"Hello, and welcome to Mattresses, Mattresses and more mattresses. Are you looking for anything special, is there anything I can help you with?" I said my usual line as someone walked through the door.
"Actually there is something I came here looking for, do you guys have the new deluxe cushion water mattress?" the female customer asked.
"Yes we do, would you like me to show you where it is?" I asked as usual.
"Yes that would be wonderful," she said as she followed me to my desk.
I pulled out the giant map of the store; it took up 4 pieces of paper, one for each level. Level one regular mattresses, level two water beds, level three memory foam mattresses, and level four is box springs.
“Okay… water beds, water beds. Aha that’s level two. The deluxe cushion is in the south east corner.” I said “Now if you would kindly follow me to level two and we can be on our way.”
“Thank you so much! Most other mattress stores didn’t have the new deluxe cushion water mattress. I’m so glad I can finally get it!” She said with a giant smile on her face.
           I led the woman to the corner where we had the new deluxe cushion water mattresses, only to find there was a sign that said sold out.
           “I’m so sorry mam, I thought we had them. I could have one special ordered for you. You can customize it, and have it delivered straight to your doorstep.” I said in my kindest voice I had, I had begun to like the woman and I could see the look of disappointment in her face.
           “That would be great, I’ll see you later” the lady said as she walked back to the elevator.
           I walked down the stairs and waited for another two hours to pass until my shift was over. After a long, boring two hours I began to go outside, but then I realized that Susanne wasn’t here, and she always had the shift after me. I looked around, probably looking like an idiot until.
           “Are you looking for Susanne?” a dark and mysterious figure asked in a deep booming voice
           “How do yo-…” I began
           “How do I know who Susanne is? Because I am Susanne.” Susanne said as she took off her cloak “My name is Altoir, I am a being from the planet Zan, I am here to select a being of higher potential. One who can save us from the evil Gaf.”
“So you think you can just come in here dressed all weird and say a bunch of weird random stuff then expect me to come save your planet from some weird dude named Gaf? Also why should I care if your planet gets destroyed, It’s not like Gaf is then going to just come and destroy our planet next, wait or will he?”
“Your concerns are understood, I should have been less blunt about it and instead eased it into your mind. Yes, GAf will come and destroy your planet after he destroys ours, it is the nearest one to ours with a life form, only two trillion lightyears away from each other.”
“But why do you think I am the one human who can save your planet? I’m just a stupid, everyday mattress store employee.” I said, purposely insulting myself to make her not want me to be their savior.
“You are wrong, you are more than a mattress store employee. I have seen inside of you, deep down you are an amazing, smart, clever, and athletic person.” She said in a tone that made me kind of nervous.
“What do you mean you’ve seen inside me? How does that work?” These thoughts were making me feel uneasy
“Those questions will be answered soon enough, that is if you come with me to my lair to train and begin saving my planet,” She said in a commanding voice
“Okay, I‘m in, but only because you seem to know what you are doing. Now take me to your lair.”
The drive to Altoir’s lair was very long since she was new to driving. After a while I got used to her getting into arguments with people who’s car’s she had dented or scratched, and the occasional curb she hit. After about half an hour we made it to her lair.
“This is it? Your lair is an old abandoned farm house?”
“Silence, it is better on the inside.”
She walked to the door, and unlocked it using a strange-looking key. She escorted me inside where i saw that she wasn’t lying when she said it was better inside. There was a pool table, a basketball court, and a training field, or at least something that looked like a training field.
“Satisfied? I told you it was better on the inside.”
“Why do you have all of this, you don’t have anyone to play basketball or pool with, so what’s the point of them?”
“Targets. You will first learn how to use a gun, not one of your human guns but a.Vortex Gravity Rifle. The Vortex Gravity Rifle is a gun that will change the direction of gravity of and human being you hit; and suck them into a black hole. The gun will also work on my modified pool table.”
“Woah! What other kinds of weapons do you guys have on Zan?”
“I will let you use other weapons once you have completed you Vortex Gravity Rifle training. Now, lets begin.”
Altoir walked over to a door which looked like it led into a tool room, but from the glimpse I got when she opened the door it seemed to be a pure white room filled with all sorts of weapons. Some of which I recognized, an old six shooter, and a musket. She walked back out holding a gun that looked like it weighed more than me, but she was carrying it so effortlessly.
“How are you doing that?”
“Doing what? I am not doing anything.”
“Holding that gun, it looks like it weighs at least 200 pounds!”
“Zanians have perfected the art of weaponry, we have created a metal that we call Stardust. This gun weighs less than a book, and it is 20 times the size.”
She tossed me the gun, I caught it and held it almost as effortlessly as she had. She had one thing right, this gun was extremely light, but I don’t know how big books are on Zan but this would be a BIG book.
“How is it so light? It’s like the size of two sniper rifles!”
“Stardust is composed of metals that your world has not yet created, so I can not tell you what it is, although you can find it out on your own. Would you please stop asking questions so that we can begin?”
She walked me into another section of the barn I had not seen before, but it looked cooler than the other areas. She called the room the virtual shooting range. It was basically a shooting range but instead of paper targets you were shooting at holographic Zanians, which looked mostly like humans except they had red skin and dark hair that looked like space. A voice appeared in surround sound saying begin.
I began shooting at the Zanians but they were moving too fast. I also remembered that I had never shot a gun before, and didn’t hit one of them. After around 20 or 30 shots Altoir came out of the room that she was hiding in and said that I was a terrible shooter and that she would make it so the Zanians weren’t moving. The surround sound voice appeared again and again it said begin.
This time I shot with less confidence than the round before, and after about 20 shots again Altoir came out.
“You hit 3 non-moving targets out of 20 shots, I will demonstrate how you should shoot for you now. Since you are so bad at shooting the training might take a little longer than I expected, which might be bad. Especially since time isn’t in our favor.”
Begin. the voice said again, only this time I wasn’t shooting Altoir was. She shot around 10 times and each time she hit her mark, and each time the Zanian was flipped upside down and taken into a black hole.