Shudders: Reclamation Day

Chapter 33 - The Cafe

Photo credit - Wood Wave Cafe

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"How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Not go insane by your demon!" (Y/N) giggled, taking a sip of her drink.

     She watched the person sitting across from her at their table shrug her shoulders and bite into her toast. Her red hair in its usual top bun was slowly coming apart from being put up haphazardly. "You get used to it after a while. Believe me, if this job makes you go insane I would be in a psychiatric ward by now."

"That's good to know..." (Y/N) sighed and leaned back into her seat. She relaxed her stiff muscles and closed her eyes.

    Blythe raised an eyebrow at her, wondering what was troubling the woman. "Is there a reason you asked?"

     (Y/N) scrunched her eyebrows a bit. "It's just- I don't know if I'm cut out for this kind of work... Ki and Akai are alright but so much to handle."

"Every Keeper says that." The redhead sang, taking a sip of her coffee. "Even that old man on my floor. He's been a Keeper for 46 years now. You'd think after that long he'll be a bit more chill."

    A waitress stopped by the table and lowered a bowl of grits covered with a fried egg and butter on the small table in front of (Y/N). The woman sat up in her seat and thanked the waitress before she left and scooped some of the grits onto her fork. "Yea but- I guess it just wasn't what I expected. I mean I'm honored to be able to work within my dream career field, even though it's dangerous and my sister had no clue about it-."

"You really do need to tell her." Blythe spoke with a mouth full of toast.

"I will! But I'm scared of bringing this up to her and she says that she told me so. Maybe I should've just been a doctor like her..." (Y/N) shoved a fork full of grits into her mouth anxiously.

     She's been having doubts about her job for the last two days. Not enough to make her pack up and quit but enough to make her really think about where she's going with her life. Maybe it's that post-college crisis thing she's heard about.

     Blythe pointed a piece of toast toward her friend which made the woman lookup. "You already spent the last four years training for this. You can't just back out when you haven't even spent a year in the field yet."

"Well, what was your first year like?" Blythe was so professional that (Y/N) couldn't imagine her having these doubts like her. She seemed to love her job.

    The redhead hummed in thought as she finished her toast. "Well if you want to know, my first year was- quite eventful actually."

     She had this pondering expression as she thought back to her first year working as a Keeper. "Believe it or not I wanted to be a Researcher. But I had to take extra years in school to achieve that but I didn't have the money to so I just went straight to being a Keeper. The first demon they gave me was this C-class."

    (Y/N) couldn't help but snort. "You had a C-class?! How did you go from that to an A-class?"

"You tell me!" Blythe exclaimed. "I expected another C or maybe a B like yours. Was like a culture shock moving to the A floor. The demons are much bigger and more aggressive."

"Anyways, I miss that little guy. It was this animalistic demon that looked like one of those fluffy things that bathe in dust-"

"A chinchilla?" (Y/N) asked.

     Blythe snapped her fingers and pointed to her. "Yea those. I was able to just hold it in my hands and after it had gotten used to me and didn't try to bite me I would just let it sleep on my desk and play with the pencils while I worked. Its lab name was J13 but I called it Paul."