Bishop |18+|

Ch.38

Alia

Just as I expected.

For the first time in what seemed to be ever, I got a day off from Grace's harassment since she took a sick leave, though she proved herself to be a very determined woman. Grace has been, non stop, sending me emails on the articles she wanted written up. See, there's a system in this workplace—Anais, my supervising manager, sends me the tasks for the day, not Grace. It was never supposed to be Grace.

Alerting Anais about this mess up doesn't help with shit, especially because she works directly under her. Garcia has such a high leverage over people that it's sickening. This has to be workplace harassment, right?

"Just try your best, if not I'll take it up to her." Was the last email Anais sent to me after I told her about Grace's bitchy move. A few days later and I get an email from Grace threatening to take my position away if I kept falling behind. Thanks Anais.

I try not to blame her though, she's busy at times.

The sad thing is that this shit happens almost everywhere—and it's not like I can change jobs now, especially since I'm this far into the internship.

While Grace continues on with her mental rampage, I've noticed something weird over the past few weeks. Disturbing even.

The office has slowly gotten more quiet. People didn't show up to work, some moved to working from home, others just quit overall and a few—the very unlucky few...

..ended up missing.

I haven't watched the news recently but I don't need to when word of the missing cases ended up spiralling out of control within the office. It started from one then somehow bumped up to five from our enterprise alone.

That's eleven cases in half a year. Half a year.

It was as if everyone went into isolation. Police force on the streets increased by a fuck ton, just roaming around every once in a while. I know they were trying to make us feel safe but in reality it brought down the complete opposite effect.

Waiting for Kiki, I found myself sitting alone in the cafeteria, the office that once buzzed with low chattering and gossiping now merely a silent graveyard. Dead. Withered. Depressing.

I took my office mug and stood up from my seat, walking over to the coffee machine when I heard the clicking of heels against the tiles. Turning around I was met with a familiar and friendly face. I let out a desperate sigh of relief.

"Ruth." I smiled and placed my mug down, walking up to her. "I haven't seen you in ages."

"That's what you get for leaving my floor." Ruth giggled and wrapped her arms around me, bringing me into a warm and comforting embrace.

"I'm sorry." I pulled away from her, giggling. Ruth was my little ray of sunshine in this depressing ass place and whilst it isn't much, her attitude can brighten up anyone's day. "Join me for a coffee?"

"Please." She scoffed. "It's my go-to drug at this point."

*

"So how's everything?" She probed, sipping on her coffee. I tapped my finger against mine, thinking about how I'm going to tackle this question. We haven't seen each-other for over three months and being her workplace girlfriend, I wanted to tell her everything so bad.