“Sally, your break ended 5 minutes ago. If you aren’t back at the counter when I get back in a second you can go find a new job” The woman scowled as she walked onwards the dumpster across the parking lot, carrying a large trash bag in each hand.

Sally sighed, watching one more TikTok before closing the app, not wanting to push her luck she began heading back inside.  Kaley was a bitch even on a good day but today she seemed to be in a  particularly bad mood, and was taking it out on everyone else at the shop.

SHe frowned, her eyes staring at the screen, as she refreshed the page one more time. “Come on universe, give me a break” she muttered hoping desperately that the page would look different after a re-load.

Today was payday, but unless there was a sale, the object of her current fixation would remain out of her reach for a while longer. Grunting in frustration as the page finished loading, with no discernable change. She put her phone away as she rounded the corner to the front of the business.

It wasn’t fair, All her friends had one, tons of people on TikTok had one, but here she was, barely scraping by, and wasn;t anywhere close to being able to afford one. She knew of course even after the initial purchase there was upkeep, maintenance and the like. Tiny towns weren’t cheap.

“About time you showed up, I was supposed to be on break 20 minutes ago” Her co worker said dryly, interrupting her train of thought. Turning, she intentionally bumped into Sally’s shoulder as she headed out back. Rolling her eyes, Sally ignored her as she stepped up to the register, her eyes being greeted by the empty store.

She had no idea why they even had so many people on shift right now, the morning rush was over, and until people were wanting snacks, or a pick me up on their way home no one was rushing to buy coffee at 2 PM. Her mind wandered back to Tinies N More.

Sure she had purchased small population packs here and there, even scrounged a discounted suburban block once that was salvaged from a dropped city, but without the right infrastructure, or supplies they never lasted long. It was like buying a snack, or a fine dessert, enjoyable, but gone too soon.

Even the buildings shed stolen from Leslie had been disappointing. Unaware of how truly fragile they were, only one had even survived the trip in her purse. Both a disappointing reward to the verbal fight shed had when she got caught,but also a pain to clean up. Her purse was riddled with specks and smeared remains for days until she deep cleaned it finally.

“Look at you, actually where you are supposed to  be for one” Kaley chirped as she returned from the trash, heading over and beginning to make herself a latte. Naturally if Sally made herself a drink,  it would be deducted from her already meager paycheck, but Kaley managed to either get away with it, or perhaps was even allowed to. Either way she knew Kaley enjoyed rubbing it in their faces.

Her face flashing crimson for a moment before she put her anger aside. Knowing nothing positive would come from arguing with her supervisor, Sally nodded and began some idle work behind the counter. Tidying up and preparing for future orders.

Her shift passed slowly, a mixture of dreadfully boring, and full of unending pokes and jabs from Kaley, who seemed to need constant validation from others today. Sally wasn’t sure she could listen to Kaley complain one more word about her dumb boyfriend. Hanging her apron up, she spared no time hoofing it out to her car and beginning her drive home.

She was in a piss poor mood. Today had sucked, and the universe just didn’t seem to be offering her any help. Even the paycheck deposited in her account seemed small and unhelpful to combat her bad mood. She knew what she needed to fix things tonight. She had planned on saving it for a special night, or once she could afford to buy something else, but those plans evaporated as her patience for today did.

She needed to feel in control, to feel like she mattered. She wanted someone to tell her how much she mattered to them. A date would be good too, but the answer sat on her dresser, only slightly damaged from her very careful movement.

For the briefest moment she felt bad, recognizing that like Kaley, she was just taking her bad mood out on someone else, but that was what they existed for.

She was going to imagine every single one was Kaley.
—------------------

Colby exhaled deeply as he shoveled another pile of rubble into the truck bed. They had been at this for hours, and as far as he knew, they hadn’t found a single survivor. Fortunately, he had personally not found any bodies either, knowing that digging one up would be sure to give him nightmares.

He reached down, pulling a larger slab of bricks up and out of the way, revealing more debris underneath. Shattered plates, a mug, barely recognizable dust covered food.Well into the internals of the apartment building, this was the third or fourth kitchen he had dug up as they got deeper into the massive pile of rubble that was once a 6 story building.

It was strange how emotionless he felt as he did all of this but their life was sadly one where this was constant. People died, buildings broke. They would clean it up, remove the debris and remnants of theta was there, and rebuild, just like they always had. It wasn’t easy, but if there was a silver lining, it was never boring.

Looking over at a couple other workers as they heaved together, pulling down a partially demolished wall to get behind it he wondered why they were doing this at all. They had the machinery to take care of this much faster than by hand, and everyone knew there wasn’t going to be any survivors. Not this close.

“Bastards” he muttered as he looked over, a large crane and some bulldozers sitting idly over in the distance. They'd have this place cleanest up and ready for rebuilding already if they were using them but instead hundreds of people across the city were here, toiling away.

He had heard rumors that they were running low on gasoline, which would of course explain the lack of working heavy machinery present, but that's not the public explanation. Probably trying to earn publicity points, the new mayor had insisted they focus on the people, and survivors had a much better chance of making it if they did this by hand.

“If there are any…” he thought, as he heaved another load of gravel and refuse down towards the collection spot. Taking a break to wipe his brow, he looked over. Across the street was just…nothing. It was almost unreal, and if you didn't know what you were looking at you’d probably assume your eyes were deceiving you.

Like a video game that had failed to render, the world abruptly ended at the other side of the street, falling off into a dark brown void.

Her footsteps.

Earlier that morning, in a rush Leslie had mis -stepped, and in a blink dozens of buildings, and probably hundreds of lives were just…gone. Colby looked out, trying to remember what buildings had even been there.

The earth trembled, and loud sounds from the heavens rumbled over the dig site. She was home. Watching as the shaking caused a bit of the road to crack, and slip into the gaping crater, he shuddered and resumed working, hoping that his shift ended soon. Reaching for his phone to peek at the time, he quickly remembered he’d stowed it away. Losing it here meant it was probably gone, something the foreman had tried to beat into them as they'd geared up for the task ahead.

More rumbling, focusing a bit he could make out some words, Leslie and her roommate were bickering about the city. Having missed the beginning though he wasn’t quite sure what until it dawned on him.

Did…did Leslie not even remember she had done this? Sure enough, he looked up and was caught off guard to see her face looking down over them as she inspected from an unfathomable height. Her Hand reached up, brushing her shoulder length brown hair out of the way, as she leaned closer, her green eyes now visible to everyone down below.

She leaned back away, and Colby tried to put her out of mind as he began shoveling again, nearly halfway through this section. She made a “hmm” noise far above, and a moment later he was alerted again as shouting picked up all around, it wasn’t until it began to grow darker and the shouting increased tenfold.

“What the fuck…” He muttered as he looked up, only to be greeted by the sight he imagined many this morning saw as their last. Her foot was moving over the city, and it felt right for him. Knowing taking cover was useless, he rolled his eyes as some of the others screamed or ran to shelter.

The foot passed overhead, and as it began lowering Colby couldn’t resist crouching down, as if that would help. What was she doing? Her foot looked mostly over the crater she had already made… A crashing sound pulled his attention towards her heel, which had just impacted one of the still standing buildings along the rim. A cacophony of crunching stone and metal thundered across the empty void, as the foot began to withdraw. Whatever she was doing, she wasn’t *intentionally* causing damage.

Just as quick as it had appeared, the foot withdrew into the distance as Leslie retreated from view herself. Colby collected his wits and stood abc up, unsure what that was all about as a city government vehicle rolled up lights flashing to the dig site.

‘For fuck sake, what now” Colby muttered, walking down towards it to hear whatever they needed to share.

“The mayor is calling for volunteers. All who partake will get the rest of the week off”

Without even hearing what the volunteering was for, Colby dropped his shovel, raised his hand and marched towards the man.

—--

Sally sighed happily as she laid on her bed, feeling much better than when she had gotten home. Rolling over, she looked down across her floor, a small giggle leaving her mouth as her eyes fell on the crushed remains of the skyscraper.

The mess told a story, as her eyes followed the debris and rubble, and the barely discernible spots of color she knew to be crushed remains. It had taken all of her remaining patience to let them start running away just to be more than one foot length but it had been worth it.

She closed her eyes, reliving the moment of her foot slowly hovering over the panicked specks, sprinting for their lives away as her toes pressed down on the building they'd been stowing in for the past several days before lifting up and moving towards them.

She was the only person that mattered in this moment. Whether they lived or died, or rather *how* they died was all up to her. And only her. Taunting them with each step, or toe press, the lucky survivors who made it to the end of her “race” were rewarded by being scooped up and brought up to the bed, where they found their end underneath fingers and hands.

Looking at her dirty sheets, and speckled abdomen, she rolled out deciding a shower and a new set of sheets was in order.

“Fuck you Kaley” she muttered as she stepped down on a moving speck on her way to the shower. Missed one.