Work Text:
The fluorescent lights buzzed from above, coupled with the sounds of scratching pen and shuffling paper. Little noise echoed along the painted green walls, creating enough of a silence that it was palpable.
Desks sat in tidy rows, their occupants filing paperwork and filling out reports like a well-oiled machine. A steady yet tense process. Work had to be done orderly, on time, and without mistake. For many of the workers, this was as normal of a procedure as eating or sleeping. However—
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—for some—
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—the environment that accompanied such work was more distracting than anything.
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One of the countless elsen idly tapped his pen against his desk, head propped up by his arm as he stared down at the paper in front of him. It was a report detailing a shipment of sugar, half filled out. He knew exactly what he had to do, and how to do it, and yet.. he didn't.
Instead, his eyes wandered around the room at his coworkers, who didn't seem to have any trouble focusing. He couldn't understand how they could just sit there in silence, unmoving outside of their work. He could hardly sit in one place without fidgeting, changing positions, shifting around. He wished he could stand and walk around, maybe stretch.
More than that, he wished it wasn't so quiet. The white noise of the factory wasn't enough, the silence was grating in his skull. As if the silence itself invented its own sound, like muffled static scratching. It made him anxious, itching his brain in a way he didn't have the words for. The rhythmic tap of his pen cut through this, if only minimally. But it was enough to make him feel sane. Enough to distract him until the end of the day.
"Um.. could-"
The elsen blinked in surprise at the sudden sound of speaking, turning to face the desk behind him.
"Could you please..um..stop making that noise?" Its occupant asked quietly.
"No." He replied flatly, frowning as he turned back around. Maybe it was rude, but he didn't care. It wasn't the first time he'd been asked to stop, and he never did.
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The clock struck noon soon enough, and he was one of the first to leave his seat, bringing his completed papers to the front with the others. It was the most relieving moment of his day to leave the office, even just briefly for lunch. The cacophony of footsteps and voices that collided together as he walked down the hallway with his coworkers brought him a calmness others would associate with quiet.
He recognized the cafeteria the most by the smell of fresh meat and sanitized metal that always filled it. Not the most pleasant scent, but one that he, like everyone else, had come to associate with eating. He stared ahead in hungry anticipation as he walked.
Just like their daily work, lunchtime ran just as smoothly. Elsen, with metal trays in hand, stood in a long single-file line in front of a machine. A roughly diced slough of raw meat was deposited onto each tray, evenly proportioned. With it, three small cubes of sugar were deposited on the side for dessert, the exact same for everyone. Posters along the wall cautioned them to chew their food thoroughly.
Full tray in hand, the elsen made his way to the table to eat. It was one of his favorite times of the day, despite how mediocre the meat was. He liked it not only for the break in work, but for the sugar given. After a grueling morning shift of office work, it was just the thing he needed to keep him going.
Chewing away at his food, he slouched against the table, listening to the conversations around him. Even here, the other workers weren't very talkative, but they weren't completely silent like they were in the office. Sometimes he'd hear snippets of someone talking about how they lost their tie. That sucks. Other times, maybe how someone felt nervous about seeing a specter. Understandable, they creeped him out despite the Director's insistence of their harmlessness. Overhearing things was something he'd just grown accustomed to. Despite this, he never had the courage to join in. He liked to listen more than anything. He wasn't sure if he would even have anything to say back.
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Lunch never lasted long enough, and before he knew it, he was back at his desk. The sounds were all left behind, leaving only the silence he'd grown to loathe. Like before, he tapped his pen against the desk in between filling out papers, trying to get himself to focus. He had several hours to go before the end of his shift, and several dozen papers to go through. Hewas already behind as it was. He was always behind, it seemed.
Groaning in frustration, he dropped his head down on the desk with a thump, sighing. Why was this so hard? Nobody else seemed to struggle like he did, at least as far as he could tell. He didn't even like doing this, he didn't understand why he had to. Even from the moment he'd been assigned to Zone 3, he struggled to accustom himself to his work like everyone else. It wasn't that he was bad at the work itself, that he was decent at, but he consistantly got less done than everyone else. He was expecting to get written up about it any day now.
Though the hours crawled by, he was used to it by now, submitting his finished work as he tiredly left the office. Less done than before lunch. Dinner was the same, but the sugar rations only came at lunchtime. But at least now the work was done for the day, and he and the others stood in line to take the tram. The dormitories were across the plastic, separated from the main factory for safety reasons. Or at least that was what was always explained when asked, whatever it meant. The ride there was always the same crowded bumpy trip, but he never minded. Through the windows of the tram, he could see the setting sun glistening against the sea. He gazed at it for as long as he could.
It was a short ride, from there it was simple. The dormitory was a large building, separated into several rooms large enough to house dozens of elsen each. It was deemed largely inefficient and costly to supply everyone with their own rooms, but since it had always been that way, he didn't care. Like the others, he simply just got ready for bed, climbing into his bottom bunk with a yawn. The lights went out at 8pm every night, and from there, he had nothing left to do but go to sleep.
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Everything repeated the next day. The lights came back on at 7am, a buzzer alerting everyone to wake up. From there, he tiredly got out of bed and went to shower and dress himself. He took the tram with everyone else, having a brief breakfast before heading once again back to the office.
There was always more work to be done. A stack of papers always waiting to be filled. The silence would always nag at his mind, his attention would always wander. This was life at Vesper, no doubt about that. Every day was the same, everything followed a schedule. If nothing changed, nothing bad could happen, right? Some people found it comforting, and maybe to some degree it was.
If nothing else, at least he had his pen.
Tap.
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Tap.