Eldritch May Cry

"Speech"

'Thoughts'

["Speech Through Technology"]

||

…

Still leaning against the counter behind the register, I kept staring at my phone. It had been just me texting the unknown creature on my phone while I waited for my shift to be over.

It had tried multiple different times to get photos that were "cooler" but failed every single time. They were still too "whimsical" to be anywhere close to cool.

The soft smile on my face dropped as I went back to thinking about what this place could be. A place that somehow doesn't get many customers yet stays in business?

Is Antonio secretly rich and just needs this as a tax write-off, or was something else, something bigger going on?

Internally, I knew what the answer could be. This world was dark, but was God's light far enough gone for what I was thinking to be the case?

The theorist in me could make up as many assumptions as it wanted, but until I had some serious proof, I shouldn't bother to try confronting—'Something's—'

'—off!' My thoughts snapped in half as I realized while I was looking down at my phone that I was being looked at.

My eyes widened in shock. My eyeballs were rolling around in search, my head not moving, and I made sure to stay completely still. I located whatever it was.

'In the window?!' I thought as my eyes locked onto the window to see a man in a hoodie standing outside it.

The way my head was pointing down behind the register, he shouldn't be able to know that I saw him.

His face was—disgusting. It wasn't that he was disfigured or disabled. It was that he was smiling. It was a smile so large that it had to be physically impossible.

'I guess I could see a smile like that being possible if he was smiling for hou—that's not possible?!' My thoughts began pouring out probability, muscle fatigue, and human emotions into the mix to craft a single theory.

This guy had been smiling for an hour—no, maybe even more than that. The muscles in the cheeks can only hold out for so long, and straining them for that long would hurt far worse than laughing for a couple of minutes too long.

Even then, I'm sure most people would try to keep their smiling to a minimum, especially if it hurt. This guy, whatever he is, is clearly mentally unstable.

The man in the window began walking to the entrance of the restaurant. He was most definitely about to enter. I was running out of time.

'Think! Think! What do they always do in horror movies where the main villains are mind controllers?!' I racked my brain, but before I could get my answer out, the guy in the hoodie was already standing before the counter.

Swallowing my saliva while still looking down, I exhaled, made a straight face to get rid of all leftover emotion, and smiled as wide as I possibly could.

It wasn't enough. I made sure that the smile reached even my eyes, pouring out every last bit of false emotion and real emotion I could into it.

As soon as I did so, I stood up straight, my smile meeting his distorted grin, his eyes wider than anyone would have them.

It felt like looking into the eyes of women that you know are mentally unstable. They have a certain way of keeping their eyes open wide whenever they're debating or talking around a debate.

However, I decided I would make the first move.

"Hello, is there anything I can get for you today?" I spoke calmly without a hint of any emotion other than slight amounts of joy.

"Ah, yes, I was just wondering, is everyone in this restaurant happy?" As soon as he said the word happy, everything clicked. He had a certain way of saying that word; he held it for a little too long.

Picking up what he was trying to put down metaphorically, I decided to play along.

"Yes, everyone here is happy. Is there anything else I can do for you?" I said the word happy the exact same way he did. I saw his smile twitch, almost as if growing more.

"No, no, everything is good, very good. I'll be on my way; make sure you and everyone that comes here are very, very happy." As soon as he finished speaking, he turned around and began walking away.

"Of course, I'll make sure of that," I said as a last bit of insurance.

As soon as my words hit his ears as he was walking out the door, he froze. I momentarily did as well. At that moment, the single thought running through my mind was if I fucked up and got too overconfident.

"Oh, it seems my shoe is untied."

"PPPPSHSHH!!!—"

Instantly, the smiling man turned around! He looked upon me, scrutinizing my face, only to see me still smiling as I had been before, entirely unfazed.

The man ended up turning back around, foregoing tying his shoe due to the sound he heard before. Taking one step—

*Thud*

"PPPFFFF—Heh—BBFFF!!!!"

He fell, landing face first, and his head instantly turned toward my direction. I was still smiling, the same as the first time he was face-to-face with me.

He quickly got up with a smile, tied his shoe, and walked off, not wanting to embarrass himself even more.

The second I saw he was gone, I slowly slipped from my standing position and fell to my knees behind the counter, unable to be seen from the window.

"PPFF—HAHAHAHA! Oh my god, that was actually hilarious! HAHAHAHAHA, I'M GOING TO DIE!! Holy shit, I didn't know supernatural fuckups existed too!"

"Oh, my stomach hurts from laughing!" I said aloud as I grabbed my phone.

Instantly, my laugh died. It was replaced with confusion. Back when I was looking down and had removed all emotion from my face, I was seeing that moment on my phone.

It was a picture of me from the moment looking down at the camera. I was in a "locked in" type of look, my hair covering the sides of my face.

My face went from confused to appalled. I quickly texted back, "I meant cool as in badass, not cool as in calm and collected!"

That picture would not be finding the light of day anywhere! It was an affront to my mysterious aura, my badass nature, my—I'm getting off-topic!

Apparently, my furry friend didn't find that fair and sent another picture with a thumbs down. An arm full of fur is shown right behind my head in the picture, with the thumbs down right next to my head.

I turned as quickly as I could to catch a glance of whatever it was, only to be greeted by the restaurant's floor and wall.

Slowly standing up, I realized it was the end of my shift. Well, my shift was a minute away from ending, but I didn't sweat the small stuff.

Putting my phone in my pocket, I walked toward the break room. Opening the door, I was greeted by a traumatized-looking Ashley.

She seemed to be dazed, not even noticing my presence. "Yo, Ashley!"

I called out to her but got no response. It seemed that I was going to have to try harder!

Walking up to her, I shook her shoulder. That seemed to get her attention as she weirdly shivered and turned to look up at me like I was a monster.

A little confused, I decided to keep it pushing. "You good?"

"Yeah." Ashley looked a little shaken up but still nodded. "I'm alright."

"That's good; tell Lucas that my shift is over," I said as I smiled at her and began backing up. "See you later; make sure to get some sleep. You look tired as hell!"

I gave a wave and a laugh as I began clocking out on the app. Today was weird; nothing I hadn't done before, but summed up, I could conclude it to be equivalent to:

"Light work, no reaction."

…

(A/N: I have more work to do. Sadly, I can't work on Custom Made Eldritch Creature because of the massive amount of world-building I would have to do for two stories. As of now, I'll probably update it every now and again until I finish this series.)