Spiderweb - 129 Opressed

Vixen nodded his head. “Since I woke up late, I was unable to get to the security room on time, therefore forgetting to reset the system for the day and creating a set back of an hour.”

“Did you try to get to the security building then?” Mrs. Cloud asked.

Vixen’s ears perked up. “What ma’am?”

“The security building. If you were unable to reset the time in the security room on this floor, then why didn’t you just go to the security building to reset the time for today?” Mrs. Cloud asked.

Vixen flinched. He had forgotten all about it.

Mrs. Cloud’s eyebrow raised. She saw his falter.

“Did you even try today?” she asked, picking up her tea again, “first you wake up late, then you say you couldn’t reset the building time but it doesn’t even look like you tried to.”

She placed down the teacup and leaned forward, picking up the remote on the table and pressing the on button. On the door leaving the room, an image reflects on the wall, and a video begins to play. It was the security footage of earlier that morning.

There on the camera was the flood of people Vixen had watched this morning and there at the edge of the flood, almost out of the camera’s sight was Vixen. He was sitting down on an opening in the wall staring at the people walking by. He showed no motivation to move.

Mrs. Cloud placed down the remote and picked up her tea. “Care to explain?”

Vixen’s lips were pursed against each other as he tried to find an explanation for her.

“The person I see in this video seems to not want to move, nonetheless want to get to the security room. It doesn’t look like you were “unable” to get to the security room, you just didn’t go,” Mrs. Cloud muttered, her voice remaining monotone all the way through.

Vixen still couldn’t find an explanation so Mrs. Cloud continued. “Then instead of heading directly to the security room to fix the time setback,” she muttered, nodding towards the video as the perspective of the camera changed to watch Vixen walking down the hallway. “You went straight to serving instead, therefore leaving the time setback to manifest by not going to the security room to make an announcement of a plan to fix it.”

Vixen finally found an answer. “As shown in the first part of the video, I am sitting down not because I didn’t want to go, but rather because I wouldn’t be able to.”

Mrs. Cloud paused the video and gave Vixen a stare that seemed to be mocking him.

“The hallway was completely filled with people rushing to their positions. Should I add to the chaos then? If I let them all pass then the one hour behind wouldn’t have doubled to two so I did just that,” He continued, “there was no point for me to go to the security room after because the damage had been done.”

“Even if I did add an announcement, everyone would already be in a position like the announcement before advised and they would all certainly already have a plan to battle their setback. I may be someone who’s supposed to reset the time but I do not think for them,” Vixen muttered, “they have been working in the field for a while and have been experienced with situations like this. They would all already have a plan they decide to follow so whatever I say would only be repeating what they thought-”

“You made a mistake. Fix it,” Mrs. Cloud interrupted.

Vixen flinched and immediately thought back to what he said.

In the silence, there was a constant tap. Mrs. Cloud’s long nails click against her cup, intruding Vixen’s thought.

“Correction, manager. Head manager of the building,” Vixen fixed himself.

Mrs. Cloud sips her tea.

“Instead of further worsening the situation for me, I decided to work on the patients instead and make sure they are all fed so the hour setback will be fixed by lunch,” Vixen added.

Mrs. Cloud nodded her head. “Nice explanation. It makes a tad bit more sense now, except for the fact that…” she looks up at the screen to where a boy runs up Vixen, who was leaving a room with his cart.

Vixen looked at the video and then turned back to Mrs. Cloud. ‘Dammit.’

“Pay attention,” Mrs. Cloud ordered, her gaze peering down at Vixen.

He immediately turned to the screen and continued to watch.

There were he and the boy running down the hallway and Vixen dashing into the room first, then the boy following. Seconds later the boy leaves and the door to the room slams shut.

Vixen almost lets out a groan. He should have seen this coming.

“I’m guessing you recognize this event?” Mrs. Cloud smiled, her eyes scanning Vixen’s face.

Vixen nods in reply.

“Hm,” Mrs. Cloud muttered, sipping her tea. She glances at Vixen out the corner of her eye, bright violet eyes peering down at her prey. “If I recall correctly…” she continued, her eyes switching to the video on the screen.

Vixen’s ears perked up as he looked up at Mrs. Cloud. He didn’t feel scared, nor did he feel anxious. He felt threatened, oppressed by the foot of a woman that stood above him in all ranks of life. He was being walked all over.

“This is room 207 right?” Mrs. Cloud asked.

Vixen jumped, his eyes shaking for a second.

“If I recall, room 207 was placed under your care right?” Mrs. Cloud asked, her eyebrows furrowed for a second and her hands snapped again and again, “what was her name again?”

Vixen trembled as he watched Mrs. Cloud out of the corner of his eyes. His heart dropped to the floor when she froze, a smile forming on her face as she turned to Vixen.

Her eyebrow raised ever so slightly and she had a slick smile on her face. “Regan. Regan Duran, right?”

A shiver ran down Vixen’s back at the mention of Regan’s name. He avoided Mrs. Cloud’s eyes and sipped his tea. That was his mistake.

“Ah…” Mrs. Cloud muttered, her smile wiping off her face and a pitying expression on her face appeared as she looked down at Vixen. ‘How foolish,’ she thought to herself. “It looks like I’m right.”

Vixen looked up at her, his teeth gnashing against each other. He tried his best not to bare his teeth.

“Yes. You are,” Vixen admitted, sitting up straight.

“That’s great. But doesn’t that mean the server for her should have been you rather than… him. I must be mistaken since I saw him enter her room to serve her this morning,” Mrs. Cloud chuckled, “I am right?”

She was teasing him. Her words pointed and mockingly played with Vixen and his emotions. He knew it. It felt so belittling.

Her smile wiped off her face when Vixen didn’t reply. “Explain why that door was left open, why he’s running out of her door and why he was even in her room, to begin with,” she ordered, “if this is going the way I think it is, then you’ve been doing something right under my nose.”

Vixen shuddered, the temperature in the room dropping faster than he could even breathe. If he was in for only a bit of scolding earlier, now he was in for hell.

“Isn’t this the same girl whom you requested a 1 month stay in due to her health? The one you forbade from leaving her room? Was it to do this? To switch out servers at your convenience? Have you somehow forgotten your place in this system? I don’t remember giving you the power to do that,” Mrs. Cloud snapped, “or maybe my position is for decoration so the head manager whom I trust with this job can do whatever he wants?”

There was a heavyweight on both of Vixen’s shoulders now as she spoke, not once turning to acknowledge his presence beside her.

Mrs. Cloud gave a tiny pressed smile, her patience being tested by the silence. “So now you think you aren’t obligated to answer my questions?” Mrs. Cloud asked, her head directly turning to Vixen’s side but she didn’t move her head down to face him, only her eyes moved to look down at him.

There was this feeling of superiority in her gaze, shrinking Vixen further until he blended into the cushion he sat on.

A smirk forms on Mrs. Cloud’s face. It’s strained.

She picks up her cup of tea and her head cocks to the side a bit and her shoulders shrug, “hmm,” she muttered, her head starting to nod.

“You must not like your title, it’s like you’re asking me to reduce the burden for you, right?” Mrs. Cloud smiled, “don’t worry, as long as you keep up this behavior, I’ll reduce the responsibility immediately.”