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After Sunny moved into my place, I got worried it might be too cramped with the two of us. My other bedroom was only slightly bigger than a closet. It had enough space for a bed and a dresser. Not much else. Turns out, Sunny didn’t need a lot of space.

Instead of sleeping in a bed, he bought a large glass bowl. I had no idea what it was meant for until I knocked on his door to ask if he wanted me to make breakfast that day. When he didn’t answer after a few loud knocks, I got worried., I opened the door hoping I wasn’t invading his privacy to see the glass bowl full of a transparent liquid with an orange orb floating in the middle. His species lost their shape as they slept. So, I didn’t even need to buy him a bed before he moved in.

I also got worried he might be bored staying inside all day. Sometimes he would put on a ring that made him appear human to hit up the thrift shops for clothing. The disguise bothered him making it hard to stay out for very long though. He described the magic making his human appearance made him feel as if he was wearing a full-body wet suit that was about two sizes too small.

One day before I left the house for work, Sunny met me by the door wearing nicely ironed dressed pants and a buttoned-down shirt. He didn’t care about what gender the clothing was made for. He just wore whatever he wanted. He looked very nice in the outfit and I didn’t realize why he might have dressed fancy for a reason.

“I'm going to work with you today. I have an interview.” Sunny told me as he held out my snack for the day.

My stomach dropped at the words. I knew he was bored being cooped up all day, but I didn’t think Sunny delivering mail was a good idea. He cried if he needed to move a spider out of the apartment. I didn’t think he could handle any dangerous monsters one might come across on the job. He noticed my expression and corrected himself.

“I’ll be in the sorting room. They’re lacking help in that area and want to hire more people just for that job. They hope I can replace someone who can spend time in the field instead.” He told me.

That made more sense. I’ve done a few shifts in the sorting room. It was one of the safer jobs someone could get. And there would be monsters Sunny could make friends with. I doubted he wanted to spend all his time with me for the rest of his life. Sunny explained Rufus gave him a cheap phone to keep in contact. He and Max sent messages and had been the one to arrange the job idea. I didn’t have a clue when the idea was even suggested.

We went to work together. I needed to show Sunny the way to the sorting room before starting my shift. We made the short trip to the large open room filled with packages and letters. It was pretty hectic that day. I worried a little that this job might be a bit much for Sunny right off the bat. He might get too overwhelmed with so many people around.

Belizas noticed us right away and came over. I’ve never seen her do any work in the sorting room. She just showed up to bother people. A sly grin came across her face seeing the person I brought with me. She and Sunny hadn’t met yet and I didn’t know what to expect.

“I heard you got one of those creatures. I didn’t think you were the type. Are you having fun living together?” She said in a suggestive tone with arms crossed.

I knew Belizas acted annoying but that comment got me pissed at her. I wasn’t even this mad when she ate my arm. Sunny’s face fell and I got in front of him to snap at her.

“Don’t you dare imply that sort of thing about Sunny. His species might be used like that, but that doesn’t mean you can assume things about all of them.” I said, face getting a bit hot.

Her face fell into an uneasy smile. It wasn’t often someone got angry at her for the stupid stuff she said.

“It was just a joke.” She replied trying to defend herself.

“It wasn’t funny. It was rude. You should apologize to him.” I said, still a bit heated.

A few creatures stopped working to watch this exchange. I knew I was embarrassing my roommate but I held my ground. Belizas scratched the back of her head, fidgeting trying to get out of what she needed to say.

“Sorry.” She said in a small voice. Her face cleared up ready to move past the whole thing. “When are you going to have another sleepover? I want to try to punch a ghost in the face again. I think I messed up last time because I didn’t punch hard enough.”

I wanted to correct her saying that really wouldn’t work. Max came over making us focus on him instead of Belizas’s impossible goals. He stopped near Sunny unaware of what kind of conversation he walked into.

“I’ve been assigned to show Sunny around today since I already know him. I’m pretty sure he’ll get the job after the interview today so we’ll be hanging out.” Max explained.

Sunny relaxed a little now that he knew he would be around someone he trusted. He tensed up again when Max reached over to hug Sunny and pressed his face against a transparent cheek. He honestly loved hugging the slime boy because of the squishy feeling. I understood why he liked it but I found myself frowning again. My roommate looked uncomfortable. He did like giving out hugs so Max might not understand Sunny might not feel like being touched without any warning.

“Max, you should ask Sunny if you can hug him first. He might not like being suddenly grabbed.” I told him.

Max pulled away, feeling a bit embarrassed he wasn’t aware of that fact. He apologized and Sunny forgave him right away. My roommate mouthed a small thank you in my direction. With that settled, I wondered what my day would hold.

“If you’re going to be with Sunny today then who am I going to be working with? Is Belizas going to be my partner today?” I asked.

“No way. Unlike you losers, I got a hot date. See ya!” She sharply said.

Belizas walked backward a few steps showing off what I assumed to be insulting hand gestures. She tripped over her own feet and I turned back to Max ignoring her cries of pain from landing on her elbow wrong.

“You have someone waiting for you in the meeting room. I think you’ve met before. We need to get started so we’ll see you at the end of the day.” Max said turning to leave.

He offered Sunny a hand instead of just reaching over. I watched them leave wondering if Sunny would be alright. He was pretty shy when in a room with more than three people. I just needed to trust him and if it turned out he couldn’t do this job then we would both start looking for something else that suited him better.

I found my way back to the Zero room. Two people waited in the room for me. I slipped the usual gift over to Max’s step-sister and then looked over at my partner for the day. We had met before but rarely spoke. It was my understanding he worked as a supervisor in the sorting room. He looked like a mummy. His entire body was covered in aged wrappings over top of shrivelled flesh. A set of glowing blue eyes shine in empty sockets. His mouth was exposed, showing peeled-back lips and a mouth full of needle shape teeth. He wore a uniform jacket over his wrappings and nothing else. I hated to admit it, but the combination made him look a bit stylish.

“This is An’k. He’ll be working with you today.” Susan said gesturing to the other monster. Or was her name Sara?

I took the small box from her ready to head out. My partner for the day didn’t speak. He just took the lead with his long thin legs. With his appearance, I should have expected what kind of place the delivery would take us. He opened the door and I needed to block my face with my arm from the hot wind blowing in puffs of sand.

I followed behind into a hot orange desert. Sand as far as the eye could see. When I adjusted to the intense sunlight, I saw a clear sign this dessert wasn’t normal. The blue cloudless sky wasn’t empty. Massive upside-down pyramids floated, some with newer white blocks and others nearly corroded away. I stopped in my tracks; mouth open at the sight. My shoes sank to the ankles in the sand. The sun would have cooked me alive if I wasn’t wearing my uniform. An’k gave me a few moments to take everything in.

I tried to start moving again finding it difficult. Each step a chore. He took a few steps forwards and then needed to stop and wait for me. My shoes filled with sand I knew would track and stay in my apartment. I struggled like that for a few feet until An’k gave up waiting. He walked over and easily picked me up. I let out a yelp of surprise as he tossed me over his shoulder to swiftly start walking toward the only pyramid on the ground. His feet crossed over the sand leaving no footprints behind.

The entire walk felt mortifying. At least he didn’t say anything or call attention to needed to carry a weak human. It didn’t take long for us to arrive at a stone doorway. A heavy slab sealing the entrance An’k opened by placing a palm inside an indent. An almost mechanical click came from the stone. Instead of it opening in any way I expected. The entire slab flickered away as if it was a hologram.

We walked inside and I got put down on the even stone floor. The door came back behind us cutting off the sunlight. It took me a few minutes to adjust to the low light. The main room we just walked into had a ceiling so high I couldn’t see the top. Massive stone pillars lined the room with small torches set into the stone. An’k walked over to take the simple metal torch with a flickering blue light at the end. Again, I expected the light to be fire, but it flickered in a digital-looking way. Each movement of An’ks hand left behind stray pixels for half a second.

We weren’t in Kansas anymore, that was for sure. I let him lead the way deeper into the darkness. So far so good. We quickly covered the distance of the large dark room. I felt a chill in the air that my uniform didn’t keep away. Every time I hoped for an easy job, I never got my wish.

I followed An’k into a long hallway with countless doors on each side. Most of the doorways were blocked by stone. The open rooms were so dark it wasn’t possible to see what was inside. When we passed by the dark openings, a faint whisper of air followed behind us. I refused to turn my head to try and find the source. I just focused on our footsteps and not the other hints of other sounds in the dark.

Finally, my co-worker stopped in front of a door. He opened it and wasted no time going inside. I regretfully kept on his heels. The room was large but then narrowed off into a tight hallway with only our blue light showing the way. In some spots, I needed to walk sides ways to get through. The rough stone walls pressed down on my chest through my uniform. I needed to cut back on Sunny’s cooking if I had more jobs like this. Another sound came from behind us that I did my best to ignore. A crunching mixed in with scuttling. I didn’t like it. It put my nerves on end making me think I might step on something unpleasant.

We arrived in a bigger room with three more doorways on the other side. An’k hadn’t even looked at me since we started walking. I knew he wasn’t a big of a talker and even doubted he knew English. He paused and raised a hand to make me stop moving. We might not speak the same language but could communicate. I followed his gaze upwards seeing nothing but blackness.

The sounds I heard in the hallway grew louder. At first, I thought my eyes adjusted to the dark, but then I realized the dark started to move as the sounds grew louder. I wasn’t able to see what crawled on the ceiling. An’k suddenly grabbed my wrist to drag me along. I didn’t need much encouragement. A let out a scream when a thing thudded on my shoulder. I got a look at it before it fell off. A massive centipede came falling from the roof. I heard more insects falling to the ground behind us. A scarab-looking bug fell after the centipede and I needed to shake that one off. The bastard went right for my ear. I bet it wanted to eat my brain in the easiest way possible.

An’k had no issue running through the long tight stone hallway. I kept up with him but suddenly the space got too enclosed. I struggled to fit through, but my chest refused to budge. An’k’s hand slipped off my wrist for a second. He turned back to pull on my arm without any luck. He took the box we needed to deliver from my hand he pulled on to tuck it under his arm. After a few wasted attempts to free me, our eyes met. I knew exactly what he was thinking.

When I first met Max, I asked why mailmen worked in pairs. He joked that you just needed to be faster than your partner. An’k could finish this job if he left me behind. The bugs would be slowed down by eating through my body. My uniform was unable to protect me from that fate.

I wanted to be mad at him. He gave the idea some thought and I knew he regretted his choice. My pulse raced at the thought of being eaten alive, but what could he even do? I gave him a nod, bracing to watch him leave me alone in the dark.

He took a few steps down the hallway, torch in hand. Then made a sound of frustration and came back to me.

“I’m stuck, I don't think-” I started.

He took my hand and I felt an odd pull in my chest. It was as if all the air left my body. With some effort, he slammed his palm against the wall, and the stone shifted, collapsing into sand. He then yanked me forwards just in time to get away from bugs nipping at my heels. He needed to half drag me down the rest of the hallway.

We stumbled out into another large room. The torch dropped from his hand as he used both to keep me on my feet. I hadn’t recovered from whatever he did before. Countless bugs came swarming through the hallway opening, crawling up towards the ceiling in a hoard. We needed to keep moving but my legs shook too much to even take a step.

Another pull came from my chest. An’k guided me to my knees and stood behind me. His blue eyes blazing in the dark and his hands outstretched. One of the stone pillars collapsed into sand but it didn’t all drop to the ground. Instead, the sand turned into a sea An’k guide along with his hands. The hoard of bugs made their move. So many of them jumped down in an attempt to devour us. The sand An’k created slammed into their bodies, blasting them against the hard walls. No matter how many he crushed in that way, more kept pouring through the hallway and he was running out of sand.

I didn’t know what he took from me to use his power. I didn’t know if I even had much left in me for us to fight. His hands came down on my shoulders as cold phantom hands started to root through my chest looking for something. I wanted to fight against it but knew I needed to give him anything he wanted to keep us both alive. A flash of a memory came. One of Max and Sunny laughing about a stupid joke only they understood. The hands grabbed a hold of the light feeling that memory produced in my chest and pulled it out.

I looked up just in time to see An’k make two sweeping motions of his arms. A rumble came that overpowered the sounds of the insects. From around us came a sea of sand that flooded the entire room beside the small space where we stood. It all pushed through the small hallway opening fully pushing back the dangerous bugs to where they came from and killing a great deal in the process. The sea of sand was so powerful it cracked the stone around the hallway door.

When the sand settled An’k wavered on his feet but still stood. I looked around the room now covered in a foot of sand and the hallway was completely full. For some reason, a rush of excitement came through me. I stood up, face flushed to take An’ks thin hands.

“That was awesome!” I said in a tone Max might have used.

Maybe we’ve been working together too much. I quickly let go of my co-worker's hands knowing I made him uncomfortable.

“Awe... some...?” An’k said, his voice barely a whisper.

I've never heard him speak before. I almost thought he couldn’t. I nodded and repeated myself.

“Yeah, you’re awesome. Like, really cool, you know?”

That wouldn't make much sense if he didn’t know English. I think he understood the concept of the word. For a moment, his face held some pride under the wrappings. He quickly composed himself again so we could keep moving. Thankfully, we did not come across any more bugs. Only a few traps like arrows barely missing my face because An’k pulled me out of the way in time.

The room where we needed to deliver the box was the largest one yet. Unlike the other empty ones, this one was filled with organized boxes of gems stones and gold. Most stones carved in the shape of some sort of insect. I expected some of them to start crawling around because they appeared so real. The room was bright from the blue flames reflecting off all the precious stones.

A creature walked around when we entered. It looked sort of human, similar to An’k. The creature was at least eight feet tall, bone thin, and dressed in layers of tattered wrappings. A golden large headpiece covered most of the creature’s face. Out from the back wriggled what I saw to be long centipedes shining like jade flowing down the monster’s back. An’k walked right over and handed over the box. The cardboard looked very out of place in this room. The creature quickly signed the delivery paper and he and An’k started to quickly talk in a language I didn’t know. Both of their voices were low and raspy.

They didn’t speak for very long. An’k made short work of creating a doorway back to the Zero room which made me very happy. The tall creature gestured for me to come over to it. My stomach flipped but I thought it would be rude to refuse. He grabbed a bag that looked to be made of woven golden threads then turned to one of the boxes to start filling it with gold scarabs. He handed me the overfilled bag and I nearly couldn’t carry it. I didn’t know what to say or how to act. Creatures didn’t often just give out gifts like this.

“Um, awesome, thank you.” I said unsure if that was the correct response.

An’k nodded so I guessed I was in the clear. I gave the creature another thanks and followed my co-worker through the door back to the office. The trip was not overly long but I still felt worn out. We reported in and found out we didn’t have another job for the day. Time was weird when we worked. It might have only felt like an hour or two but we’d been gone for an entire workday.

I wanted to see if I could find Sunny but he found me. He and Max came into the room because they knew what time I would be back at. I’d placed the bag of golden scarabs on the floor unsure of what to do with them. If I sold them, Sunny would not need to live in a cramped room anymore. But it felt really weird to sell a gift. I thought about how much my father needed the money as well, my will wavering.

“I'm so jealous you guys got to go on that job! It’s a bit dangerous though so most people don’t like to take the assignment.” Max said, his tail slightly wagging.

All jobs were good jobs to him.

“An’k was awesome. He pretty much didn’t need me.” I told them.

An’k had a bit of pride on his face for a few seconds. I think he really liked that compliment. I turned to Sunny because I could see he had something he wanted to say but was too shy to do so.

“You got the job, right? How was the day? Did you make friends?” I asked him what made my roommate brighten up.

He told me about how much Max helped him out and how he really like Gary, the pile of moving mushrooms in the sorting room. I didn’t know the mushrooms had a name. We quickly got caught up on the day’s events. I noticed Max kept looking down at the bag I brought back.

“Can... I have one of those...? Or maybe two?” He asked when he got caught staring.

That was odd of him. Max never asked for money. I didn’t think he was even concerned about it. I handed over two golden scarabs and his face turned into a smile I’ve only seen him have when I hand him food. Then both bugs went into his mouth with a loud crunch

“I rarely get to eat these!” Max said very happy over his little treat.

“They’re honey scarabs.” Sunny explained when he noticed my confusion.

Well, there went my rich lifestyle. I handed a bug to Sunny who happily ate it. And then to An’k who also got excited about the treat. They all said the bugs tasted great but I wasn’t ready to try one just yet. An’k needed to get back to the sorting room to work, and I asked him to take the bag of scarabs to share with everyone working. I let Max and Sunny take a few more before he left.

I nearly died yet again, but at least I made a new friend. Since I didn’t have another delivery job, I wanted to head home. Max tagged along with us to mooch a meal. He loved Sunny’s cooking as much as I did. I swore I wanted to cut down on overeating but in the end, we all ate so much that we couldn’t move much after dinner. We put off the dishes until tomorrow morning. Max didn’t feel like heading home so we made a blanket fort for us all to sleep on the floor. I don’t care if we were all adults. Sometimes you just need to make a blanket fort with friends after a long day.

Aside from the desert of sand I brought back from the job, and nearly getting eaten alive the day wasn’t too bad.