It was around 9 o’clock in the morning. Cars blaring their horns waiting for the heavy traffic to let up. Many got up this early just to fight the traffic before they would be late for their job. It was a routine thing for them. It was no different to Cory anyways.

He softly drummed on his steering wheel, thoughts grinding together. Once, he had tried to shake the thoughts away by turning on the radio, but it ended up being turned off. Granted, he was a metalhead but none of the music had appealed to him. He let his thoughts come back to him. He shuffled in the driver's seat.

As traffic slowly crawled, Cory never realized it moved to a degree.

“The way of the hunter is different than the knight.”

“Who was that?” Cory demanded, looking around his car. Eyes wide with fear and paranoia.

“The way of the hunter is different than the knight.”

“Shut up! You don't know what you're talking about. You never do! Just leave me alone!” There was no reply to him. He leaned awkwardly in his seat, trying to ignore what had happened. “Not today.” Cory tried to reason with himself that it had to of been someone yelling, but the voice had came as a whisper. Every excuse came with another reason not to believe it. “No. It talked again.”

The car behind him blared his horn. Cory jolted up and noticed the huge gap between him and the car in front of him. He was almost done facing the traffic. His office wouldn’t be far now. He occupied himself with getting to the turnoff to his office. It took way longer than it needed, but he still made it.

He parked his car, and slowly turned off its engine. He took several deep breaths. “No one needs to know, Cory. You're just having anxiety today. It's making you hear things. Just calm down.” He took another few breaths.

“Hey, Cory!” A voice yelled outside of his car. He jumped at the sound. Then, he looked out the window and saw his coworker, Avery. He smiled in relief. Avery returned the smile. Cory turned to the passenger seat, grabbed his jacket and suitcase, then opened the door.

“Hey, Avery. How have you been? You missed a few days last week. Everything okay?”

“Oh. That. You see one day I was watching Isabella. She got sick and had to stay home. While her mom out of town, I took it upon myself to stay home and watch her. Well, the other two days I got sick! Can you believe that?”

“Yes. I have seen it happen to many parents.”

“I always thought I had a strong immune system.”

“I guess not then. How's Andrew?”

“Aw, little Andrew? He's doing fine. I guess he made a few friends at the daycare center.”

“Well, it seems that everything is okay now.”

“Oh, it is. What about you? You find a girlfriend yet?”

“Why don't we start heading to the office? We'll be late soon and you know how the boss hates it.” Cory started walking towards the building, expecting Avery to follow. He did.

“You can't keep hiding from my questions, Cory.”

“I'm doing fine. No, I don't have a girlfriend. There happy?”

“What about the one girl? Oh, her name was-”

“Cathy.”

“Yeah! Her! What happened to her? I thought you two were going to go one a date.”

“She rain checked me.”

“Oh.”

“Then went on a date with someone else.”

“Wait, if she rain checked you,  how did you know she went with someone else?”

“I went to the pizzaria to eat and saw her there with another guy. It's okay. It was entirely accidental when it happened. She saw me and we shared a few words. I told her that she could've told me the truth. And she apologized. That was the end of it.”

“Dude, that's harsh.”

“No, I don't think it is. She just wasn't as interested as me. I don't blame her.”

“Why?”

“The dude she was with looked like a lot more fun than my boring office life.” Cory laughed at his statement while Avery remained a straight face.

“Cory, that's not-”

“Yeah, yeah. Not how it works. I know. Now, come on. We'll be late for work if we stand here and chit chat all day.”

“Okay. Whatever you say. If you think it was alright then it was alright.” Cory ignored Avery and started toward the office doors. He pushed one in and held it for Avery. He muttered his thanks while Cory only responded with a curt nod. They both checked in at the front desk then punched in their time cards.

“Hey, Avery.” Avery stopped at the mention of his name.

“Yeah?”

“I'll get another date. Eventually.” Avery grinned at him. Cory couldn't help but smile back.

“Yeah. Sure. I'll see you after work.”

“See you then.” They both walked in opposite directions of the building. Cory climbed his way up three flights of stairs then walked past rows of cubicles. Finally, he found his cubicle. He sat down on the rickety office chair. Placing his coat and suitcase in their appropriate places, he sighed. He turned on his Mac and let it buzz itself to life.

He started drumming his fingers on the edge of the desk when he realized what he was doing. He quickly stopped himself. He looked at his paper organizer for new documents while the Apple logo was showing on the screen. There were two new requests for a graphic design. One was a logo. The other a billboard ad.

He placed the paper down and produced his phone. He typed in his password and set the alarm for the end of his shift. Then, he placed it into his top desk drawer to where it was out of sight but in hands reach.

(This is a weird work in progress thing. I haven't fully finished this but its an idea that I want to do after my other two stories are written.)