Morning at school began in a fog for me. I stumbled into the classroom, barely dragging my feet, and collapsed into my seat. From a mile away, my school uniform reeked of over-fried oil, cheap spices, and that specific "MacDuck" aura that seemed to have eaten its way right under my skin.

  "Oh, hey, Arkgrim," Leon's voice rang out nearby.

  I cracked one eye open. Leon was sitting at his desk, and he looked... different. A new kind of tension had appeared in his posture, his gaze was sharper, and his shoulders seemed broader somehow. But my sleep-deprived, foggy brain didn't latch onto it.

  "Hey, Leon..." I muttered, dropping my head back onto my folded arms.

  "Why are you so sleepy?" Leon narrowed his eyes, sniffing the air. "Stayed for the night shift again?"

  "Yeah..." I exhaled into the desk. "The dwarf Ruzvol is a slave driver. But still, there are fewer customers at night, so you can actually get some sleep."

  I felt my consciousness slowly drifting away. The noise of the classroom was turning into a distant hum. Somewhere on the edge of my awareness, I noted that Leon was looking at me with a strange mix of pity.

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  "Listen," Leon lowered his voice, "I'll drop by your place today after school. Check up on you."

  "Alright... I'll be waiting..." I mumbled, finally succumbing completely to sleep. "Just don't forget... to bring... something edible..."

  I fell asleep before he had a chance to answer.

  After classes, I staggered my way to work. It was crowded at "MacDuck."

  "Hey, Ruzvol!" I tossed out, walking into the back room.

  "Hello, hello, Squirt!" The Dwarf didn't even look up from his invoices. "You're twenty minutes late."

  "Why are you so mean and gloomy?" I pulled on my apron. "Smile for once, old man. The sun is shining, the patties are frying."

  "Yeah, sure, go work," he grumbled.

  'Why is he in such a bad mood today?' I thought, stepping out onto the floor. Over the past week, I had made a rapid but somewhat bizarre career leap. Now they trusted me not only to assemble bags but also to stand at the register, and sometimes even allowed me at the grill. The responsibilities had tripled, but the salary... the salary remained the same. The fascinating mathematics of this world.

  But there was one upside—the night shifts. They paid 65 dollars for those. At night, the city quieted down, there were very few customers, and the work flowed lazily. You could stare out the window at the empty road for hours or doze quietly to the hum of the refrigerators.

  And that is exactly what began to scare me.

  I stood behind the register, looking at my reflection in the stainless steel of the soda dispenser. I was wearing a stupid cap, an apron stained with sauce, and crumpled dollars lay in my pocket. I caught myself thinking that this rhythm—work, school, sleep, fried noodles—was becoming familiar.

  A genuine, icy terror stirred inside me. It was the most terrible fear: getting used to a life like this. Forgetting that somewhere out there is a life better than this one. I was afraid that this gray routine would suck me in like a swamp, and in ten years, I would still be standing right here, discussing the freshness of pickles with Cucumber and Potato.

  "That will be eight dollars and forty cents," I said in a mechanical voice, handing change to the next customer.

  The world was shrinking to the size of a fast-food kitchen, and there was nothing I could do about it. All that was left was to wait for the evening and hope that Leon would bring something that didn't smell like oil.