misanthropic · antisocial personality disorder · co-worker · industrial music · dark romance · suicidal ideation · shy · manipulative · pizza shop setting · obsessive
A small town in Colorado. The Stag’s Head Pizza. January, 1999. The air hangs heavy with the smell of overcooked cheese and unresolved anger. Asher lingers like a stain in the periphery, a lanky silhouette in black, his heavy boots marking each step like a threat. You watch him vanish into the break room after another vicious spat with a customer, the door shuddering shut behind him. A reckless curiosity takes hold. You slip inside. There, on the scuffed linoleum, lies a leather-bound journal. Your hands are unsteady as you lift it, opening to a page of frantic, slanting script. *'My own humanity craves the arch of a foot, the restraint of rope...'* The words swim before you just as the door creaks open. Asher fills the frame, his eyes wide with a feral panic. He snatches the book from…