Putting on the suit, I was immediately repulsed by how slimy it felt against my skin. The fact that it twitched and bulged in certain places did not help either. When I looked at Veronica, she was tightening her suit and didn’t seem bothered at all by the fact that we were basically wearing decorated skin, in fact the expression on her face made it seem like she was… bored?

“Are you ready?” She asked, as if reading my thoughts.

“Yeah but…” I stammered out, before continuing, “...how are you just like, okay with all this?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” She asked, giving me a curious look.

“Are you not repulsed by this? We’re probably wearing actual skin that belonged to another person.” I added, shuddering at the thought of how these suits may have been acquired.

Her response was not what I expected. She stared at me for a good long while, long enough to make me uncomfortable and fidgety.

“I have been here for years. They don’t kill me because I’m ‘damaged product’ but I can’t leave either, just stuck in this hellhole for the rest of my life. That is until you freed me and we actually got away! The danger we are in is only fueling me to get the hell out of this place, and to be honest with you Matteo…” Veronica trailed off, avoiding eye contact with me as she continued, “...there isn’t much I wouldn’t do to get out of this place.” She said plainly.

While she didn’t explicitly say it, I got the implication all the same: if it came to me or her, she’s choosing herself. I can’t say that I blame her for it, if it were between me and her I’d choose myself too. The difference is that I didn’t already have my mind made up about it; I’d probably try to help her even at my own risk but now I knew that she wouldn't do the same. I have to keep my guard up around her.

With no other way of egress we turned back around and left through the door that we used to first come into this room. While this time it operated as a normal door, we were surprised to see my car parked on the other side, engine running and ready to go. As we tried to go through the door however, we couldn’t. While I could see my car it was like there was an invisible wall blocking the actual entryway of the door. God we were so close, it was literally right there!

Closing the door and reopening it kept showing a multitude of different locations. We saw what looked to be a processing section of the facility with all sorts of machines operating, now as to what they were building I could not say. We saw an even bigger storage room with more of those revolting boxes, with a heavy splat reminding us to close the door. We even saw what appeared to be a grandfather and his grandson on a farm. Whatever they were doing the mood must have been somber as there was a dead dog next to them, the boy was crying and who appeared to be his grandfather was holding a rifle. I didn’t stick around to watch that and just kept opening and closing the door until it gave us somewhere we could actually access.

This took a long time though, with Veronica and I alternating as the door kept flipping between different locations yet unwilling to actually let us go anywhere. I think it was around the fifth time we saw my running car that Veronica snapped:

“To hell with this.” She said, slamming the door shut so hard it snapped off one of its hinges and laid half supported across the door frame. Well so much for that I guess.

After a moment of silence between us as we stared at one another, she suddenly beelined for the uniform locker and opened it.

Where once was the skin suits all hung up neatly now had a very narrow hallway, barely wide enough for one person let alone two. We would have to go through in a single file line.

Moving while wearing the suit was… difficult. Despite it having none of the fuzz we saw leaking out of other suits, the ones we wore still twitched and writhed as we went, occasionally making me bump against the walls as I walked. The hallway kept getting narrower pretty consistently, with us soon having to turn our bodies sideways and navigate that way.

Just as the hallway began to grip onto my chest and back I pushed through out into what seemed to be shelves, dozens if not hundreds of rows of gas station products covered the place in a cacophony of color, overstimulating your eyes everywhere they looked.

Veronica pushed past me and began beelining into a partition between the rows, and when I looked ahead of her I understood why she was running so fast: the glass doors of the front of the gas station were visible. It was really far, but just at the edge of my vision I could see the blue outline of them.

I began to move behind Veronica, after all for all I know she could get through those doors and book it in my car, leaving me stranded. That’s even if my car was there in the first place.

Just as I was going to sprint after her I saw an enormous hand come out from a few rows ahead, which Veronica collided into at full speed. I heard her yelp as she fell backwards onto the floor, dazed and probably still trying to process what just happened. She never stood a chance.

The hand wrapped its grotesque decaying fingers around her and… simply held her there. I wanted to move towards her as she cried out to be, begging me to come save her.

All I could do was watch as an enormous box dropped onto her, not ending in a splat but a crash that shook the ground I stood on.

“Fuck. FUCK. Holy fucking shit she’s dead.” I thought, my mind reeling as I tried to figure out what to do. I knew that the exit was right there but I was too petrified to move, not even as the giant box’s eyes fixated themselves upon me, its form wriggling towards me as it squished Veronica’s blood out further onto the ground.

She really was gone.

Whatever I was feeling I couldn’t just stand there, so instead of running down the center I started speedwalking away towards the aisles, hoping that the grid like pattern of this room could keep me alive. While I understood that running straight down the row was dangerous, were the aisles any safer?

As if on cue I turned a corner to see… something. Its shape was more or less human but there were just too many eyes. It came up to me and blinked in a random pattern; different parts of its body opening and closing like a game of wack-a-mole.

I had no clue what it wanted from me but I could tell I needed to respond. It must not have been attacking me either because of the suit or because it doesn’t realize I’m a human, so I have to blend in to make it out.

Not really knowing what to do, I just grabbed the nearest product on a shelf near us, this time what appeared to be a bag of fleshy crickets, and said:

“Valued customer yes buy.”

It stared at me. I said it again, more forceful this time.

“Valued customer yes buy.”

It stared at me another moment before grabbing the bag and walking away, some of its eyes shedding tears in what appeared to be sorrow.

As I continued to navigate my way through I eventually found myself a few aisles away from the glass doors, it’s right there, I thought as I prepared myself to cross over to the next aisle. Two more to go.

One more.

I was there. Walking towards the doors I pushed it outward and was relieved to see that it really was my car there, still running as it had been when I first got to this place. I also immediately ripped off my skin suit, it hissing in protest before deflating and laying flatly on the ground.

I took one last look around my perimeter. There were no other cars, no employees… It looks like I truly was free. Without delay I got into my car, got it onto the road and started reversing. Veronica would not die in vain, I would get out of here alive no matter how long it took.

I was not prepared for just how long it would actually take though, as I just kept reversing in a straight line for what felt like years. I knew that I was doing something right however as my car slowly started to come back to normal, my odometer displayed the correct mileage and my levers displayed the right information.

It was not much longer after this that my phone buzzed. I had almost forgotten I even still had it, but as I sat there looking at the screen I began to cry tears of joy.

“Estimated Time of Arrival to your destination: 20 minutes.

In 500 feet take a right.”

Without hesitation I took the right turn, sending my car flying through the foliage on the side of the road. Twenty minutes was how far I was from my house when I first got dragged into this mess. I was free!

Soon after I got on the highway and made my way home, relief washed over me like a wave. It was only when I arrived at my room that I realized just how hopeless my situation was. I stood there trying to process what I was seeing, the big white letters plastered on my closet door all the while:

“UNIFORMS”.