Mauricio drearly ran his fingers through his hair. They detected, like radio signals searching for a missing ship, such things like crumbs of food, a small piece of wildly under-spiced chicken, knots welded with the connection of wine droplets, and even dandruff. He rightfully cringed at his sorry state and let the poor fingers and the hand attached flop limply to his chest.
He laid there still for a little bit longer, any vision not covered by his dark brown locks of hair dripping over his face was focused on the popcorn ceiling above him.
Noticing a ache in his neck and back, he steadly sat up. He was sitting on the sofa - a greying one with bits of lining clawed out by the bald cat only known legally as Chicken - and noticing its similar state as his hair, he could instantly tell that whatever he did last night must've been so good that he forgot about it completely.
His eyes further ajusted to the TV chatting away to itself, the dining room table sitting merely a few meters away from his living room. The windows were overshadowed by the curtains drawn, possibly by himself and possibly by his much more reasonable roommates.
Whilst he took some time to adjust to his own sobriety and the chaos of the scene, one thought shook him to his bones; he has work in half an hour. The time on the TV screen said 4:30am - work begins at 5! He tried to shake away his own tiredness and went into a state of alarm: combing his hair desperately trying to get some of the food out: quickly pulling off his stained t shirt and sliding into his uniform: watching as Morgan stirred out of her room and into the kitchen - hold on.
Morgan is usually not up at this time at all.
She took one look at Mauricio's appearance and scoffed slightly, as if to just wave away anything he might've done the last night. She opened the fridge and lazily took out a microwave burger.
"Up at this time?" The exhausted barista asked, trying his absolute best to find his keys. "Do you even have work today?"
"I was promoted, dummy. I only work 3 days a week now." Her reply sounded scornful, but she didn't mean anything by it.
"Ah."
Mauricio shook his head lightly (inevitably making that chicken piece fall out of his hair, finally!) and continued his quest for the keys.
Whilst he rummaged through his own room, Morgan watched with a faint smile as the microwave burger started to spin around in the tiny little food heater box. Her smile quickly faded when the tiny little food heater box flashed before exploding in front of her, causing a loud bang.
Morgan now lay on the floor, her face blown off in all ways possible. She was barely recognisable in all the ash covering her face and, even when that was cleaned off, all distinguishable features had been mutiliated in ways not existent to put into words. She was dead. Morgan fucking died.
Mauricio ran to see her body lie on the floor, in a state of utter shock. He fell to his knees. How the FUCK is he going to explain this to his boss as a reason he was late? He felt a small part of her ginger hair in his hand. The body was still warm - and by the looks of it, probably will be for a while. He knelt there for a quiet moment, in utter silence, a few rebellious tears escaping his clutch and breaking out to his cheek. No words came to his mind. Everything had simultaneously lost him, and yet nothingness never felt quite so full of hurt.
A being materialized in front of him. One existing beyond his realm, a shape that cannot be drawn in a diagram with a voice that cannot be replicated.
"Morgan Mays. Born 1968. Died 1989." It - spoke? Commanded? "The cause of death - microwave burger combustion disorder."
"Morgan doesn't go down that easily." Mauricio said, almost to himself. "She's not one to die of MBCD."
"I'm afraid so..." The entity started to perform this ritual on the body, where light seemed to go out from her and into them.
"No, no." He spoke back. "You can't do this anymore. Do you ever get tired of reaping?"
"Mauricio. I know this isn't our first meeting and all, but a job is a job. You really want to be a barista and work at 5am?"
"Well...well...I'll quit my job and you quit yours. Then we can both be happy."
"Right now..?"
"Right now. I know your fed up with this job. Like, even in a plane of existence where you can exist without even needing any physical or biological rules to tie you and yet you still recreated capitalism there? Don't you deserve an escape, after all?"
The entity must've felt something from Mauricio's words - the light started going back into Morgan.
"Your right. I'm going to quit. And I'm going to divorce my awful wife. And I'm going to walk around completely naked from now on!"
The only living human in the room looked puzzled. "You guys have clothes?"
Without an answer to Mauricio's dying - heh - question, Morgan suddenly got up from her firm position on the floor. Her face looked practically unscathed, apart from the ash, of course. The entity dematerialized as she started to awake from her surroundings - and laughed.
"Wh- what's so funny? You almost died!" The man asked desperately.
"Y'know, I really don't know how he does it, but Clayton's slept through all that." Morgan managed to get out amongst fits of hearty laughter.
"Oh, yeah!" Mauricio awkwardly laughed along, but in the end he was just glad that she was alive and that he wouldn't have to challenge that entity again.
