“I summon thee.”
“Come forth, demon!”
“Ughk.” As Angelica blinked herself awake, the cocktail of bizarre dreams and unfamiliar voices faded away. The fog of her mind quickly lifted, but there was still something not quite right. Her perspective was off as she let her eyes drift around the room, struggling to focus on anything. It was like her head was laying on the top of her bed even though she was sure she was sitting upright. So the girl closed her eyes and gave her body a good shake.
[Active Skill: Transfiguration Lv.1 unlocked]
[Beguilement increased]
Huh, why did I think that? She must have not been fully awake yet. At least this time when she opened her eyes, everything was how it should be, and she was sitting upright properly. But when she looked down at herself… “Why am I naked?” Angelica always slept with clothes on, so it was certainly an oddity. She glanced around and found her outfit from yesterday tossed to one side of the room. Weird, but whatever.
More importantly, during her scan, she found her cat at the foot of her bed. It wasn’t an irregular spot for him, so it wasn’t surprising. However, he was clearly upset by something, at full attention, staring at her with ferocity. His entire body was hunched upward, standing on all fours with his back lifted toward the sky. Every single hair was on edge, his tail straight and puffed.
“What’s wrong, Cherub?” The owner asked in a slightly babying voice as she moved a hand toward him, only to pull it back quickly when he hissed at her. She repeated the attempt, this time a lot slower. When her fingers inched near, the feline took a shy step forward and sniffed them. He then hesitantly shifted his head under her hand, allowing an awkward pet to happen, still eyeing his owner the entire time.
“Is… something burning?” It was Angelica’s turn to sniff the air with trepidation, trying to identify the source. She hunched over the side of the bed and stared at the floor, her eyes widening. The circle she’d painted had changed color entirely, from barfy pinkish orange to pure black. She ran the tip of a finger along one of the lines and it came back covered in some powdery residue. “Sulfur?” She gave it another good sniff. “Just what the hell was in that paint?”
That must have been why the store was so eager to get rid of it. And the smell could be the reason she was feeling so weird, also explaining the head fog and strange dreams. She was used to paint fumes, but this was on another level. And it would also make sense why her cat was so upset. She bent down, trying to scratch at the paint with her fingernail, but it didn’t even cause a scratch. Before she could try again with more fervor, there was a sudden throb of pain in her head.
It was the same spot where she’d been hit with the book the night prior. She ran her hand through her hair and felt a weird welt, so she hopped out of bed and to the bathroom. When she tried to inspect the area in the mirror, though, she found absolutely nothing, not even a sign of yesterday’s injury, just the regular roots of her hair.
Angelica poked at the spot again, and while she saw herself touching nothing, scraping against her skull, it really felt like there was something there, something bulging and a little pointy. Just when she was about to give up, she suddenly felt the same throb again, but this time on the other side of her head. Angelica felt over there as well, and it reproduced the exact same feeling.
That wasn’t the only part of her body that felt off, either. Between her shoulderblades and just above her butt, it felt like there should be weird bumps, but there was nothing at all. “The smell must still be getting to me.” She returned to the main room, turned on the ceiling fan, and opened all the windows—surprised to find that the sun was still rising.
The apartment dweller finally checked the time. It was still early in the morning, far earlier than she’d gotten up in months. She knew she must have gone to bed pretty late, yet strangely, she felt perfectly energized. Perhaps she should act on that before it would inevitably cause her to crash later. While she wasn’t tired, she was certainly still hungry, and the issue of her rent and being completely broke still remained.
What was the best way to deal with it, though? Angelica couldn’t push it off any longer. At the very least, she’d need some money by the end of the day so she didn’t starve, and more importantly, so she could buy Cherub some more wet food. A quick glance showed he still had plenty of dry left in his bowl. But if that’s all he was fed in a day, the spoiled brat wouldn’t stand for it.
Completing more commissions for her regulars would be the easy answer for quick cash, but there was no guarantee they’d pay her today. She could repeat her efforts from yesterday and go sell art services on the street. However, her supplies were all but exhausted. The drawing pad had maybe two or three pages left, and she wasn’t sure her paints or markers had enough juice left in them to even complete that many. It’d be an outcry of poor customer service if she suddenly had to stop a piece in the middle because it was impossible to continue.
“Oh, it’s the weekend, I could do that,” Angelica realized. “And I can definitely get there before they start too.” The idea weighed heavily on her, another quick way of earning money that she hadn’t done in some time, not since her college days. Even when she’d had to resort to dumpster diving before, she hadn’t considered that option. Perhaps it felt too much like regressing in her life. Yet now, on the verge of starvation, she wasn’t stuck on the same hangups. Maybe enough time had passed to get over it, maybe her pride had just been shattered past the point of caring. Since the girl was full of energy, she was surprisingly motivated by the idea, and it wouldn’t hurt to get out for a bit while her apartment finished airing.
She went over to her dresser and dug through the few outfits that actually resided within, ones that she never wore anymore and weren’t worthy of the dirty piles still on her floor. Angelica pulled out her old track suit from her cross country days in college, something she’d continued on from high school. She had even gotten third place in the regional championship as a college sophomore, but that was as high as she’d gone. In her third year, she’d dropped it, much to her mother’s dismay, right around the same time as she really started to delve into art.
“Alright, I’m heading out, Cherub. I’ll be back with your wets, I promise.” The borderline hermit actually went outside for a second day in a row, something she hadn’t done since she’d gone to a convention months ago. By mistake, she’d purchased a two-day pass and didn’t want to waste the money. So she spent the time staring longingly in the artists’ sector, hoping to one day be worthy of joining them.
Angelica felt the cold of the morning as she walked toward the subway station. Her tracksuit was definitely too thin for this kind of weather. But for the work she’d be doing, her body would heat up quickly, and she’d be glad for the easier lining. Something agile and easy to move in was certainly a smart choice as well. Though she did notice her body was doing more moving inside of it than with it. The clothes were a bit baggier on her than she remembered—quite comfortably snug in the past—but she was undoubtedly a bit bulkier with muscle back then, having not kept up her training in any capacity since.
As for where the starving artist was actually going for her work, she wasn’t quite sure yet. The known procrastinator had purposely not checked on her computer, fearing that she’d get distracted by something else, losing the motivation to leave. Since her phone currently didn’t have any service, she couldn’t check that either. But she knew where to find the details out in the world since they always posted it on bulletin boards at every subway station.
“Trash collection this weekend!” The flier started with a bold font and with a pointy bubble around it, graphic design that was outdated by a few decades. And why did they bother specifying “this weekend” when it was every weekend? Angelica had her critiques, but it gave her the information she needed with a clear location and even a map printed on the paper. She went ahead and took a picture with her phone just in case.
So that’s what she’d be doing, picking up trash from an area that had been overflooded with it. This time it was at a lakeside, but they serviced all areas: parks, culverts, the sides of highways. The program was city-sponsored, a way to keep it clean without having to delegate official employees. Also, it served as a way to help the homeless and those in dire straits, which the unemployed woman could certainly currently qualify herself as.
While it was compensated labor, the pay was definitely less than if she just got a proper job. As a result, many basically classified it as charitable volunteer work. And that is why Angelica had often participated as a college student. The extra money was nice, but she mostly did it to look good on her resume. Whether the recruiters actually cared about it was another matter. It had also given her something to do on the weekends, especially during the heat of the summer when there were fewer participants, as there’d likely be today as well, in the cold of winter.
The program paid by weight and in cash, so those participating could do as much or as little work as they wanted. If she stumbled across a used car battery or a few broken cinderblocks, that’d be a meal or two covered right out the gate, but she rarely got so lucky. Currently more importantly than the money, though, they also provided breakfast.
“Angelica, it’s been so long, I hardly recognized you!” The girl in question forced yet another smile after approaching the food handout table. She was hoping the volunteer staff member would in fact not recognize her. But the older woman had been helping out the program for as long as Angelica could remember.
“Yeah, I just got the sudden urge to help out again,” Angelica told a partial lie. The sudden urge was true, but her presence was entirely for selfish, survivalistic reasons.
“Oh, Vissiem, you look so scrawny!” Did she really look so bad that the staffer had to take the lord’s name in vain to accentuate the point? She didn’t care about the sacrilege, but the degree of comment felt unwarranted. “Here, take two meals!” The woman handed over double the allotted take-out boxes and drinks, serving pity along with food.
“No, no, I couldn’t. I’m not that hungry.” More lies since her stomach was currently scraping the walls bare, desperate for even a crumb, but Angelica had always struggled with displaying vulnerability. “Thank you, though. I’ll enjoy it.”
Before heading off with her single portion, she scooted over to the table with tools. After grabbing a few bags, she glanced at the selection of supplies. They’d updated a bit since she last participated, now with several grabbers that made the pick-up process even easier. Yet she opted for one of the classic pokers with a bit of obvious rust at the end.
Angelica was fine with the more vigorous method, happy to leave the better options for those with more mobility issues. Plus, she’d always enjoyed the mildly barbaric stabbing feeling, often visualizing the trash to be people she was presently annoyed with as a way to vent frustration. Regularly, it was some teacher, but most often her mother. This time it would probably be Ms. Gate.
With everything needed in hand, Angelica found a nice tree to lean her back against. She enjoyed the meal, scarfing down every speck, desperately trying to not make her bites appear as ravenous as she felt. The food was nothing special, pretty bland, even, but to her, it might as well have been her favorites—warm and delicious, satiating a gnawing hunger that she’d been unknowingly victim to for weeks now, not properly taking care of herself.
“Alright, Angelica.” After finishing her meal, she stood up and started giving herself a pep-talk. Unfortunately, there were no big heavy pieces that she’d spotted, or they’d all been claimed already, but there were countless little bits of scrap everywhere. “You have to do this. We really need the money, so no slacking! Don’t stop until you’ve picked up a thousand pieces of trash!”
It was a random, arbitrary number that she’d spouted, certainly having no intention to actually do that much. That work would take hours, hell, maybe even the whole weekend. But it was fun to act like she was trying to achieve something grand, another motivation technique. And yet… the whim became law.
[Order accepted without resistance | Current Contract: Pick up trash without stopping (0/1,000)]
What the scuff? Where did that weird thought come from? Was her brain trying to gamify the work or something? It wasn’t the worst idea, just odd that she’d think of it. Angelica had never delved deep into games, something her lofty goals had never really allowed for, but she’d occasionally watched school friends play them, so she got the gist of how their task and reward systems usually worked.
Fine, brain, I’ll play your game. But if I actually hit a thousand, you better treat me to something nice! Yet the choice was suddenly no longer hers. Her hand grabbed the trash poker, immediately getting to work without her consent. It stabbed the box she’d just eaten from off the ground, apparently counting it as a qualifying object.
[Order progress: 1 / 1,000]
The hell is going on? When her body started to move ahead on its own, toward a wrapper on the ground, Angelica fought back, trying to cease the action. But she couldn’t, not strong enough to regain control of her own body. Her very will had been robbed from her, not allowing herself to stop. By the terms of the Contract, the Order she’d given was absolute.