"Hey Arys, can you transfer this online for me?"
A dull looking woman, half her face hidden by glasses and the other half by her thick curly hair, turned her attention to her coworker who was holding up a thick file with a hopeful smirk. Before she could answer he dropped the file on her desk and was already turning away.
"Need it in before the weekend. Thanks Arys!"
He was gone in a blink of an eye. Arys looked down at the file bursting with papers and sighed heavily, pushing up her glasses as she returned to her current task.
No less than ten minutes later another coworker appeared, this one a female loudly chewing gum.
"You busy Arys? Input these numbers for me okay?"
A hard drive was tossed carelessly onto the table and the woman was gone before Arys even had a chance to look up. Again she sighed and finished her work.
'Looks like another long night.'
Her behavior suggested Arys was used to this treatment from her coworkers. She was always free to say no without receiving any backlash–in all honesty if their department head found out what was going on the others were the ones who would be in trouble–but Arys never found herself really caring to deny her coworkers.
Many called her a pushover behind her back, and others even mocked her to her face, but Arys never did anything she truly never wanted to do. To her, it was simply another task to complete.
By the time Arys got through the thick file first placed on her desk, three other coworkers had approached her and unloaded their work on her shoulders. All of them needed to be done before tomorrow, today being Friday, and no mistakes could be made.
But Arys never made mistakes. Her work was always pristine.
This was why her coworkers were so comfortable giving their work to her, uncaring of the pile already on her desk. She never complained and they never bothered to really find out how she was doing.
It wasn't always like that though. Maybe about two or three times a week she put in overtime to help her coworkers, and the rest of the week she went home at 5 like the rest. Not that she had much of a home to go to.
Her apartment was always cold and quiet. The lack of personal items throughout the entire place made it not unlike a hotel room. The only noteworthy thing in the entire apartment was her extensive computer system set up in the living room with three plasma screen monitors and a computer that she carefully built herself. It was by far the most expensive thing in her entire apartment.
In fact, the cost of building her computer system totaled more than several months rent.
It was the one thing she found enjoyment in besides her work, but even calling that an enjoyment was a bit of a stretch.
Work was the only thing she found satisfaction in. She was a major perfectionist and liked seeing the results of her effort. No matter what it was she always took her time to achieve perfection and saw anything she did to the end.
Many called her a workaholic but for Arys, it didn't matter if it was work or not. Anything that she put effort into that gave her a satisfactory result was enough for Arys.
Schoolwork didn't have the same effect as Arys realized early on that her work never gave her a satisfactory result. Her effort could only gain her an A which was as meaningless as her writing a letter on a piece of paper. School also discouraged free-thinking and promoted structural behavior that was only acceptable by standards set by someone who didn't even know her. Arys enjoyed her freedom as much as the next and felt stifled by the greater restriction/smaller reward system that schools instituted.
What value did some two dollar trophy have compared to her hours of studying and schoolwork?
As a child Arys found her satisfaction in videogames. Especially adventure type free world games where she could do what she pleased and determine where and how she wanted to put her effort into something. And one thing videogames were surely good at was making sure the player felt rewarded for their efforts. If not, then how else could they get thousands of people to play hours at a time?
Even now on her days off she enjoyed playing a game or two. Her current favorite game was Sustreyca, a mmorpg with a seemingly endless amount of options a player could choose from in regards to the type of character they wanted to be and the classification of said character.
If Arys wanted she could be a fairy farmer who raised magic cows that milked potions or a human warlord whose goal was to conquer the entirety of Sustryeca or anything in between all that.
Her current character, however, was a human with no classification. Arys wanted to find out what would happen if she did nothing but focus on nurturing the growth of her skills. There were rumors of a hidden classification that no one had yet achieved. Arys wanted that for herself.
The clock was nearing 11 by the time Arys finished. She took a small nap when her eyes had started to itch and had a small snack when her stomach rumbled, which set her back a bit but was needed to keep her energy, and therefore her perfection, up to par.
She stretched, packed her things, and left the building. Already Sustreyca was on her mind and she found herself ruminating over the various things she had set up to accomplish the last time she played.
Her apartment wasn't far from the office so she always walked. It was raining but Arys was prepared for the weather and simply opened her umbrella as she stepped out. The area was quiet and devoid of people as always around this time. It was a relatively safe neighborhood so Arys wasn't afraid as she sleepily made her way down the street.
There was one last intersection Arys had to cross to reach her apartment on the corner.
Arys yawned widely as she crossed, not bothering to look both ways as she cycled through her to-do list. It wasn't too late that she couldn't get an hour or so of gaming in. Tomorrow she had a few errands to run and few household chores to do before she could settle down and immerse herself in the game.
She was already halfway across the street when a loud screech tore through the silence. It was already too late by the time she looked up.