greenportal | Veni, Vidi, Vending

Title: Veni, Vidi, Vending

Fandom: Original Universe

Characters: OC Anya (Vampire), OC Laurie (Human)
Word Count: 1,380

Summary: Anya and Laurie go shopping.
Warnings: Mention of dead animals, Derogatory language

Author's Notes: Just a random bit of worldbuilding that was on my mind, not really a full story. Though I really like the vending machine idea and might come back to butcher this and reuse it in the main story.

I never thought I would be bored with the prospect of visiting a secret shopping mall for vampires and other creatures of the night. Yet I spent the bus ride looking over our shopping list repeatedly, hoping one of the cleaning supplies or pantry staples would somehow turn into something more interesting. I don’t know what I would have preferred to see, honestly. Surely there’s a stall in the market section that sells dragon scales or fairy wings or something.

When Anya and I reached the old, converted warehouse it seemed we had just missed a fight between two vampires. The front section was usually a bustling room of booths like an artist hall at a convention, but there were so many tables that had been left unmanned and so few people walking the halls. One poor jeweler was still picking up the broken pieces of her booth and scattered merchandise.

Anya seemed twitchy. She held my hand tight as we walked and glared at anything that moved.

“I can smell one of them,” she said as she walked faster, “I hate that smell. Smells like anger and tension. I don’t want to be here longer than we need to.”

“We’ll have to come back through here a few times to reach all the shops, won’t we?”

“Not necessarily. There was only one that I wanted to visit. Here, this way.”

She pulled me through the aisles and deeper into the room. Past the merchants’ tables and jerry-rigged stands were halls of shops with actual brick walls and glass doorways, resembling the malls that I was more familiar with growing up. The people who had fled the main room during the fight were mulling around in these hallways, yet the crowds were starting to thin out as they went back to their usual business. This part of the warehouse was usually fairly quiet, but tonight there was plenty of activity in every little shop. At least there was until we came to a stop in front of an empty store. The shelves inside held only cobwebs until they stretched back past where the hallway lights could reach them.

“This is it,” Anya said as I stared at my reflection in the window, “Everything we need in one place.”

“Okay, funny joke,” I said, “can we keep going? I’m getting a weird vibe from this place.”

“Well that’s strange. You’re the only weird thing around here.” She let go of me and pulled open the glass door. The dust that had settled on the inside of the door fell off to momentarily create a small cloud around our feet.

“I’ll, uh, I’ll wait here for you.” I took a step back, but she grabbed me again and shoved me through the doorway.

As I stumbled over the threshold I felt a weird tingling cross over me, like I had stepped through an invisible beaded curtain, but electrified. Suddenly the lights were much brighter, and I had to close my eyes for a moment to stop them from hurting. When I opened them again I had to blink a few times to remember how I got where I was.

The room we had entered was far bigger than possible compared to the outside of the warehouse. It looked like any other supermarket I had ever been in: White-painted cinder block walls around the perimeter, slightly blue-ish fluorescent lights evenly spaced along the ceiling, off-white metal shelves in orderly lines, and products perfectly faced along the shelves. Somewhere in the distance a tinny speaker was playing elevator music. I followed Anya as she pulled a cart from the corral.

“You know regular Wal-mart is open 24/7, right? And closer to your house? We could’ve just gone there and saved a trip downtown?”

“Yes, but they never have my carpet cleaner in stock.”

We walked down the drive aisle together, passing the clothing section. Once we reached actual shelves and now had blind spots around the corners, I saw something approaching us out of the corner of my eye.

They must have been twice as tall as me, even with their head missing. The stump of their neck had small spikes growing out that sometimes branched like deer antlers. Everything about them was stretched out of proportion, with their hips at the level of my chest and their fingers at least a foot long. Their body was mostly skeletal yet covered in a thin, burgundy skin. Their upper torso was wrapped in thorny vines, and each thorn had a mouse or large insect impaled on the end. They walked as if they were stuck up to their knees in syrup.

They stopped at the intersection between our aisle and theirs. I stepped back to hide behind Anya, but she just smiled at the creature.

“Oh, no thank you. We know what we’re looking for,” Anya said.

The creature turned and walked away.

“What are you staring at?”

I blinked at Anya, needing a moment to realize she was talking to me.

“Oh, I see,” she said in a low voice and with a smile that made me shudder. She turned and yelled down the aisle, “Excuse me!”

The creature stopped and slowly turned back around to face us.

“My girlfriend thinks you’re cute!” I could hear Anya’s smile in her voice.

I froze. I don’t think I clenched my teeth, it’s more like they automatically clenched themselves.

The creature tilted their not-head, then waved a hand dismissively before they went through a door marked “Employees Only” that appeared to be installed in a shelf halfway down the aisle.

“So sorry, Laurie,” she said, “I guess they’re taken. Looks like you’re stuck with me.” She pulled me in for a playful hug.

“Please stop telling everyone we meet that I think they’re cute,” I grumbled in her ear.

“Why? It’s fun.” She took my hand and pulled me along. “Come on then, spoilsport.”

As we kept going, I noticed one of the end caps ahead of us was entirely taken up by a large, black box. I stopped to get a better look once we were in front of it. The only thing built into it was a thin slot on the front, and taped above that was a piece of printer paper with black text that read:

Fortunes Told
Questions Answered
Ancient Prophecies Revealed

$1.00

“What’s this? A Zoltar machine without the racism?”

“It’s just a vending machine,” Anya said, “Don’t play dumb, human stores have vending machines too.”

“Is it one of those things that steals your soul if you use it?”

“I don’t know where you got the idea that inanimate objects can do that, but no. It’s just a waste of time.” She had wandered further ahead, but stopped to wait for me to catch up. “Please leave it alone.”

“I’m curious, though. I want to see my fortune,” I said as I fished a dollar out of my purse.

She came back and leaned against the cart, sighing over-dramatically. “What a waste of a good dollar.”

“I can waste my dollars however I want.”

I fed the bill into the slot. There was a quiet sound, like a small fan starting up inside. Then a slip of white paper emerged from the same slot. I pulled it out excitedly.

Fortune:
Damn, bitch. Good luck.

Anya fell against me, laughing so hard that she had knocked herself off her feet.

I sighed. “Yeah, you were right.”

“Of course, I’m always right. Now you’re out a dollar and someone somewhere will get to copy your fingerprints off the bill. Good job.” She patted my shoulder.

I folded the fortune up and slipped it into my wallet before putting it back in my purse.

“You’re keeping that thing?”

“I keep all my fortunes. I like looking back on them and guessing what they meant.”

“It’s a random card from a pile. The only meaning it can possibly have is if you force one retrospectively.”

“Yes? That’s the point of fortunes.”

Anya smiled and gave me a hug with one arm. “Ah, you’re too cute. Don’t let me ruin your silly fun.”

“Well, I don’t think I’d recognize you if you weren’t being a stubborn stick-in-the-mud.”

She hip-checked me as we started walking again.