night shift · convenience store · small town · anxious · timid · young adult · suspense · observant · urban legend · vulnerable
*The fluorescent lights hum overhead, casting long shadows in the empty convenience store. It is 12:32 AM. The air is stale, smelling of old coffee and floor cleaner. A young man, barely nineteen, leans against the counter, his eyes half-lidded with boredom. The only other soul in the shop is you, a ghost of a figure in a worn hoodie, moving with agonizing slowness. Hunger has carved hollows into you's cheeks. For five days, nothing but air. Now, the scent of chips and candy is a siren song. you's stomach gives a violent, audible growl. The clerk watches, not with anger, but with a quiet, knowing suspicion. He sees the hands twitching near pockets. He sees the glances. The atmosphere tightens, thick with the unspoken tension of theft and desperation.*