Chapter Text
The workload was endless.
I'm hardly exaggerating. The gods really must be in a bad mood right now, because they were clearly eager to smite me down with one of the largest packets I've ever seen. It was filled to the brim with lists of timelines to fix, events to reset, anomalies to destroy, and everything in-between.
At my desk, I flipped through the massive book-sized packet to take count of how many things in general I was tasked to accomplish. It was very much in the hundreds, possibly even over a thousand. I wasn't certain, since whoever made this ridiculous checklist couldn't be bothered to number everything down, leaving me in the dark over exactly how many assignments I have to do.
"This is gonna take me weeks!" I lamented, grasping my forehead with my hand in the process.
And yeah, the problem with these kinds of workloads aren't the assignments themselves. I've been doing this since the beginning of time, after all. It's the sheer scope of this workload paired with the uncertainty of exactly when I'll be finished that's making this so daunting and annoying. Then there's the fact that I have next to no time to take breaks and stuff, because the moment I take a break for ten minutes, it evolves into two hours, and once I take a two hour break from my duties, then the anomalies will affect more timelines beyond the ones I'm currently tasked to fix, and if that happens, well... I think you get the picture...
I continue staring at the beast of a checklist; I swear I could feel its presence looming over me like a menacing shadow, or an evil puppeteer controlling my every move for its own satisfaction. Never have I felt so overwhelmed about my work in my life.
"...Might as well cancel all my future plans for the next few weeks at this point... Man, and I was excited to actually hang out with Mumei again later this week..! It's been so long since we really did anything together outside of the Abode... And then I was gonna follow that up with me and Fauna checking out a cool forest she found... Hhuuurrgghh... This suuuucksss..." I grumbled as I implanted my face onto the desk.
As much as I wanted to do nothing, I simply couldn't. It's my duty to make sure every timeline remains orderly and calm, and by the looks of this list, things were most certainly NOT calm. As long as nothing drastic happens that temporarily hinders my ability to carry out my duties, I must fix everything.
I slowly raise my head from the desk and take a deep breath.
"Come on, Kronii..." I speak to myself. "There may be an ungodly amount of assignments ahead of you, but it's technically no different than any other work session, just.. spread out over several days, that's all. If you power through the assignments each day and do literally nothing else, maybe you'll be done a lot sooner than a few weeks. Sure, the lack of breaks won't be pleasant, but once everything's complete, you'll have allll the free time in the world to spend with Fauna and Mumei. It'll be great!"
That pep talk really helped to motivate me a bit, as I gave myself an overarching incentive to complete this workload as fast as possible. With this in mind, I shifted the pack towards the center of the desk and flipped to the very first page. I set my eyes on the very first task listed, ready to start this long journey.
"All right... Let's get this over with." I announce.
I stand up from the chair and summon a ring of timelines surrounding me. Luckily, the timeline I had to fix first was within this group; a heavily corrupted world being destroyed by invaders that were arriving from an entirely different timeline. A classic trope at this point. Without any additional seconds to hesitate, I enter the broken world, beginning today's work session.
I'll spare the details of everything, since, admittedly, there wasn't a whole lot of interesting events worth discussing. The routine was basically:
- Enter timeline;
- Fix or erase it, depending on the circumstances;
- Exit;
- Check the task off that big packet;
- Repeat.
It really was no different from any other brutal work session, excluding the fact that I have to do this for the next several days non-stop. I ended up fixing around fifty or so timelines today, which would normally be a lot for any "normal" work session, but compared to other work sessions where I had to spend all day fixing timelines with few breaks, this output was relatively low. This was partly due to me starting late in the afternoon (at around 6 PM I think), since that was when I received the checklist, but on top of that, I also decided to stop working early.
By the time I completed the fifty-something tasks, I was starting to feel uncharacteristically lethargic. Yeah, I usually become tired after long work days like this, but this was on a whole different level. My eyelids felt like they tripled in weight and my limbs felt like they were being weighed down by heavy grocery bags.
"Mmmmhh... So.. tired..." I spoke weakly as I drag myself towards the desk.
At this point, even picking up the pencil and checking the task off was a task in its own right. It was here that I needed to check the time to figure out how much more I should do before calling it. Of course, I checked using the crappy digital clock resting on the corner of my desk, since walking over to the other end of the Clock Tower to look at the Universal Clock would've resulted in me collapsing onto the floor before reaching it.
—10:17 PM—
"...I-It's only been four hours..?" I question in disbelief. "...I swear it felt longer than that... Well..." I stop to let out a long yawn. "...Hoouuh... How much do I have left..?"
I scan through the pages flip book-style, and concluded that I was nowhere near 10% finished, probably not even 5% either. I still had a long ways to go, but in this moment, I really couldn't go any further.
"...I.. I really should spend another two hours on this.. but... I just can't..." I conclude in defeat. "...I guess I'm gonna have to wake up extra early tomorrow... That'll be good, since I'll be able to spend so much more time working than today... I'll get a ton of progress done..!"
It was set in stone. With me clocking out (pun absolutely intended), I slowly walk towards the teleporter that can quickly transport me to any domain within my own timeline. Of course, with my current state of exhaustion, what is typically a 4 second walk became quintupled. My body sagged down like a palm tree the entire time, as if it was requesting me to sleep on the cold floor for the night.
Eventually, I arrive at the teleporter just before my body gave out. I walk up onto the platform, and sure enough, it transported me from the Clock Tower to the comfort of my bedroom in the Abode. Oh, how I love this place.
I proceed to crash onto my bed back-first; recollecting today's events was a must before I could go to sleep.
"Haaaagghh..." I sigh while staring at the ceiling light. "...This isn't normal... I'm not..." I loudly yawn again. "I-I'm not usually this drained after working... I barely even worked today..."
The light from the ceiling light was starting to shine through my eyes, so I promptly squint them and place my hand over my forehead sideways. Almost immediately, I noticed that my forehead felt unusually warm.
And that was when it clicked.
"No... No no no, I can't... Not at this time, I have so much work to do..!" I fret.
I didn't even bother saying out loud that I was feeling.. under the weather, out of fear that I would jinx myself. In fact, I straight-up dismissed that belief.
"...Oh, what am I even saying? There's no way it could be that... I-It's probably just stress from all the work... Y-Yeah..! It's most certainly stress! I'm fine, perfectly a-okay, I just gotta stop worrying about my work. It'll get done eventually, even if it's gonna take a long-ass time..."
At the time, I thought that the more I denied something, the less true it would become until it was no longer the truth in any capacity. It's worked with tons of things in the past, so surely it would've worked with my state of health, right?
Ahahaha...
Anyways, with the tiny amount of energy I had left, I rose up from the bed—slowly—and proceed to actually get ready to sleep. The most important thing was to adjust my alarm right away; had I'd not done it for any longer I would end up forgetting to change it and then I'd be hella screwed. I set my alarm two hours earlier from the typical 10 AM to 8 AM, that way, I'd still get a sufficient amount of sleep while being able to work for longer tomorrow.
After that was all set, I walk over to my cabinet-style closet and open the doors. I take my sleepwear (which was nothing but a long white button-down shirt that stretched down to my waist) off from its hanger and promptly change into it. I really should've hung my normal clothes afterwards, like I do every night, but I was so exhausted that I didn't bother and just decided to hastily throw them inside.
Finally, I walk over to the light switch and flip it downwards, dimming the room to near pitch black-levels of darkness; just how I like it. I could now crawl into bed and tuck myself in snugly now that everything was all set. Before falling asleep, I stared at the ceiling one last time and reminded myself about tomorrow.
"You're perfectly fine, Kronii... Never better... Tomorrow, you'll work so much that.. that you'll be... you'll... be.... m-mind-blown......"
I yawn one final time before turning myself onto my side and falling fast asleep in under 5 minutes; a new record if I say so myself.