger.

  "I'll be there shortly." She said.

  ----------

  The telltale signs of Viviana's heels g against the office tiles caught the attention of everyone in the room.

  Vivaered through the doors and allowed her eyes to fall on Aya. A wide smirk grew on Viviana's face. A triumphant sound escaped her mouth, a finger pointed in Aya's dire.

  "What did the mail room rat do this time?" Viviana asked. "Are we finally about to a all those reports?"

  "I would only o be reized as a dao the pany once by HR's standards to be let go ht?" Aya asked.

  "That is correct." The woman said not even looking up from her desk. Aya nodded and stood up from her chair.

  "I k was only a matter of time before you were finally put in your pce. Stupid girl, you think because you befriehe president you could just-Ah!"

  In the moment Viviana had been ranting, Aya reared her hand bad spped the woman hard across her face.

  The blonde went silent, her expensive gsses flew, boung off into the distanewhere.

  A deafening silence fell over the room. Aya looked back at the women in their seats, who stared with their mouths open.

  "tract terminated,"