Chapter Text
Paul hated the elevator.
He hated everything about his miserable, severed existence. The elevator was just his worst reminder.
He walked down the hall towards it, Melissa right on his tail to make sure he didn't try anything. He was currently being punished, after all. He could feel her eyes boring into the back of his neck as he scanned his card and called the elevator. After a minute, the doors opened before him and he stepped inside.
"See you tomorrow, Paul!" Melissa waved with a smile.
Paul glowered at her as the doors closed.
The elevator began its ascent.
Paul blinked.
The elevator continued its descent and came to a stop.
The doors opened and Melissa smiled brightly, now wearing a burgundy blazer instead of the frilly pink blouse she'd been wearing previously. Paul knew he was wearing different clothes, too.
A day had passed, he just hadn't experienced it. He never would. All it was to him was a blink in the elevator.
"Hi, Paul!" Melissa clasped her hands. "Ready to try again?"
Knowing he had no say in the matter, Paul just gave a short nod and stepped out of the elevator.
He followed Melissa down the twisting maze of hallways to the Break Room. The room was dim, barely lit enough to see. With a demeaning pat to his shoulder, Melissa sat Paul down in front of the monitor. As he placed his hands in the grooves on the surface of the table, Melissa took her seat across from him, booting up her machines, plugging in her headphones, and readying her counter. She switched on the monitor, lighting the room with a dull blue glow.
She nodded. "Go ahead."
Paul swallowed, and turned his eyes to the script being projected on the monitor.
"Forgive me for the pain I have caused this world. None may atone for my actions but me, and only in me shall their stain live on. I am thankful to have been caught, returned in obedience to my Lord by those with wizened hands. I know that my voice and actions are His, not mine. I will speak again only in repentance, or in unison with His Singular Voice. All I can be is sorry, and sorry is all that I am."
"Good try, Paul!" Melissa smiled across the monitor. "But I still don't believe you." She clicked the counter in her hand. "Again."
Paul drew in a slow breath and pushed it out through clenched teeth. He squeezed his hands into fists, his nails cutting into his palms. He flattened his hands out on the indents in the table before speaking again.
"Forgive me for the pain I have caused this world."
--
Bill, Ted, and Charlotte all turned to the door simultaneously when it opened and Melissa ushered Paul inside.
"Hello, Macro-Data Refinement! Guess who's back from the Break Room!" Melissa said cheerfully. "I'm sure you're very eager to get working again, aren't you, Paul?"
Paul sniffed, wiping his tear-stained cheeks with the back of a bloody, bandaged hand. "Yes."
"That's a good boy," Melissa nodded in approval. She turned to the other three macro-data refiners. "I hope you three kept the pace while Paul was gone. Mr. Davidson will be very upset if we don't reach quota."
"Hey, Paul's the one who got in trouble," Ted said, turning his gold rubix cube in his hands. "If we fall behind it's his fault, not ours."
"That's not very team-oriented language, Ted. We look out for each other here! We're a big family - we're all the Waylons' Starry Children." Melissa tilted her head, her smile never faltering for a moment. "If one of you falls, all of you fall."
"We'll be alright, Melissa," Charlotte said.
"And I'll catch up," Paul added.
"Good. Best behavior now, all of you!"
Before slipping out the door, Melissa squeezed Paul's shoulder. He flinched.
When the door slid shut, Paul let out a dejected breath and trudged to his desk. As he sank into his chair, Bill pulled their shared cubicle wall down to look at him.
"Jesus, Paul," he said.
"There's no Jesus, remember?" Paul's voice was flat and dead. "It's Matthias."
"You were in there for days."
"I know, Bill."
"How many times?" Ted asked, and Charlotte smacked his arm. "What? If he's fucking us over I wanna know if he at least broke a record or something."
"One-thousand eight-hundred ninety-five," Paul said, booting up his computer.
"You didn't even break two-thousand?" Ted scoffed and pulled his cubicle wall back up. "Fuckin' useless, Paul."
"Ted!" Paul heard Charlotte smack him again.
"Aw, shove off, Charlotte, he doesn't care. Do ya, Paul?"
Paul stared into the loading bar of his computer screen. His eyes ached. His throat burned. "No."
"Hear that? He's fine."
The loading bar reached the end of the screen. The single icon desktop loaded, waiting for Paul to open his work program. He hovered his mouse over the icon. He swallowed.
"I heard a voice," he said. "A woman. On the other side of the door."
"I think you mean young girl," Bill said. "She doesn't sound like a woman to me."
"Are you sure you're both hearing it right?" Charlotte asked. "I've always heard a man. A gruff, smug man."
They could practically hear Ted rolling his eyes. "All three of you have shitty ears. It's a whiny teenage boy."
"This is the first time I've heard it, okay, I don't know," Paul said with a huff. "It scared the shit out of me. She sounded… not mad, but… annoyed, I guess."
Bill's brows furrowed. "You've been in there plenty of times before, you haven't heard a voice 'til now?"
Paul shrugged. "No."
"Weird."
"Well, here's hoping you won't have to hear it again anytime soon," Charlotte said tentatively.
"Yeah, the less time you spend in the Break Room, the better. For all of us." Ted's addition was pointed.
Paul’s brows knit. “We’ll see.”
Ted yanked his cubicle wall back down. “Paul, I swear to God-”
“Matthias,” Charlotte whispered.
“-if I lose my perks because you can’t keep your attitude in check, I’ll kick your ass.”
“Lay off, Ted,” Bill warned. “One of your Break Room stints was for whacking off in the storage room, you have no room to talk.”
“That was two years ago!”
As Bill and Ted broke into an argument on his behalf, Paul’s head buzzed with exhaustion and overstimulation. He reached over, pulling the wall between him and Ted back up. He turned back to his computer screen, doing his best to tune out the arguing.
He opened his program and got to work, the cuts in his palms aching beneath the bloody bandages.
As he scrolled through and sorted numbers on the screen, the arguing eventually subsided and the MDR department fell into quiet work.
Paul’s eyes drifted to the white eraser sitting on his desk - a perk he'd gotten last year for being the first to hit 50% of quarterly quota. It was oval-shaped, molded into an eerie mask with big, hollow eyes and a small, round mouth. Engraved cracks ran along the surface of the eraser's face.
"Could I switch?" He'd asked. "Could I get a puzzle like Ted's? Or one like Charlotte's, even? Something I can… fidget with?"
"No can do, Paul," Melissa had told him. "Perk assignments come from the tippy-top. No substitutions allowed."
"Then, um, I don't want it. Thank you. I'll decline."
"That's not allowed, either." When Melissa placed the eraser in his hand he'd felt his blood run cold. "Enjoy!"
He'd even tried to hide it in his desk drawer once and been reprimanded. So there the eraser sat, out on his desk at all times.
He pulled his gaze away from it and back to his monitor, filled with numbers. He leaned forward, falling into a rhythm of scrolling and clicking. Biting the inside of his cheek to distract from the sting of his palms.
Minutes passed.
The wheels on the chair across the four-way desk from him squeaked. Charlotte stood up and started pacing the floor. Paul pulled back from his desk, rolling out so he could see her.
“Cravings again?” He asked.
“Hm?” Charlotte paused, holding her hand out in front of her mouth, like something was supposed to be there. She looked down at herself. “Oh, I hadn’t even realized.”
Paul nodded. “It’s okay.”
“I still can’t believe I smoke out there. I don’t seem like the kind of person who smokes, do I?”
Paul shrugged. “You’re one of the only people I’ve ever met.”
“I don’t even know what a cigarette tastes like,” Charlotte’s hand trembled where it held her phantom vice. “But I want one so bad.”
“At least you’ve never come into work hungover,” Ted muttered.
Paul stood. “Looks like it’s time for a trip to the vending machine,” he patted Charlotte’s back gently. “C’mon, my treat.”
“Hey, you didn’t invite me!” Ted shouted after them.
Paul rolled his eyes, turning back to Ted with visible disdain. “Sorry, Ted, did you wanna come?”
“Nah, nah,” Ted glanced at the clock with farce nonchalance. “Lunch is soon, wouldn’t wanna spoil my appetite.”
“Great.”
Paul walked Charlotte to the next room where the vending machine was. He plucked a token out of the jar - each employee was allowed two snacks per day. He held it up expectantly, waiting for Charlotte to tell him what she wanted.
Her gaze drifted to his bandaged palm.
“That looks like it hurts.”
Paul glanced at his own hand. It throbbed and stung where he’d cut into the skin with his nails. He scoffed.
“Good.”
--
Charlotte staved off her nicotine craving by snacking on the little bag of peanuts Paul got for her. MDR worked until lunch in relative peace.
“I wonder what kind of weekend plans we all have,” Bill mused, unwrapping his sandwich as Ted joined the rest at the lunch table.
“Getting my club on, then getting my sex on, probably,” Ted said with a proud, sleazy chuckle.
“Why are you so sure you’re some suave party animal?” Bill asked, raising a brow.
“Bill. Look at this face.” Ted pointed to himself. “A guy with a mustache like this has to get laid on the regular. Besides, what else explains the hangovers?”
“You could be depressed.”
“Come on,” Ted scoffed. “Not a chance. My outie’s cool as hell. I’m the least likely one out of all of us to have a shitty life out there.” He pointed his plastic fork at Bill. “I bet you’re a loser who goes birdwatching for fun.”
Bill rolled his eyes. “Sure, Ted.” He took a bite of his sandwich, chewed, and swallowed. “I like to think I have a family to go on weekend outings with. A wife, at least. I just hope I’m not alone out there.”
“You want to have a wife you’ll never get to meet?” Paul muttered.
“Well, for my own sake, you know? It’s still me out there. I wanna believe I’m happy.”
Paul didn’t say anything back. He poked around inside his soup thermos.
Bill cleared his throat. “Charlotte, what about you?”
“I hope I have some girl friends to go out with,” Charlotte said with a tentative smile. “Or a sweet kitty to stay in and cuddle with.”
“Aw, God, Charlotte, I hope you’re not a crazy cat lady,” Ted groaned. “That’d totally kill my cool-guy image.”
All eight eyes in the MDR department flicked to the door, making sure nobody entered at that moment. Fraternization between employees on CCRP’s Severed Floor was strictly forbidden, and there was an unspoken agreement between them all to keep Ted and Charlotte’s on the down low.
Once they knew they were in the clear, they all turned back to the conversation.
“Maybe Charlotte’s the cool one,” Bill said, “you never know.”
Charlotte laughed. “Oh, Bill, you’re a riot.”
Nobody felt the need to ask for Paul’s thoughts on his life outside of work. They all knew how he felt.
--
Paul walked to the elevator at the end of the day, without Melissa as an escort this time. At the very least he could appreciate that. The walk was better when he took it alone. He hated Melissa. He hated Mr. Davidson, his boss in the office down at the far end of the entrance hall. He hated Mr. Biggs, the security guard who nodded at him as he passed. He hated everyone who worked above the Severed Floor.
He didn’t hate any of them as much as he hated the elevator, though. The elevator represented the person he hated the most. The person who trapped him here.
He stepped into the elevator, knowing he would blink and it would be Monday, while the Paul he became outside of work would go home and have his weekend, never knowing what he was subjecting his other half to on the Severed Floor.
As the elevator made its ascent, Paul Matthews woke up, eight hours of work having passed. As always, he had no memory of his work day. His back straightened and his shoulder relaxed, free of the anger his work self carried with him.
Paul Matthews was not miserable. He had been, once. The Severance procedure had been an effective solution for him.
Well, he'd thought so.
He glanced down at his hands as an ache throbbed through his palms. This wasn’t the first time he came back from the work day injured. It wouldn’t be the last, either. He wondered what corporate’s explanation would be this time.
--
“You think he’s self-harming?” Paul’s girlfriend, Emma, asked, leaning over the candlelit table intently.
It maybe wasn’t the best conversation to have on a date, but it was the conversation they were having.
“Yeah. The company leaves notes on my car every time, they said these were a mishap with office scissors,” Paul said, holding up his hands. “I believed it at first, but I’m not that accident-prone.”
“Shit, dude.”
“I just don’t get it. I mean… I understand that he’s unhappy.”
“He’s trapped in an endless corporate hell, yeah,” Emma nodded.
Paul frowned. It was no secret that Emma wasn’t particularly fond of the fact that Paul was severed. They’d come to a tentative understanding about it when Paul explained his past experience with depression, having resorted to the procedure in one of his darkest moments as a last-ditch effort to find purpose in his life. Emma understood, but was still never shy to express her distaste for it every chance she got. Paul understood, too - her sister Jane had been severed, and a complication with the brain implant was believed to have been the cause of her death.
Paul still struggled to see the procedure as a negative, knowing it had absolutely helped him. They butted heads over it, but neither considered it a total dealbreaker. At least, for now. Emma particularly was interested in getting dirt on the company that killed her sister.
“But I was unhappy, too,” Paul continued. “For a long time. I never hurt myself like that. I thought about it once or twice, but I’m too averse to pain to ever go through with it.” Paul drew his fingers over the bandages. “If we’re the same person, he’d be the same way, wouldn’t he?”
“I don’t know, Paul. Maybe he doesn’t want to hurt himself.”
Paul blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, think about it. Think about what his life is probably like. He never leaves that office. He never sleeps. He’s never gotten drunk or high. He’s never worn comfortable clothes. He’s never seen a dog. He’s never seen the sun, or his family. He doesn’t even know who his family is.” Emma looked at Paul, her eyes intense. “If that was your life, and you knew who did it to you, wouldn’t you hate them?”
Paul’s throat went dry, his heart sinking into his stomach as the realization washed over him.
“He wants to hurt me.”