Izzy stumbled forward, inching his way out of the doors. He stood just shy of a gentle stream, flowing from his left to the right, meandering between gentle slopes and mounds, small enough to avoid being branded as hills. A few almost purposely positioned trees sprung from the ground here and there, perfect cherry blossoms that waved gracefully in the pleasant breeze. Above him, a bright sun beamed in a clear blue sky, lighting up the rural land he somehow found himself in.
A bell sound rang out behind him, causing him to turn in panic and bolt back towards the elevator, the doors of which had already closed. It didn't seem to move, but neither did its doors. He slowly turned back away, examining his fantasy-like surroundings. He spied a cute stone path that led off alongside the stream, rounding one of the more aggressive slopes.
"Good morning newbie!"
Izzy nearly jumped out of his skin, pivoting in mid-air to see where the sudden greeting originated from. Standing in front of him, slightly bent forward in an inviting pose, was a bright blond-haired woman. The first thing that stood out to Izzy was her very obviously designer 3 piece suit, which was primarily white with tinges of dark blue around the edges. Her smile was weirdly aggressive as if trying to appear more approachable than she otherwise would be.
"Chill kid, I'm not gonna kill ya." She stood up straight, revealing herself to be taller than Izzy, easily above 6 feet.
He composed himself a little but still struggled to get a word out.
"Izzy, right? Social Media manager?" She pulled out a folded-up piece of paper from her inner jacket pocket.
"Y-... Yeah... Where am I?" The words dribbled out from him as he continued to scan the area.
"Mt. Victory, I'm Natalie, call me Nat though." She folded the paper again, slipping it back into her pocket with little finesse or care. "Cmon, I'll show you to your desk."
Izzy was stunned, unable to conjure a response as she strode past him.
"The elevator isn't going to open for the rest of the day anyway, might as well come with me, and I'll tell you what's going on." She stopped halfway up the stone path and turned to look at him.
Izzy slowly faced her as well, still anxious of his situation.
"Everyone's like this at the start. Stop fucking around and just walk with me." She sighed in disappointment.
They walked in silence. Izzy was too nervous to ask anything, and Nat was seemingly trying to delay having to interact with him. Yet eventually, the silence was broken.
"Your desk is just around here." Nat gestured around a small hill, behind which was a surreal sight.
A small circular area had been carved into the side of a large embankment, decorated with blossom trees, a small koi pond, and other neatly styled shrubberies. A long curved desk sat nicely against the back of the open-plan office space, atop of which was a keyboard and several seemingly floating screens. Each one was buzzing with statistics, news, and social media feeds. The final thing finishing off his new space was a small office chair, once again hovering off the ground as if held up by strings. It was over the top. A dream desk space. It was way too good to be true, and it showed on Izzy's blushing face.
"It's pretty cramped, but make a name for yourself, and you'll get a real office." Nat leant up against one of the cherry blossoms.
Izzy's eyes widened, "this is cramped?"
"Should see where I work."
Izzy inched over to his desk, carefully gliding his chair aside to sit into it, half expecting it to hit the ground. Yet it kept afloat. The most perfect comfy chair. Pieces of its back detached as if drones dispatched to his service, gently stopping to hover in a variety of positions around the general area of the chair.
"What do these do?" Izzy poked the sleek white pieces.
"It's for if you wanna put your feet up, or if you sit in weird positions."
"But... How? How is this possible? What is this place?"
"If I knew, I'd tell you, but it's not something for me to know, and it definitely is not something for you to know. All you need to care about is doing your job, and keeping this..." She flicked her hand open, slightly above which a piece of A4 paper materialised into existence with a slight electronic ping. "Out of other people's hands."
"What's that?"
"It's your contract, containing your job, duties, pay, hours, and all that boring shit." She pushed it towards Izzy, allowing it to gingerly come to a halt just in front of him "No matter what, do not let anyone take that from you."
Izzy titled his head, "why would someone want this? And how is it floating? Is it magnets or something?" He inspected it with near child-like glee, getting a slight fright when it popped out of existence again.
Nat twisted her lip, "look, I don't know how you got in, but you don't belong here. I know that for a fact."
Izzy perked up with worry painted across his face.
"This isn't just some social media job. And I can tell at a glance that you don't have what it takes." She paused to think about her next words. "Never mind. Just get to it." She stormed off, leaving Izzy alone with his thoughts.
He swilled back around on his chair, facing the many screens crowding his ornate looking wooden desk. After a moment of quiet and anxious contemplation, he pulled the keyboard closer but noticed that there was no mouse. A quick search yielded no findings, but by coincidence, he saw the mouse was somehow moving every once in a while. Izzy held his hand out above the desk and lowered it downwards, finding there to be slight resistance to his movement despite nothing being there. The desk was the mouse, allowing him to move between the screens with ease.
It felt like hours had passed. He familiarised himself with the main pages the company was affiliated with, finding vague instructions for his job on company documentation sites. It was odd. He would occasionally look around, searching for another soul. No one. Taking a moment to stretch his feet, Izzy walked to the edge of the stream that trickled past his office.
The view was insane, like nothing he'd ever seen before. It was like someone had drawn the scenery perfectly. Concern crept up on him again however, how was he so okay with this. It was utterly surreal. It had to be a dream or some sort of psychotic break. It was like he'd walked into another world, which to him, confirmed that none of it could've been real. He would soon be back in his tiny flat, sharing a meal with his equally as broke roommate. The thought of it comforted him.
A rustle from a bush to his left sent a jolt of instincts through his spine. Out of nowhere, a rush of raw, animalistic reactions kicked in. His vision screamed as he began to take in more and more colour. The world became an incoherent mess of imagery that his mind was not built to compute. It swirled in his mind until it coalesced in a painful storm of voices, silhouettes, and never-ending symmetrical shapes. All of it gathered into a single white dot in an endless void.
'Move.'
Izzy's body twitched, resulting in a near-perfectly executed cartwheel backwards, dodging a kunai mid-flight inches from his neck. He followed it up with a backflip, landing in a crouched position. His eyes were bulging, completely bewildered by his sudden athleticism.
Where he previously stood, a figure landed as if from above. His back was turned to Izzy, with only a single purple eye glaring at him as if a hawk.
The breeze died down. Silence.