[ WP ] You fall asleep and wake up in a parallel universe . Where are you and how are things different ? Do you decide to stay or are you desperate to get back to 'your ' world ?

The slight hangover instantly told me today was going to be a long day; working fourteen hours on a Sunday was not the way I wanted to spend the second half of my weekend, but a job is a job, and I could n't afford to miss work. Not like we'd have anyone to cover for me. 
 
 I showered, rolling the scenes in my head of how the store might looked after a Saturday night rush. The other manager, the general manager, had grown increasingly lazy, not closing the store properly, leaving it a complete mess for me to discover the next morning. Last week, there was still things that had never been cleaned, wiped down, or just general food mess still on the counters. I shuddered to think what was there for me today. 
 
 The trip was the same, through the mountains, from one side to the other, zoning out to the music in my ears, though it did n't sound right, like it was balanced in volume for the first time in some time, my driver's side speaking having died years ago. I raised an eyebrow at it but was n't going to look a gift horse in the mouth and settled in for the rest of my drive. 
 
 Pulling up into the parking lot, a sigh passed my lips, frowning as I looked at the store. I hated my job, its monotony grinding away at my sanity. The only good thing was that I worked with some good people, and they made my day. A quick look of my watch told me that I was early, but that would n't stop me from clocking in for that few extra bucks. Once inside the store, I was surprised everything was clean and in ordered, exactly the way it was suppose to be. With a small smile, I set about getting everything ready: making the prep list, setting the safe, putting dishes and utensils back where they belong for the day. 
 
 The sound of a key in the front door drew my attention with a raised eyebrow; was one of the owners stopping by this early? At the door stood Matt, one of my former managers who had transferred to a store closer to home. As usual, he had a large smile when he came in, raising his arms up in greeting. 
 
 `` Cathrine! What are you doing here?'' He gave me a hug and looked around, seeing that I had already started to get the store ready, giving me his best `` not bad'' face. 
 
 `` It's Sunday, I open on Sundays.'' I started to walk back to the manager's desk, sorting through the papers I had, Matt following me closely. `` I should be asking what you're doing here.'' 
 
 `` I open today, but it looks like I should have stayed in bed and be late, ha!'' Tugging off his coat, he threw it on the nearby chair and rolled up his sleeves, starting to work on the prep for the day. 
 
 `` Matt, you have n't opened since October. Hell, you have n't -been- here since October, what are you going on about?'' He was renown for pulling pranks, and I was n't going to fall for this one. 
 
 `` I was gone for three weeks then came back, Cathrine.'' 
 
 `` But you said you could never with Chad. That's one of the reasons you left.'' Sitting the papers in my hand down on a nearby counter, I leaned against it and crossed my arms. `` Kyle left, then you did too, then Reece left, leaving me here with that idiot. He works opposite days of me so I do n't have to kill him.'' 
 
 The stunned look on Matt's face was something I wish I could have taken a photo of for it was pure; the story I was telling him was not what he knew of, and what he was going to say blew my head off my shoulders. 
 
 `` Cathrine, Chad got arrested for stealing, you... do n't remember that? Mike and Bev figured out he was cooking the books and stealing money from them.'' My jaw dropped and I'm sure I must have looked about the same that Matt did no more than ten seconds ago. `` I came back after they offered me the general manager position. Reece bounces between here and the other store, as a GM, and Kyle's GM of one of the other stores, closer to his place.'' I still could n't believe what I was hearing and I blinked several times, shaking my head. 
 
 `` Then... am I still shift lead? I mean, all my codes work for the safe and the alarm, and everything else.'' Matt laughed, shaking his head, running his fingers through his short hair. 
 
 `` You're crazy, Cathrine, seriously. You're my damn assistant manager, why would you be anything less?'' He chuckled a bit, pulling out his phone as it rang a familiar tune that I could n't quite place, something from an old show when I was little. He turned away from me, leaving me to bring all the facts that I had been revealed to me. Chad, the manager who had given me such a hard time to the point that we ended up having to work separate days, the man who would raise hell over the fact that a woman was a manager, arrested for stealing? All the managers who had trained me were still around, even if they were in other stores, and I was an assistant manager? 
 
 I rubbed my temple, the headache from my hangover just throbbing from behind my eyes, the tune of Twilight Zone stuck in my head. It clicked at the moment, that what Matt's ringtone was. 
 
 -034
