Welfare and Warfare

Chapter 18

Day: 3173

Days Left: 2307

Lives Saved: 17

The process was going for a lot longer than Henry had hoped, as their personal food supply had been depleted, and they were now having to rely on the small portions the city gave out to those waiting on the other side. Of course, The Warren was being thorough with who they selected for citizenship, but with how long it was being dragged out, Henry was concerned with how hungry and weak Nia and himself would become if they had to wait until the next time someone left the Abyss and a new spot was opened up.

The day of the final interviews came around, and Nia seemed beyond delighted, cheering and hugging Henry as they saw his name on the board. Henry himself didn't know what to feel at this moment, how close he was to finally meeting his cousin, Corinna. How many years had he been tracking down this woman who was apparently family, almost like a sibling with how close they were, yet neither had memories of the other because of the curse. Maybe it won't matter to her as much as it did to him, and he had spent all those years obsessing over this goal of meeting her, the one thing that had kept him going, other than Nia, of course. What if it was all for nothing? How would he spend the rest of his prison sentence without a goal or his long-lost cousin? Maybe Nia... no, that was a selfish and horrible thought. Nia could be free right now if she weren't so kind as to stay and help Henry find his cousin. He couldn't ask her to stay with him if things didn't go as he thought they would, no matter how much he knew it would hurt to be apart from her. No, she should be free from this place, safe and happy and not be in the Abyss any longer than she needed to be.

There was only a couple of days for Henry to prepare for the interview which Nia helped with, asking questions in between giggling as she was unable to take it all as seriously as Henry was. When the day arrived, Henry was escorted to the pitched tent he went to last time, past the protesters whose numbers had thinned, but the man called Jules, the inciter, was still as vocal as ever. Inside the tent, Henry sat before a jury of five people who he did not recognise, though he did recognise a few of the guards that were there in case any of the prisoners tried anything.

"Good afternoon, Henry, how are we doing today?" asked a woman sat in the middle, with a practised smile. The rest of the board had a general sense of tiredness about them, likely due to how many interviews they had to conduct in a row, meanwhile the woman remained animated, perhaps invigorated about the power she possessed, to decide who got into the Warren. "My name is Rita and I shall be leading the interview," the woman continued, then introduced the other four members at the table who would mostly just be taking notes and silently judging Henry, though might perhaps ask questions afterwards.

Henry made a note of all of their names and they watched him do so with curiosity; it seemed that interviewees making notes themselves was not a common occurrence. After Henry expressed his gratitude and excitement to have made it this far into the selection process, Rita then began asking the generic questions of why Henry would be a good fit for the Warren and Henry went into great detail of his qualifications he got from working as a head sector director of the Eternal Abyss, showing the map he had made of the entire Abyss as well as his ability to work effectively as a team and independently, along with his leadership qualities. He also handed Rita a copy of his CV which seemed to impress the board as well as confuse them. Did not one else do a CV or give any kind of presentation? Was Henry over doing it? He was then asked what role he saw himself in. Henry at first returned to mentioning his versatility, not wanting to say admin and paperwork straight away in case it made him appear lazy and unable to doing anything else. What if they didn't need that in The Warren or all the positions were filled? He tried to sell his strength a bit, his human self being above average, though he did not remember, it seemed he went to the gym casually at least, however, his strength would obviously not compare to those who had powerful monster forms. Afterwards, he went on to his transferable organisational and problem solving skills, and then his event planning and hosting. Even if The Warren did not have a use for them, Henry listed anything he could think of just make himself sound valuable and multi-skilled. He slipped in as many key words and phrases that employees liked to hear along with praising the company- rather the city- of its accomplishments and what it stood for, how Henry believed in the same ideals. It seemed that he was quite good at job interviews with his natural charisma taking over control, and there was barely any hesitation in his answers as he went on auto-pilot; it was as easy as breathing.