Chelsea was leaning on the counter, reading a magazine article titled, "Blorgs! How To Use Them!", none of which she understood a word of, when the bell over the door rang. She looked up and saw a group of three young women enter. On one hand, she was appreciative. These were just plain ordinary human looking girls about her age. On the other hand, because of where they existed, they didn't have any skin. The girls meandered a bit, looking for something until they finally gave up and approached the counter.
"Excuse me," the girl in front said, "Hi, we're looking for some sunscreen. You have sunscreen for people without skin, right?" Chelsea stared for a moment, until she sighed and shut the magazine. "Let me help you," she said flatly. Chelsea came around from the back of the counter and headed to the aisle where they kept supplies like that. She knelt down and started sifting through a select few items grouped together on the shelf, muttering the names to herself as she did, while the other girls stood behind her, watching. "We've already looked through here," the lead said again. "I'm aware, I saw you do it. I'm just doing it too because sometimes customers miss things that are plain as day," Chelsea replied, "Seeing as I'm not one who's too keen on skincare routines to begin with, however, maybe I'm not exactly the best person to be helping you with such a request." "Well is there anyone else even here?" the second girl of the three asked. "No, I'm the only employee, and I was only recently hired," Chelsea replied, "So not only am I not super familiar with the products we carry, I also am not from this place, nor have I been here that long. You're working with diminishing returns here, is what I'm saying." The third girl laughed a little, which made her friends glare at her. "Look, we can't be out in the sun for too long without some sort of protection," the first girl said, putting her hands on her hips, "if we're exposed to the UV rays for that long, it'll flat out cook us, and that would be, well, kinda unpleasant I'd suspect. So how do we proceed?" "Well, I suppose you could just...burn up and die in a glorious blaze?" Chelsea asked, smiling cheerfully, none of the girls except the third laughing; after a moment, Chelsea added, "...that...that was a joke. I don't know what to-" The bell over the door rang and they all turned to see who had entered. After a few seconds, and the sound of nice shoes clacking on the floor, they saw the man Chelsea had come to know as Polaris standing at the endcap of the aisle, looking at the sunglasses. Chelsea knew if anyone could help her, it'd be him, even if Luna had told her to be careful interacting with him. "I'll be right back," she said to the girls, heading down the aisle as she watched Polaris put a pair of sunglasses on his featureless face. Approaching him, she smiled and asked, "why do you need sunglasses? You don't even have eyes." "It's a little thing called fashion, sweetheart," he said, making her chuckle as he added, "So, how's your night going?" "It's...going," Chelsea said, scratching the back of her head, "Actually, could you maybe help me with these customers? They're skinless, but they're looking for some kind of sunscreen they can use to protect themselves." "You get a lot of ironic customers, do you?" Polaris asked, making Chelsea chuckle again. For the life of her, Chelsea couldn't understand Luna's disapproval of Polaris. He seemed fairly nice and polite and willing to help. But, she had to remind herself, this was not her dimension, and she hadn't been here that long. She was unsure of everyone's relationship to one another. Chelsea folded her arms and tossed her hair back behind her. "Can you help me, please?" she asked. "I can, but I would like something in return," Polaris said, checking his finely manicured nails. "What? Something evil? I can't give you something evil." "I just wanted a slurpy," Polaris said. "Oh, well, that we can do," Chelsea said, laughing. Polaris followed Chelsea back down the aisle, until they finally got to the girls, two of which were yammering about the lack of assistance and product, while the third remained ever quiet. Polaris stopped, leaned against the shelf and, presumably, checked his nails. "So ladies, what appears to be the problem? Having a slight issue finding something to keep you safe?" he asked. "Yeah," the first girl replied, "this store doesn't have anything that'll protect muscle and sinew, just skin proper. Not only is that sort of discriminatory - though I doubt intentionally - it also puts a hamper on our plans cause we can't go somewhere else now. This was our last hope for the day." "I think I can help you find what you're looking for," Polaris said, as he took Chelsea by the arm and added, "wait right here" before dragging her off. Once he and Chelsea were out of earshot, he looked back at the girls, then faced Chelsea, who had a quizzical appearance on her face. "So what's your solution?" she asked, folding her arms. "Todd still work here?" Polaris asked, surprising her. "You know about Todd?" she asked. He snapped his fingers and they started heading to the back area of the store, through the double doors into the halls where Todd's "office" was located. Polaris's long legs allowed him to stride down the hall with ease, with Chelsea having a tough time keeping up. "How do you know about Todd?" she asked. "I know a lot about this store," he said, "So what you're gonna do is go in there and get three skinsuits from him. I'll bet Luna told you he only makes clothing, but that's not at all the case. He can make anything. You just have to ask him." "...can't you do it?" "What, your job?" "I just...I don't really wanna see skinsuits be made, that sounds...gross," Chelsea said. "Jeez, I can't believe she hired you," Polaris said, rubbing his forehead, "Alright, wait here, I'll be back in a moment." Polaris entered Todd's office, leaving Chelsea hanging out in the halls. She leaned against the wall and blew her bangs out of her face, sighing. Why couldn't she have gotten a job at a fast food restaurant or maybe a...a video rental store. Those still existed, right? They had to somewhere. But no. Nobody else would call her back, nobody else would even give her the slightest hope or chance, and now she worked here of all places. In this bizarre multidimensional little shop of horrors. She heard the large double doors open and she turned her head to see the third girl of the group, the quiet one, approaching slowly. "Ma'am, you shouldn't be back here, we'll be right out soon enough and-" "I'm so sorry," the girl said, catching Chelsea by surprise, considering she hadn't spoken all night. "Sorry?" "For my friends, or...I guess they're my friends, I don't know," she continued, "We've been friends so long it'd be weird not to be, you know? But they're rude and selfish and I just feel like I have constantly have to apologize to minimum wage workers whenever I can on their behalf, so I'm sorry. I'm sorry they're jerks and that they've talked to you the way that they have. I think you do a fine job." Chelsea wanted to hug this weird skinless girl, thank her for her kindness, but she didn't. Instead she just smiled, taking her words to heart. "Thanks, I appreciate that. They aren't that bad, for what it's worth," Chelsea said, "I mean, sure, they'd kinda mean, but like, last week, I had this guy come in - I think he was a guy, I can't tell with monsters - and he was the biggest jerk. He was just a giant mouth and said he wanted chewing tobacco and I asked him 'do you want a funnel with that?' and he lost his temper. Like, okay perhaps what I said was rude but I figured humor would lighten the situation." The girl was giggling now, which made Chelsea feel better. This was the first actually normal interaction she'd had outside of Polaris - and she questioned whether those were considered normal or not - in the store, and she welcomed it. "It's hard out here," the girl said, leaning on the wall beside her and looking at her hands, "everyone is always so scared of eachother, so angry at one another. Then you have the outside world calling us monsters, granted they don't really know we exist proper, but still." "I'm sorry, I shouldn't use the term monster." "I don't care, but yeah, others might," the girl replied, "I just want you to know that I think you're doing a pretty good job at keeping your cool for a human stuck in this sort of situation. Considering the things you've seen and the people you've helped, it must be warping your world view just a bit." "Oh, a smidgen maybe," Chelsea said, grinning, both girls laughing. Suddenly the doors opened back up and Polaris stepped back out, holding three skinsuits, complete with faux bathing suits attached. He waved through the door as it shut. "It was nice seeing you too, Todd, tell the wife and kids hi for me!" he said. "Todd has a wife and kids?" Chelsea asked as Polaris approached. "Of course he does. Todd's a catch," Polaris said, before turning to the skinless girl, "Now, you, uh..." "Xorlack," she said. "Xorlack, which of these do you want?" Polaris asked, holding the skinsuits out in full for her to choose from. After a moment of consideration, Xorlack chose one and Polaris handed it to her before heading back out to see which ones the other girls wanted, leaving Chelsea and Xorlack alone once again. Xorlack started to pull the skinsuit up around herself, like it was a dress, while Chelsea waited and watched. As she got it fully on, fitting perfectly, she turned and looked at Chelsea, who smiled at her. "How do I look?" she asked. "You look great, actually," Chelsea said, "Now let's go get some sunscreen for you." Once Polaris had given the other girls their suits, and Chelsea had helped them find a sunscreen that would best fit them, she helped them check out. As they left, Xorlack grabbed Chelsea's wrist and wrote her phone number on her hand before smiling at her and leaving giddily. Chelsea looked at her palm and felt an odd flutter in her stomach. Polaris lit a cigar and leaned against the counter, sighing. "Always feels good to help the customer find what they need," he said. "I...I've never gotten someone's phone number before," Chelsea mumbled, blushing. "She seemed nice," Polaris said, "You gonna call her?" "I...I don't know, maybe, I just...this job is so weird, man," Chelsea said, "Half the time I feel like I don't know what I'm doing, and the other half I feel like this is exactly where I belong. I mean, it's not like I fit in super great in my own dimension, you know? I don't really have friends, and I'm sort of an embarrassment to my family, and I don't really care for socializing at college. I actually find myself looking forward to working now, because this place feels more welcoming than anywhere I can go." "Yeah, that's the beauty of this place," Polaris said. "I mean this dimension just seems so much more-" "Oh, I don't mean the dimension, I mean this store, this place, Last Shop on the Left," Polaris interrupted, looking around the shop as he blew cigar smoke into the air and added, "it's got this magical otherworldly quality to it that's missing from the dimension its set in. It feels like a space place, like somewhere you can belong even if you belong nowhere else. Luna has a habit of hiring people who don't fit in anywhere, which is maybe why they fit in so well here." "...how do you know so much about the store, and Luna?" Chelsea asked, leaning on the counter. "Eh, another time perhaps I'll tell you, for now I think I'll just take my snacks and go home," he said, waiting as Chelsea rang him up; he leaned on the counter as well and said, "I think you should call her, for what it's worth. You say you can't make friends where you are, then make friends here. Monsters are the better people anyway." "Yeah, I'm starting to realize that," Chelsea said as she finished his check out. Polaris tipped his hat at her as he took his bag and exited the store. Chelsea, now finally alone again, stood behind the counter and looked at the number on her hand once more, now noticing Xorlack had even put a little heart next to her name. Chelsea felt flushed. She'd always assumed she liked girls as much as she liked boys, but she'd never really taken the time to know for sure. Well, now, it seemed, she knew for sure. Come the next night, Chelsea found herself back in the dimension, though not for work. She and Xorlack had made plans to do something, and she was beginning to see what Polaris meant. The store had brought her employment, self worth and now friendship. What had the 'real world' ever given her, honestly, besides grief and isolation? Maybe, just maybe, Chelsea could be a monster for a while too. At least, unlike other humans, she could admit she was.
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Chelsea Teages is trying to pay her way through college, and has taken a job as a cashier at a local convenience store that may or may not be in an alternate dimension. Archives
November 2022
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