Still quite shaken from the whole encounter, Pori completes the rest of her shift, albeit with lowered performance. She can’t quite shake the imagery for some reason, and the creepy vibe she felt approaching the house has not yet been entirely revoked from her senses. Regardless, she gets through her shift, and clocks out at ten, roughly an hour before she has to get to school. This gives her plenty of time to change back into her school clothes, and walk the rest of the way to her college.

She is walking through the center of downtown when she encounters yet another familiar face.

“Adrian!” She calls her friend who is standing on the crosswalk diagonal to hers. At first she thinks he didn’t hear her, but after waving her hands, his direction gets pointed towards her.

Pori crosses the two crosswalks required to get over to him, and the two begin talking.

“You ready for finals today, Pori?” Adrian says.

“I wish I could say I was.” The two of them laugh and joke around. They have known each other since middle school, but were never really friends until they started college. Since they have the same major at the same school, the two of them found it really easy to work together in order to pass the classes. And as we know, they will also end up getting into some terrifying trouble in a few days … but let’s keep it peaceful for now.

Action Pact

The Invasion

Story by Connor Perry

Demon Hunter

3

They arrive at their college, and walk across the labyrinth of gardens and walkways that make up the school’s campus. They finally enter through a side door designated for students, and make it to their class. Pori wouldn’t admit it, but she really isn’t looking forward to having to take her finals today.

She takes a seat in the center of the tiered seating area. Next to her sits Adrian, which is how they found out they would be in the same class, to each one’s surprise. They sit down next to each other as others begin pouring in. Pori never really takes the time to get to know any of her classmates, she doesn’t really have that making-friends-everywhere mindset, not like she used to. That was how she ended up making so many friends in grade school. But nowadays, she tends to stick only to those she’s already friends with.

The teacher comes walking in, grumbling about something, like he usually is. Mr. Meyer isn’t a very passionate teacher. The only reason he continues to teach is because he gets to use the school's funding and equipment if he does. That’s why his few hours of teaching are always the time he uses to get all his negativity out.

“H’alright class,” Mr. Meyer says monotonously, “today is your Financing final. As you know, you must get over a 60 to pass. Any who don’t must see me next week for provisions. Pull out your laptops and go to the testing site. You will have the next four hours to complete it, so don’t feel the need to rush.”

Pori, along with the rest of the class, follow his instruction, and they begin the test. Pori is quite well-versed in her studies, but she still dreads the boring and dull methods of test taking. Either way, she continues to do so, as she desperately needs to pass this class.

After about 3 hours, Pori submits her test for approval. The multiple choice section comes back with a perfect 100, something which makes Pori quite happy. The written section will need to be graded by hand. Once finished with the test, Pori leaves the room, as she figures right now would make for some good free time. She walks around the school while waiting for Adrian to finish his final, and then the two of them begin to walk home together.

Pori sighs, and exclaims that she wishes she didn’t have to work yet again later today. Her second job is working at a grocery store. It seems like a fine enough job, one that perhaps one of you might have, but her boss there seriously makes it hell.

And as she predicted, as soon as she walks in, her boss, Molly, scolds her yet again for not bringing her work uniform. As Pori has tried telling her a hundred times, she has her work uniform in her bag, but for some reason Molly always seems to forget.

For the next six hours, she is subjected to all types of torture from Molly, from having to clean the bathrooms, to rearranging all the vegetables for no reason other than because Molly feels like it. And whenever she’s cleaning messes, Molly yells at her for missing an area, even before she is done cleaning. At the end of the night, Molly tells Pori she needs to get better at working her job, and tells her to go home.

Pori leaves the store a whirlwind of emotions, but chooses instead to complain to Adrian over text, rather than taking her anger out on others. She gets home around 10:30 at night, half an hour after she left. Everyone is already sleeping, and immediately settles in to get a good night’s sleep. She needs it after the long, stressful, and, above all, mysterious day she has had today.

The next day, she gets up prepared to do it all over again. She walks into the kitchen, surprised that Eric is still here, then remembers it’s Saturday. Despite not having school, Pori must still work her two jobs and today her shifts will most likely be longer. Normally, she would work both jobs in one day. But on weekends, she would work twelve hours at her delivery job on Saturday, then twelve hours at her grocery store job on Sunday, her least favorite day of the week. She decides to eat a light breakfast with her family, instead opting to take a bag of carrots with her to eat on the way to work. She ultimately just wants to get her work weekend over with, and start her two week vacation off school, which she also called out of work for.

After walking across town, she makes it to the Distant Diner store. But one thing that alarms her right away are the police cars lined up out front. At first she suspects the government has finally caught on to Dorotheo’s shady business practices, but this is not the case.

She sees her other coworker, Drew Mankley, standing outside the restaurant.

“Oh Pori I forgot you were working today,” Drew says drearily, “but you can head on home.”

“What?” Pori asks, surprised. “What’s going on?”

“It’s quite unfortunate what happened. Danny was set to close the store at the end of the shift.”

Pori interjects, “uh huh.”

Drew continues, “well … Last night when he was here by himself…” Drew holds back for a second, “... someone outside attacked him.”

“W-What!!!?!”

“Yeah… and they are currently speculating that this wasn’t an act of vandalism. They believe Danny was intentionally murdered.”