Wish monster

Karaza came inside the warehouse from her duckweed pond duty, the ironing station was almost empty of wrinkly clothes. She sat on a stool after ironing what's left. Now she knew Momo enough to know that asking for more work will result in her reading more opportunities catalogs, biting the bullet she took one and browsed it.

Noticing a woman in a simple elegant black dress, she Instinctively followed her around, although her eyes were in the center of the catalog.

Yasmin, a supervisor like Momo was back from a vocation, or that what she picked up from eavesdropping while the woman and Momo talked.

She put the catalog down with defeatedness. Unable to focus on too many words.

"Please give me anything to do." She asked Momo with a hopeless tone to her quite voice.

"...You handle slow days worse than swamped one?" He was a little confused.

"Why don't you send her to laundry collections?" Yasmin suggested, holding a mug in one hand and a hexagono board in another. Karaza wanted to know who was her tailor, cause that was one well made dress. 

Momo seemed hesitant to do so but sent her anyway. He acknowledged that she was harmless, but a part of his mind was alerted by her previous job. And accidents happened before. But he ended up trusting his fellow supervisor decision.

Each apartment had a handle on the wall near its door, she pulled the handle of the basket embedded in the wall, throwing the clothes in a bag with a hexagon chip holding the number of the apartment on it and moving to the next apartment. 

Government Buildings where the elderly and the recently fresh out of the hospitals lived had such laundry system.

What came after was normal laundry, throwing the content of each bag in a separate machine. She looked at the hexagonal shapes stacked on each others, some needed a ladder to be reachable.

'It's like a beehive.' She thought before heading to the next building.

"Wow.." Momo said after she returned back to the warehouse, she caught the slight hidden concern in his voice.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, it's just.. that was quick."

"I double checked for mismatches. No one got wrong clothes." She clarified like she's telling a mission's report.

"Not that, you know." He paused for a moment to better articulate himself.

"Listen, you're young now and it's easy to get rough on your body, but that'll catch up to you, so give yourself some grace, okay?" He seemed like he knows what's he's talking about.

She doesn't say much, used to his nagging and being able to distinguish it from an aggressive scolding now, but she can't help but raise an eyebrow.

"Thank you but.. you're not old enough to be saying this."

"He's older than he look, thought the naggings gives it away." Yasmin Joked.

Sitting on a stool like a rock and contemplating youth on a lunch break wasn't on her schedule today but life got another plan.

'He looks twenty four... at maximum. I was too casual with an elder, I'm failing as a citizen!' Her thoughts spiraled in no time.

"You probably don't need to worry too much. Half albinos can exert efforts we can't." Yasmin told him, handing the stiff Karaza her lunch tray.

".. but still."

Yasmin looks at her and the bag of many catalogs inside.

"Do you want to come with me? I have some tasks around the city, maybe a job will catch your attention."

The wind carried some sand with it, making her squint.

"Sand storms are quite usual here, these are your friends." Yasmin handed her a wide goggles like glasses.

They entered the agriculture institute, Yasmin greeted people here and there. 

She looked at the relatively normal building except for the one wall that was essentially a bamboo window, which got covered by a big piece of sliding glass to close the wall and prevent sand from entering. 

Familiar was the person that was pushing the glass partition.

They looked at each other.

"A-arch nemesis? what did they do to you?!" Roxy looked at her work pants and the plain dress shirt.

"You don't look normal yourself." She said, voice cracking at the normal brown suit and heels. She saw her in the suit before but she committed to the bit.

'Are they lost sisters or something' Yasmin thought.

"Why you're here anyway?" The supervisor asked Roxy.

"Taking some permissions and stuff."

"For what?"

"For the translating institute, they offered me a translation gig!" She showed her the papers.

"So it's translating now?" Yasmin asked, with the tone of an adult who think something is stupid but can't say anything.

"Well, there is no jobs here. Gotta move on." She said nonchalantly, putting the papers in the organized colorful file.

"You can wait for openings, and go back to your old job in the meantime."

"I'm board of that."

"Weren't you like a supervisor while in the drafting?" Confusion made Karaza join the conversation.

"You see, this dingus was a field coordinator in the past." Yasmin pulled Roxy's cheek.

'So like a rank below a supervisor.' Karaza thought, even though she knew now that people here perused ambitions from a young age she needed a moment to process a teenager already dabbling in two professions and a degree.

Someone came to Yasmin and they went to a corner, discussing something and leaving the two alone.

"Wanna a tour?" Roxy offered.

The institute was connected to the underground compost system, they peeked at the gate with masks on for a quick moment before retreating.

"We do experiments to breed better plants here." Roxy said as they entered a greenhouse in the institute's yard.

"That was my graduation project, these where almost extinct before." Roxy pointed at a plant bed filled with fern like plants.

"Really, is this a medicine plant of some sort?" Karaza said, invested.

"Nope, totally inutile grass."

'She is the flesh manifestation of bullshit.' Karaza thought, feeling trolled.

She looked back at the grass.

'Must be nice though. Achieving something.'

Behind her Roxy looked at the nape of her neck, her long hair was in a unusual bun, she looked south of the baby hair in the back of her head.

Karaza covered her nape with her hand looking at Roxy, not with fear nor aggression, just cautiousness of someone with experience.

"I'm not gonna chop it off or something." Roxy shrugged, not minding the tension in the air.

"Cause you can't, the zone barrier will fry you in a minute."

"Yeah that too, forgot about it for a sec."

The former mercenary tried to find the traces of a lie, effort was in vain.

Suddenly, darkness swallowed everything in the green house, the catch is they were not in the green house or in the city, or anywhere.

"Aww maaan." Roxy whined in disappointment.

"You gotta be kidding me." Karaza groaned, almost shouting, pinching the bridge of her nose.

A dim light sparkled in the center of the void. An unlit candle with melted sides appeared in their faces.

They avoided eye contact with it. The parasite looked up as if there is a sky there. Like a moron, and the human pretended to look at her nails. Like a better disguised moron.

'Young ladies, would any of you like to return her wish?' The voice rang in their heads.

They focused harder on their dump positions, pretending like they heard nothing.

'Come onn! You will get all the precious points you spent! One in a lifetime offer!!'

'You say that every year.' The two females thought, biting their lips.

'Young lady, are you sure want to keep that broom? You can get your fifteen points back~' The candle moved, getting closer to Roxy like a persistence seller.

A vein of anger appeared in her forehead but she continued ignoring it. Remembering the time she hit the candle with broomy resulting in the candle splitting in half and doubling the abuse.

'The more one react the more they stay stuck in here.' Karaza reminded herself, remembering the first time she kept slashing it with her axe, getting stuck for days until she cooled down.

They exchanged a glance to cement the plan of ignoring the candle until this is all over.

'And I have a marvelous offer for you, in addition to getting your one hundred points back you will also reverse all the damage the wished powers caused to your hearing! It doesn't get better than this right?!' It offered to Karaza.

The candle changed the target and with its fawning voice Roxy looked at Karaza, a mix of curiosity and worry in her eyes. The other notices that.

"What? You think that's all it takes to persuade me?" Karza said flatly to her, Roxy blinked but her expression doesn't change.

'But still, this's gonna be a long day. I might lose it if this continues.' Karaza's mind unhelpfully supplied, despite acting tough.

"My bad." She said with a polite smile. Karaza recognized what that look eluded.

'How nostalgic, the look of wild creatures when they're trying to figure you out.'

'COME ON ladies! Are you sure you wanna miss out on these offers? I'll tell you what, If you return that useless broom and your treasure box I will give you ten extra points! You will get out of here with 110 points! How about that?'

On the sight of a pissed off Roxanne Karaza was a little uneasy. She could get stuck with a dangerous creature and the annoying candle for days to an end, lucky for her the parasite wasn't provoked enough to reply, instead she looked at her.

"This suits you more than those ugly dresses!" She stated pointing at her simple clothes.

"What are you fucking me for?! And you're the one to talk miss hot pink cheetah pattern suit!" She didn't predict the fashion taste attack.

"That was challenge yourself Wednesday! And for your information sunflower are grandmas' style here!"

"Of course you would know, you were a grandma when these were a style for kids ."

'...If you both return your wishes each will get extra fifteen points!'

The candle watched as it got totally ignored while they argued about each clothing the other wore.

"Pants make you feel like both your legs are financially well off, each have their own place! A Dress, on the contrary make the legs feel like two broke roommates sharing a tent!"

"Says the broke one wearing her roommate's shirt!" Karaza jabed immediately to protect the dignity of dresses.

Roxy pulled her shirt to see the tag on the back. She stared at the void in shock.

"Ewwww, I'm wearing a boy's clothes!" She said bursting with dramatically teary eyes, Karaza was laughing devilishly like she won.

"Ryuyu is gonna be mad too."

"Time to separate the laundry I guess?" She said with an evil giggle.

'That's it! What a disrespectful costumers! I will offer my services to who appreciate it!' The voice yelled and everything got painfully brighter. When Karaza managed to open her eyes, seeing the almost extinct grass in the greenhouse.

She laid on the ground in relief while Roxy stood up and dusted herself, looking at the clock in her hexagono to see that only a minutes passed.

"Will your little friend be okay though?" Karaza snooped while they were walking in a corridor of the building. Theorizing that the apex predator had made a wish or two.

"Ryuyu gonna be fine, he met the wish monster well before me. He knows it's a scam and wishes can't be undone."

"It's suppose to hunt you once a year, the last time it visited me was six months ago." Karaza murmured to herself.

"Yeah, radiation does mess with that." She said, nonchalantly as usual about the life ending looming calamity. Something within Karaza decided to lean onto that.

The wind slowed down, giving everyone time to go home before it picked up again. The human and the parasite headed to different parts of the city.

'Don't we meet too much for it to be a coincidence?' The thought passed Karaza's mind, she just slurped her Chinese noodles takeout, looking at the sand flying in the air from the window.

'Even so, I can't do much about that. She's too strong, glad I didn't cross paths with her in the past.'

In the shabby apartment Roxy throws cloths in the hexagonal washing machine, looking at something far away in the depth of the horizon, further than the sand storm.

"A change of plans would be fun."

In the art academy and in complete darkness, Ryu was taking out the slap of melted glass out of the oven with the glassblower.

The candle didn't have eyes but it watched as he knew where the oven and the table was by heart. Complete focus unbothered by the incoming annoyance.

'Care to tell me what was your wish young man? I'm sure you can get your points back and wish for something better!'

Skinny arms lifted the glassblower, he blowed after looking at a paper with mathematical equations in it. Inserting a clipper into the hot glass and moving it ever so slightly as he blows.

'...Young man, aren't you hot with this cardigan near an oven? Oh! I know! The prostatic limps surgery caused you to feel cold most of the time. Then I suggest returning your previous wish and wishing for this coldness to vanish!'

He looked at the inwardly craved glass ball with dissatisfaction, putting it in the recycle section before taking another slap of glass and trying again.

'I can tell you made a blurry one time wish young man, it's not too late to reverse it.'

Unlike the close steps the candle took toward the mercenary and the plant, it barely took a step ahead toward the apex predator, although this was its field and getting slashed or stabbed is a step toward a win it knew what it was up against.

The light came back to the glassblowing workshop, he had to put the tools down and close his eyes until it accustomed to the normal brightness.

'Did it have to come now? I was really in the zone.'

He sighed and continued working on his piece.