White Tiles

I keep my hands folded in front of me as I walk down the corridors.

I swear, I *hate* being here. The whole place is sickening; it feels like it's going to suffocate me at any second. Or it already is, slowly but surely. I always have to hold my breath; at least I'll be my own destruction.

My heelsteps echo down the hall, a cold reminder I'm alone, for now. But of course I've learned to remember I'm *never* alone. Someone's always watching me, and there is almost surely someone following behind me, as usual. They just know to keep their shoes silent.

Each day, I *dread* meeting with the Lead, Don Kiln. He's a gross, sickening man. Giant, round man, big beer-filled stomach, hair he invests pointlessly in to keep nicely trimmed and slickly combed back. Almond eyes and constant taunting sneer, eyebrows always daringly raised. His sneer growing each time and even curling his moustache into his own sneer when he sees me, to laugh that deep raspy and hard laugh that reminds me of someone sadly torturing a walrus.

Probably where he got it from.

If I could name the amount of people and got coins for it I'd have double the dang money he has. I'd call him a nightmare but I'm sure he takes pride in that sort of thing, I mean "nightmare" sounds powerful and all, and I definitely would never want to give him any benefit of the doubt, so I'll call him a power-hungry selfish wuss.

         He's men who follow him around like this wind-up toys you line up at wind up and watch them walk in the same direction in barely any unison until they fall over. It's all some sort of sick scene that I have to face thrice a month. Because I guess I too am forced to be some sort of wind up toy.

I finally reach the door at the end of the hall and walk in.

Kiln sits on his "business chair" which is really a throne, honestly, with his girlfriend flirtingly clutching his arm and grinning at me. She's a 16 year old northern girl and I presume his fiance at this point, and she sticks to him like a hyper fly on a flytrap. I always cringe at that; I'm only two years older than her and I can't start to think about even *hugging* Kiln. No one gives a second thought to it, because he's like 40 something, however. I guess if you're rich and powerful enough you can do that sort of thing.

He has his stashes of money literally in stacks around him. He's pulled out of the stereotypical rich villian childhood storybooks. Heck, he could be creative in his wretchedness or something instead of acting cliche.

But I guess he does it to be taunting or aid his ego or whatever. His guards--wind-up men--surround the room and will kill any person who touches any of it without permission.

As soon as he sees me, his moustache girls up into a grin. "Hera, welcome again!"

I don't smile at him. He's already goofing at his girlfriend so he's in no interest to exploit any other girls, so I don't have to act pretty or smile or any of that. I just nod my head. "Morning, Kiln."

"How have the revenues been?"

Yes, my job's his favorite. I manage commissions, workers, and also some of the cash coming in.

"Coming in steadily."

"Has Bunsen finally paid back?

I groan inwardly. I couldn't care less if he did. Bunsen's a businessman with much power, nowhere near Kiln's power, who owes him money. If anything, I'd feel bad for him. Kiln's ready to unleash all fire. Something I'm going to have to be in charge of, at some point. He likes to make me cover everything. So I'm not just doing the finance, heck I'll have to do some fighting too.

"No, nothing."

Kiln's smiling sneer turns into a scowl that's much easier to look at, because the sneer is unnerving.

//gtg