Aisle Be Damned
Welcome to the End of Your Shopping List
Orrin stood in the doorway, surveying the scene with the detached look of someone who had long since surrendered any illusions of normalcy. “Fenner,” he said casually, leaning against the door frame, “we’re going grocery shopping today.”
Fenner, once again trying to regain control of breakfast preparations, didn’t look up. He didn’t even flinch at the announcement. “Hear that?” he snarled at the bread. “I’ll make sure to find your mother in the bread aisle and tell her how terrible you’re behaving here.”
Orrin smiled faintly. The bread was indeed a little difficult today. “To make things easier,” Orrin continued, “I’m leaving Little Sir Menace here to guard the shop.”
Fenner froze mid-spatula swing, staring in disbelief. “You’re what?”
Orrin glanced over at the small clay knight who was sitting in the sugar bowl, gnawing away at the screaming cubes. He nodded to congratulate himself to the decision. “It’ll be easier like that, as I said.”
Fenner slowly turned toward the little clay knight. “Have you lost your mind?” he asked, pointing at the knight with the spatula (who twisted oddly, as if trying to keep its attention on the bacon in the pan). “He attacks everything. By the time we are back, he’ll have this whole place burned down!”
Orrin’s smile widened. “That wouldn’t bother you much anyway. Besides, that’s exactly why we are leaving him here. You will see.”
Fenner scowled. “I trust him as much as I trust the cupboard door to stop trying to kill me. But sure. Fine. Whatever.”
He slapped the spatula onto the counter, serving breakfast like divorce papers. By the time they were done and ready to go, the clock in the kitchen told them not-so-subtly that they were running late already. Fenner rolled his eyes. “Wouldn’t it make sense to wait until another strange person walked in and all?”
Orrin, unfazed, opened the door to the garden with a soft creak. “It’s fine. We might take a while, but we’ll be back for business just right.” When Fenner didn’t move, Orrin turned toward him.
“Ready?” he asked, his voice full of casual cheer that didn’t reach the other man; not even in the slightest. “Oh and grab the list from the counter, please. I wrote it before I woke you. Sorry about that, by the way, I should have told you to get up earlier the night before.”
Fenner muttered something under his breath, walked around the counter, only to pause, rolling his eyes. “Really?! It has hands?!” he growled at the wooden counter by the door to the garden, eying it suspiciously. Wood-ringed, branch-like stumps clutched at a piece of paper, clearly not so keen on letting go of it. Orrin shrugged. “That’s why I told you to grab it.”
Fenner stared at the counter, which, with alarming subtlety, appeared to have sprouted a set of gnarled fingers from its wooden surface. “Really?” Fenner snarled again, stepping forward cautiously. Orrin, still entirely unbothered, stood in the doorway to the garden, waiting with his usual nonchalant expression. “You get used to it. The counter doesn’t bite—not too much, anyway.”
Fenner grimaced. “Oh, that's soo reassuring.” He reached out carefully, trying to avoid making any sudden movements. The counter’s fingers twitched, like it had heard him. One of them gave his hand a gentle squeeze.
Fenner froze. His heart skipped a beat. The counter creaked in a way that could have been laughter, and with an almost painful slowness, the wooden appendages unfurled from around the paper, allowing Fenner to yank it away. Which he did. Quite aggressively so.
Orrin grinned. “Shall we then? The clock updated how late we are. By the looks of how it melts off the wall, it’s pretty stressed out already.”
Fenner shot him a look, but nodded. “Fine. Whatever. Let’s go. It’s just groceries, right? If you say it won’t take long, I’m half certain I can take at least that for fact value.” He snatched his jacket off the hook, grumbling as he walked out the door.
After passing the garden, leaving it through a small garden gate that hadn’t been there before, they made their way down the street toward the market. Fenner found himself eying every street lamp and sign a little too suspiciously, convinced that each was an elaborate trap designed to ruin his day. The town itself felt… off, even more than usual. The cobblestones beneath their feet shifted subtly, like they were attempting to mimic a path or just simply trying to get a reaction. Fenner didn’t know which one to dread more, so he simply avoided looking down.
“Tell me again,” Fenner said, breaking the silence, “where we are going now? You know, like, is it a store that’s only in this town? Or like a chain store type of thing that’s in every town?” He motioned vaguely to the side of the street, pointing out that there was not a single business in sight. Just houses.
Orrin grinned. “I suppose you can say it like that. NoOne and Sons (and Sons and Sons and Sons, one Daughter and 1 non-binary) are more of an… all-inclusive type of place. They have one store, but usually, you can reach it from anywhere.” He paused, adding, “I haven’t been there for a while. As a duty-holder, I am not allowed to go there alone and have to be attended by a— well by you.”
Fenner stopped in his tracks, brow furrowed. “Wait… what?” but Orrin kept on walking, smiling that stupid nonchalant grin he wore at all times. Fenner hurried to catch up.
“Me? The human? Are you nuts? How am I supposed to access a store that doesn’t have a fixed place?”
Orrin turned to him with that same grin, his eyes gleaming. “Exactly. They like the mystery.”
Briefly, Fenner contemplated outrunning Orrin, perhaps disappearing in a puddle or finally letting the cupboard commit murder. But in the end he merely sighed. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Maybe.” Orrin replied cheerfully, taking a turn, then another, until coming to a halt abruptly. “There we are. Wasn’t that far away now, was it?” He pointed at the building, which, to be fair, appeared to be entirely ordinary. The faded sign above the door, reading NoOne and Sons (and Sons and Sons and Sons, one Daughter and 1 non-binary) hung at a lopsided angle, almost like it had been put up by a very confused carpenter, and each addition had been scribbled on crooked little wooden planks that multiplied downward.
Fenner eyed it half-annoyed. “So this is it?” he asked as they approached the entrance. “It looks… normal.”
Orrin raised a brow. “Of course it’s normal. What were you thinking?” As he spoke, he fumbled in one of his cloak pockets. “Here. You will need this.” He said, handing him a bag full of lamenting skulls. “And don’t look at the herding-employee sitting by the carts. Just bow and pick one.”
“Herding employee?! What do you mean I need a bag of skulls?! You said it’s normal!”
Orrin didn’t reply and Fenner stared down at the bag in his hands. It wailed softly. “What do you mean, tell me!” he stressed. “Are they a currency? Protection? Lunch?!”
Orrin gave him a thumbs-up and the most unhelpful wink Fenner had ever seen. “Just follow the rules.”
Fenner, sure enough, felt like suffering a stroke within the next minute or two. “You haven’t told me the rules yet!!” he hissed so loud that the skulls in the bag started to wail louder. In an attempt to shush them, he shook the bag as he caught up to Orrin, who had already pushed the door open and ushered him inside with all the ceremony of tossing a man into a volcano.
The interior of NoOne and Sons (and Sons and Sons and Sons, one Daughter and 1 non-binary) smelled like the result of awful decision-making and the way the cart pen dominated the entrance only strengthened this impression. It looked less like the neatly stacked rows of human civilization, and more like the holding yard at a feral zoo. Carts clanged against each other, their wheels skittering and scraping on the cracked tile floor. Some of them rustled, and a few gave off low, metallic growls when Fenner glanced their way.
And at the front of it all, sitting on a stool crafted from who-knew-what, was the herding-employee: a towering creature stitched together from shopping bags and old receipts, wearing a name tag that just said WELCOME in aggressive red.
Fenner averted his gaze immediately, heart hammering against his ribs.
“Bow,” Orrin whispered, elbowing him in the ribs.
“What if it eats me?” Fenner hissed.
“Then you probably deserved it,” Orrin whispered back chuckling. As they stopped in front of the herding employee, Fenner gave a jerky, awkward bow in the general direction of the herder, who creaked ominously but otherwise did not move. Which, somehow, made everything so much worse.
Orrin nudged him toward the pen and steeling himself, Fenner approached the carts, but only briefly. One immediately lunged at his hand with a snapping motion of its broken front wheels, as if trying to bite him. He yelped, clutching the bag of skulls tighter.
“Pick one quickly.” Orrin called (being absolutely not helpful) from behind a stack of discount cauldrons. Fenner darted sideways, reaching out toward another cart that looked marginally less bloodthirsty. This one rumbled discontentedly and caught fire, wheeling away.
Desperate, he grabbed for a third one. This cart—rusty, battered, missing a front wheel—stared at him soulfully through the gaps in its frame and gave a soft, pitiful whine, like a kicked puppy happy to be cradled in a comforting hug. Its broken wheel made it lean drunkenly to the left.
“Are you serious?” Fenner muttered, dragging his hand through his hair. “You’re all broken!” In response, the entire pen of carts gave a collective angry rattling noise. Behind him, Orrin let out a low, impressed whistle. Fenner turned to glare at him. “Do something!”
Orrin merely shrugged. “You don’t like being insulted either, do you?”
Fenner rolled his eyes, ignoring the first carts bumping into him, surely bruising him up good. “Fine!” he spat, grabbed the bag of (now sobbing) skulls tighter and marched through the field of angry carts, toward the broken one. “Come on, then. I’m taking you.”
Instantly, the carts around them settled and Fenner froze as the now docile (but still broken) cart nudged his hip affectionately. He gave it a confused pat, looking at Orrin.
“And now??”
Orrin grinned. “Well. We got a cart. And we didn’t get too damaged, did we? That’s a win.” He said, pointing away from the pen toward a handful of feral carts and their temporary owners.
Another homicidal cart—smaller, but faster—zoomed by, ramming someone’s shin so hard, Fenner heard the bone break. One particularly lazy-looking cart slumped in the far corner, refusing to move at all, even when the herder-creature made an angry clicking sound. And to top it all off, a scrawny cart with graffiti all over it and a long pole sticking out of its basket latched onto a screaming customer’s ankle and refused to let go, dragging them down aisle one.
Fenner swallowed hard. He tightened his grip on the bag of skulls and gently tapped the chosen cart. “Uhm… whenever you’re ready?”
It didn’t move, didn’t squeak, and when Fenner looked down at the cart, he felt as if it was staring at him with the intensity of a devoted cultist.
“…It’s not going to follow me forever, is it?” he asked warily. Orrin shrugged. “Might. They get attached sometimes. It’s considered very rude to reject a cart once it picks you.”
“Of course it is,” Fenner muttered, dragging the overly affectionate cart behind him like a badly-trained dog on a leash. “This day is cursed.”
Orrin nodded sagely. “Welcome to grocery shopping.”
Dragging his cart-turned-devoted-stalker behind him, Fenner trudged after Orrin toward the (actual!) mouth of the store. The instant they crossed the threshold, the air shifted. The humming of the fluorescent lights morphed into a weird, warbling melody—not quite music, not quite madness, just enough to make Fenner’s skin crawl. The smell changed too, from the odd, questionable-decision-made, stale-store air to a peculiar mix of regret, wet concrete, and something alarmingly sweet, like candy that had been dropped behind a radiator and forgotten for a decade.
Fenner slowed to a stop. His cart bumped into the back of his knees with a needy whimper.
“What... is this?” he muttered, staring. The aisles twisted and tangled like a nest of worms. Some aisles looped back into themselves, disappearing in spirals. One aisle had a hanging sign that simply said: ???. Another said: I Don’t Know Either. And yet another—in the distance—showcased: Go Away.
Taking it all in, Fenner forgot to blink. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Where’s our list? We should see where to go first.” Orrin said, still cheerful, still entirely unbothered.
Fenner winced. “How about we go home? And order groceries?”
Orrin didn’t wait for Fenner to hand him the list and instead, snapped his fingers, holding it a moment later. “You’ll get used to it. Just stick close.”
Fenner eyed the aisles warily. “Stick close? Stick close to what? Reality has left the building!” Before Orrin could answer, a restroom sign caught Fenner’s eye: a cheerful blue arrow pointing toward two doors labeled simply Restrooms.
“Maybe I’ll just... splash water on my face,” Fenner muttered, half to himself. “Regain my sanity.” He stumbled toward the doors. Orrin didn’t stop him, which, in hindsight, should have been a sign.
The first door opened easily, and Fenner found himself in a small, dim room crammed wall to wall with sock puppets. Hundreds of them. All colors, all sizes, perched on tiny, sagging shelves. And the second he entered, they turned toward him in unison and began speaking.
“Hello.”
“Let me tell you about the day I died.”
“I used to be someone's favorite!”
“Do you have any spare yarn?”
Fenner slammed the door shut so fast he nearly took his fingers off. He pivoted to the second door. He cracked it open and saw a long, endless hallway, stretching so far it bent out of sight. The whole place smelled faintly of vanilla, but there were no other doors, no windows, no anything except that faint sense of wrongness. Somewhere far, far down the hallway, Fenner thought he saw a vague shape moving—slow, deliberate, patient.
He closed that door very gently. “I’ll just... not,” he said shakily. Orrin, who was now casually petting a display of deeply suspicious-looking leaflets, nodded like this was perfectly normal. “Good call. Shall we then?”
Without waiting for an answer, Orrin took control of the cart, pushing it into the first aisle. One, Fenner noticed only later, was labeled Mystery Aisle. It flickered like a bad TV signal.
One second it was a cozy library, the next, it became a miniature petting zoo full of tiny dragons, all snorting smoke and demanding attention. The next blink, it was a replica of Fenner’s childhood bedroom, but wrong. The colors a little too faded, the bed slightly too small. Fenner clutched the bag full of (still sobbing) skulls tighter.
Orrin whistled. “Huh. I wonder what section I get today.”
Fenner sped ahead. He didn’t want to find out. However, peace lasted only briefly. Around him, the air turned cold, brushing his skin with invisible fingers. One aisle, marked simply Aisle 56, was shadowed and quiet. Inside, dusty packages lined the shelves: Velociraptor Wings! Sabertoothed Tiger Jerky! Extinct-O’s Cereal! The packages seemed to sigh when he walked past them, as if mourning their own deaths.
But it was the Produce Section that nearly broke him. At first glance, it looked normal. Then he reached for a bunch of carrots.
They screamed. Fenner screamed. Orrin laughed.
The carrots hadn’t been loud. Just high, frantic little squeals, like tiny offended gnomes. Fenner, however, had startled the strawberries. Which, in return, had angered the celery.
“Pick me!” whispered an apple from the bin. “No, pick me!” cried another, launching itself at Fenner’s chest and bouncing off with a thunk. The grapes hissed when he accidentally made eye contact, their little skins twitching. Orrin, choking on laughter, stuffed something (likely) horrifying into the cart.
“Quick tip,” Orrin gasped between laughs. “If a carrot challenges you to a staring contest, don’t blink first.”
Fenner turned, half-frozen in the worst flight-forget-about-fight-reaction he had ever experienced. “They don’t have eyes!”
But sure enough, a particularly gnarly carrot—big, orange, and bristling with leafy rage— was perched on the edge of the crate, staring him down.
At a loss for the proper reaction, Fenner stared back. He stared hard. But he blinked. Instantly, the carrot launched itself at the cart with what likely resembled a war cry in the carrot-verse, knocking Fenner’s broken cart sideways, gulping up its contents, and rolling away, disappearing behind a corner.
Fenner buried his face in his hands, crouching down. “I can’t do this anymore. Take me out. Now. I promise I’ll go down without a fight.”
Orrin, gasping for air at this point, set the broken cart back up, petting it to calm it down before he pulled Fenner up by the top of his jacket. “Come on now. It’s really quiet today.”
“Quiet?!”
“Let’s go get milk. We didn’t need the things in the cart anyway. We can pass produce today.”
With a desperate whine, louder than the sobbing skulls in the bag, Fenner trudged after Orrin like a man heading for his own execution. “Milk,” Fenner muttered to himself. “Just milk. We’ll be fine.”
They turned a corner—and immediately came face-to-face with an entire aisle dedicated solely to milk. Nothing unusual right. Totally fine for a grocery store. However, the sign read: Milk and similar substances. Which was indeed pretty unusual.
Rows upon rows of bottles, cartons, and suspiciously squirming packages stretched into the distance. Fenner approached the first shelf cautiously. He picked up a sleek, shimmering bottle labeled: Milk of Silent Cows. It was empty. Orrin reached for it and put it back. “That’s invisible milk. We don’t need that.”
He followed Orrin, who stood and held another bottle. One labeled Regret Milk: Taste the bittersweet flavor of your worst memory. Fenner recoiled instantly. “How—why—who would even bottle that?!”
Orrin shrugged, pushing the cart to the next shelf. “Good for diets,” he said. “You drink it once, you don’t want to eat again for days.” They passed Temporal Milk, glimmering faintly blue. Fenner leaned in to read the fine print: “Each sip advances your biological clock by one day! Great for deadlines!”
He took a full, panicked step back. Meanwhile, the only normal-looking milk (plain old white carton, blessedly boring) sat isolated on a pedestal.
Guarded by a tiny, furious goose.
“This is why we should have taken Little Sir Menace! I knew it! He’s probably burned the shop down on his hunt for the broom or a sugar spoon. Or god beware, maybe he’s waging war on the candles again! Why can’t he wage war on the goose, huh?!”
As Fenner melted down slightly, the goose locked eyes with him, flaring its wings and honking a threat that rattled the nearby bottles. Fenner turned to Orrin helplessly. “What do we do?!”
Orrin examined the goose like a seasoned diplomat. “Hm. Looks like a Fancy Bread Goose. No bread, no milk.”
“We don’t have bread!” Fenner hissed.
“We could steal it,” Orrin said thoughtfully. The goose honked so loudly it set off a cascade of toppling Temporal Milk bottles.
“...Or we could come back later,” Orrin added, dragging Fenner backward by the jacket, leaving the aisle quickly. They were halfway to the next aisle when they stumbled upon a free samples stand. A cheerful-looking booth, manned by a not-so-cheerful, dead-eyed teenager in a paper hat.
“Maybe it’s just normal food,” he said hopefully, grabbing a tiny, suspiciously beige cube off the tray and popping it into his mouth. Instantly, he regretted it. The taste was indescribable—like chewing a memory you had suppressed for a good reason. And then the whispering started.
“Take me, Fenner,” murmured a box of cereal shaped like screaming faces. “No, me,” hissed a can of tuna with soot-dripping eyes. “I’m your destiny,” crooned a jar of pickled eyeballs. Faintly, Fenner noticed that whenever something spoke to him, their cart started filling itself. Boxes, bags, disembodied sandwich parts—it all leapt from the shelves and tumbled in.
“Orrin,” Fenner gasped, clutching the handle desperately. “Help!”
Orrin, utterly unsurprised, plucked another sample cube off the tray. He crammed it into Fenner’s mouth. “Counterspell snack,” he said smiling. “That’s why you never try these.”
The whispering cut off like a radio losing signal. Fenner swayed, blinking, as the cart gently disgorged everything back onto the floor. He wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “I hate this place.”
“Oh, now.” Orrin said cheerfully. “It’s not even that bad.”
Before Fenner could start a fresh rant, he was distracted by a dusty cardboard sign sticking out of a battered plastic bin nearby: DISCOUNT BIN - EVERYTHING 99% OFF. FINAL WARNING.
Fenner, in the fragile post-sample haze, wandered over and picked up a pair of socks. The second his fingers brushed them, a jolt ran up his arm. Buy me, the socks crooned inside his head. You need me. We belong together. Come on, Fenner. Be the socks.
Fenner’s eyes glazed over. Orrin materialized at his side, shaking his head fondly. “You touched something, didn’t you?” Fenner could only whimper in response.
“Well, now you have to resist buying it. Store rules.”
Fenner’s hand clutched the socks tighter against his chest without meaning to.
“Just resist it.” Orrin chuckled. “If the item drops back into the bin, you get a free coupon; fifty percent off any existentially dangerous product.”
Fenner whimpered again. So did the skulls in the bag. This was it, Fenner realized dimly. This was how he died. In a haunted grocery store, arm-wrestling himself for cursed socks while his so-called boss watched. And they still didn’t have anything. No milk. No produce. Nothing.
Eventually—after what felt like an eternity—the cursed socks dropped back into the bin. Instantly, a battered coupon fluttered out of nowhere and slapped against his forehead.
“See?” Orrin said brightly, peeling it off and tucking it into his pocket. “You’re a natural.”
Fenner didn’t have the energy to argue. He simply followed Orrin as they trudged onward, deeper into the store's cursed labyrinth.
The bread section loomed ahead.
Rows of neat loaves lined the shelves, but the closer they got, the more wrong it felt because every so often, a loaf would shriek—a thin, muffled wail—whenever another shopper poked it or squeezed it for freshness. A loud, desperate scream wafted from behind a closed curtain, causing Fenner to flinch so hard, he bumped into their wobbly cart. Orrin patted his shoulder. “That’s just the bread being pre-sliced. You know. For our legal safety.”
For the most absolute lack of words, Fenner merely stared at him blankly for a bit. Orrin, somewhat amused, waited patiently. “What?”
Orrin smirked, ignoring the thin sound of Fenner’s voice. “You don’t want to know. Just be happy we don’t have to slice it ourselves. Anyway. The right kind for the goose isn’t here today. I guess we come back another time for milk and produce.”
To be honest, the last thing Fenner wanted to do was to come back here. Ever.
But they moved on, and as they rounded a corner, the price tags on the shelves started shifting. When Fenner hesitated in front of a suspicious-looking jar labeled Unethical Mayonnaise, the price tag dropped five cents. Then ten. Fenner raised an eyebrow.
The tag wiggled in the air. “Come on,” it lured. “I don’t get more reasonable than that. Take it already.”
Shaking his head, Fenner looked at a bag of neon orange cheese puffs instead. The tag there immediately snapped at him. “Full price, mortal. Try the mayonnaise. Everyone can have that one.”
Fenner decided he did not want to know how deep the haggling rabbit hole went.
As they rounded another aisle, the store’s PA system, which had been piping unsettlingly cheerful elevator music, suddenly glitched, only to whisper in a sultry voice: Customer in aisle six is hiding stolen jam in her hat.
Fenner and Orrin both paused. That was their aisle. Very slowly, they turned their heads. A suspiciously lumpy-hatted woman hurried past, avoiding eye contact. Orrin grinned.
“I love Tuesdays.”
The lights started flashing red and before Fenner could register the need for panic, a booming, distorted voice thundered over the speakers: SALE FRENZY IN EFFECT. ALL SALES FINAL. MERCY OPTIONAL.
Fenner didn’t even have time to ask what that meant. Orrin grabbed him, shoving him up a ladder that appeared right beside them. “Hold on tightly.” He urged, before grasping at the ladder himself. People sprinted down the aisles, diving for products.
A fight broke out over a suspiciously glowing pineapple.
“How is this allowed?!” Fenner shrieked, dodging a flying can of beans.
“Fine print on the door when you came in. You signed the waiver.”
“I DID NOT!”
Orrin smirked. “You bowed to the herding employee, didn’t you? So you did.”
“Because you told me to!”
Orrin ignored it, seemingly enjoying the show.
They waited it out, and after ten minutes of pure madness, the lights flickered back to normal and a cheery voice sang out: Thank you for participating! Loss of limb is not covered under store credit. As the voice spoke, the shoppers shuffled back to some semblance of order, many proudly cradling bruised, slightly bloodied deals. Orrin was the first to jump off the ladder, but Fenner gave himself some time for the short climb down. His legs shook violently and for once, Orrin’s smile eased out, and the mischievous glint in his eyes softened.
“It’s okay. Let’s see what we can find, alright? Just briefly.”
Fenner merely nodded, holding on to the cart like a lost, tired child, while Orrin steered them this way and that way. And somehow, against all odds, they did indeed manage to pick up a few things:
A loaf of weeping, legally-sliced bread.
A suspicious jar of pickles that may or may not have winked at Fenner.
A mostly ethical cheese selection.
A handful of stock-meals, porridge, and canned goods.
As well as some dried meats.
And a piece of pastry for Little Sir Menace.
Fenner looked at their pathetic collection of goods and then at the broken cart, which was now wheezing pitifully under the weight of the existential dread they had experienced. He let out a long, shaky breath as they approached the checkout line, the quiet after the frenzy still buzzing in his ears. The line stretched uncomfortably long (at least something he knew from grocery stores), but it did feel like the store had decided to drag out his misery.
Orrin, unbothered again, led the way, weaving through the other shoppers.
One was dressed like a Victorian ghost lady, the hem of her dress dragging as she argued loudly with her cart, which was toddling away from her. “I said NO, you shall not wander into Aisle 77 again!” she hissed. The cart responded by attempting to make a break for it, its little wheels squealing in rebellion.
In the line next to them was an ominous swarm of crows wrapped in a hoodie. The crows seemed to argue amongst themselves, their beady eyes darting in all directions.
Fenner tried not to stare, not wanting to draw their attention but a few (normal-looking) heads ahead, a giant worm in a trench coat shifted uncomfortably, its body writhing in what might have been embarrassment or just general worm unease. Again, Fenner avoided eye contact.
Instead, he focused on the normal people. Or at least those who looked liked it. What he did notice, though, was how everyone avoided looking at Orrin. Fenner swallowed nervously. “I really don't think I can deal with this.” he muttered to Orrin, who shot him an amused look, but there was once again a spark of mischief in his eyes. “This isn’t even the fun part. Wait until the bagging contest.”
Before Fenner could ask what that meant, they reached the checkout counter, which was manned by a bagger wearing oversized glasses and an apron that read Your Soul for 50% Off in bold letters. A sign above the counter flashed: Bagging Contest in Progress. Must Pack Faster than the Bagger to Avoid the Customer Loyalty Curse.
Fenner blinked. “Wait, what? What’s the curse?”
Orrin shrugged nonchalantly. “We’ll see. Only a few people died so far.”
Fenner felt like fainting. His eyes locked with the bagger, who gave him a slow, unsettling smile. “Feeling lucky today?”
Fenner shook his head. “No. I’m already cursed. Don’t bother.”
It left the bagger speechless, then angry. Fenner couldn’t help but wonder if he had done something bad but when the bagger had finished packing up and tossed the bags into the cart with more force than necessary, Orrin chuckled behind him. Fenner turned just in time to see him pack away his coin purse.
“Well, that’s one way to end a shopping trip. Let’s go before we start a scene.”
Fenner didn’t need to be told twice. As they made their way out, Fenner’s broken cart squeaked behind them in a pained sympathy. They returned it to the pen, where it slumped down in a corner, visibly exhausted.
Which didn’t make Fenner feel any better. Worse, actually. As he stared at the cart, Orrin took the bag of lamenting skulls from him and handed him the grocery bags in return.
“Right. What were these for?” Fenner asked with a weary glance at the skull-filled bag, the tiredness creeping up fast, slowing his voice down to a murmur. Orrin, for a moment, looked softer than ever.
“You know, there’s always something. A price to pay, a debt to settle.” He looked at Fenner, as if searching for something. “It’s good to have something with you to offer.”
Fenner’s stomach twisted but he wasn’t sure if it was from exhaustion or from what Orrin had said. They stood in silence for a moment, the hum of traffic, distant and muffled as it was, a reminder of how ordinary everything outside the store looked. Even the store itself seemed fine, if the sign was ignored. As they turned to walk home, the store loomed behind them—just an ordinary building, as it should be.
Yet Fenner couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something lurking. Something Orrin wasn’t telling him. Perhaps, never would tell him. He had taken up a different pace, staying a few steps ahead of Fenner, his face not visible anymore. And Fenner, although he couldn’t care less, wondered if this was because how everyone had avoided Orrin inside, or if Orrin was merely as tired as he himself was.
Fenner’s thoughts tumbled over themselves, dragging him deeper into the sense of wrongness that had followed them out of the store. The street stretched before them, empty of anything more interesting than the occasional pedestrian. He couldn’t stop glancing at Orrin’s back, the way his pace had shifted, the way his shoulders seemed oddly tense.
“You okay?” Fenner asked, though it sounded like a weak attempt at breaking the silence. Orrin didn’t answer immediately, and Fenner almost wished he hadn’t asked at all. The air between them grew thick with something unspoken.
Finally, Orrin slowed down enough to let Fenner catch up, but his eyes never met his.
And they didn’t for the rest of the day.
When they returned, Orrin immediately went downstairs to open the shop, leaving Fenner to himself, who searched the bag for Little Sir Menace’s pastry, and while the little knight gnawed and tore at it, the daylight crept inside, taunting Lord Stranglewood on the window sill. And when he had handled that mess and finally managed to put the groceries away, Orrin’s bedroom door had closed quietly.
The man inside by himself.
Eek! I’ve been driving all day today! I’ll need to read this while I get drunk over dinner
I love your imagination and presentation. Everything is alive.