My First Cult

2. First Day

My first day working for a cult dawned bright and early at 5:30am.

My alarm went off. I punched it off the bedside table. It gave a faint little beep and gave up the effort.

With a yawn, I rose from my bed.

Bleary-eyed, I gazed towards my window. It didn't escape my notice, as barely conscious as I was, that there wasn't any light seeping under the blind as there usually was.

Feeling confused, I stumbled over to inspect the window further and pulled up the blind.

It was immediately clear something was wrong.

The entire world was black.

What had happened to the sun? Was this the apocalypse? The end times? Where was everyone? Even the birds were deathly silent.

It took a few moments of gormlessly staring out the window to realise that no, this wasn't the end of the world.

This was simply what 5:30am looked like.

"Oh God," I whispered, "what have I done?"

-

A concept:

Two identical cult clones, exiting their identical clone cars in the cult clone car park at 6:50am.

Blue shirts, black trousers, black shiny shoes. Bacon rolls in hand. Cheery waves to one another.

Safety in routine and mindless repetition.

Screeching tyres. A black, bird-crap-caked car skidding into the car park. Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani blaring full volume. Sudden braking after the mysterious driver rockets past an empty bay.

"FUCK," the driver yells. Slams the car into reverse, heavy brakes again, double checks the bay, kicks the pedal and roars back into the empty space.

Sudden brake. Music stops. Various faint curse words. Engine off. The driver's door swings open and crashes into the car next to it.

A blonde haired figure steps out the vehicle and locks eyes with the two clones, stood watching with fearful expressions.

"WHAT?" The figure booms, slamming the door shut.

"H-Hello!" A clone squeaks.

The figure pauses to process the salutation. "YES. GREETINGS THIS FINE MORNING."

"Q-Quite!" The clone agrees hurriedly, "Very fine!"

"SHALL WE?" The figure shouts again, gesturing at the office building.

The clones have no choice. They're ill-prepared to deal with such a situation. With quick glances between one another, the clones nod and scurry across the car park to follow behind the figure as she marches into her first day at work.

-

"You have windows?" I said, in breathless wonder, as I stepped into the Marketing department.

"I...yes," Rob answered carefully, as if it was a trick question. "There are many windows here."

"Have you never been in a building before?" Demanded a slightly tubby man. He was sat at a desk entirely too small to accommodate his girth. Atop his desk was an unnecessarily bountiful collection of tools and general tat. A single, foam mannequin head with a safety helmet sat proudly next to his computer screen.

"No," I replied, still gazing joyously out the window, "this is the first one."

"You what-" the man demanded.