Canteen

"Weird right?"

"Yeah, same as mine." Jax stood behind Izzy's chair, staring at the ominous email. It was the next day, early morning.

Izzy spam clicked the email a few times, but it refused to open. When the mailbox decided it had had enough, a pop-up appeared:

'Locked: Unlocks in (5) Days'

"Oh!" Izzy was surprised, "It didn't do that before."

"Seems like a time lock. Interesting that they'd even send the email at all." Jax put a hand up to his chin.

Izzy twirled around on his chair, "have you noticed that we don't get hungry in here?"

Jax squinted, "you're right, I haven't eaten once out of the few days I've been here."

"Do you think they have any food here at all? Should we go look?" Izzy was grasping at a chance to talk at more length with Jax.

He nodded at Izzy, in a fashion that made it near impossible to figure out if he was annoyed by the request, or merely indifferent. Izzy grabbed his wallet from the table and led them towards the path that wrapped around to the small arena. About halfway up, they noticed there were additional ways to go, avoiding the arena entirely.

"Which way?" Izzy was trying to see if he could make out where the roads led to.

Jax didn't react.

"This way," he started marching in a random direction. "So why'd you come to Mt. Victory?"

"Who doesn't want to come here."

"You don't strike me as the type to follow the crowd," Izzy smiled as kindly as possible.

A pause, followed by an agitated breath from Jax.

"Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to pry... Just thought I'd ask."

"I came here because of my mother."

Izzy tilted his head.

"She got a job here when I was 8. Within a matter of weeks, she stopped coming home at regular times. Started avoiding me and my father. Eventually, she stopped coming home entirely. I didn't understand why, but it hit my father harder than it hit me."

Izzy looked away, his eyes catching on a cherry blossom's branches reaching over the path they were on, creating a natural arc. Jax stopped whilst they were under the shade, his eyes seemed darker than before.

"I'm here to find out why she left us. What possible thing trumped our family."

The two stood under the blossom, a light stream of crystal clear water trickled by them. It was another sunny day in Mt. Victory, no different from any other they'd been there for. Izzy went to speak before being interrupted.

"Yet I've already lost, indebted to your service. If you had been anyone else, I'd already be fired, and the truth would be lost to the winds." His teeth gritted, "I thought getting into Mt. Victory was the hard part, but there is so much left to be done, so many ways left to fail." His voice trembled more, and his eyes burned with resentment. "I might never reach the truth..."

A gust of gentle wind blew by as Izzy struggled to say anything in response.

Jax shook his head, "let's keep going."

They walked in silence for a while, passing by turn-offs and the occasional office space. Some of which even had other employees working away diligently inside, whilst others were relaxing to upbeat music. Eventually, they reached what could only be described as a naturally occurring canteen. Beautiful wooden tables and accompanying chairs were placed around as if they'd grown from the ground. Between them, tens of vending machines littered the clearing in a similarly random, almost natural fashion.

Each machine looked to be made of the same wood, upon which were elegant carvings of the food that they promised to dispense. Anything from: snacks, drinks, and medicine, to even full lunch-sized meals. Some of them even had a few people stood next to them, chatting and discussing their days with smiles and laughter.

Izzy approached one of the drinks machines, the glass front revealing a selection of wildly coloured foreign drinks. The languages on the bottles themselves were varied as if everything came from a different country. He studied each one, close enough to rub up against the glass.

"Found one?" A voice startled Izzy from behind.

He swung around to see who it was, only to be greeted with a broad-chested shirt. He craned his head up to see the owner of the torso. Stood before him was a tall man with short chestnut hair, styled ever so slightly. He wore a standard set of grey trousers, along with a clean white shirt. Although upon second glance, his right trouser pocket was engraved with a logo that depicted a bear's head roaring.

"Ummm, no, not really..." Izzy blushed.

"B4 is a pretty good one if you like light stuff, sparkly but nothing irritating." The man walked passed Izzy, inputting 'B4' into the machine, which spat out the drink without him having to pay for it. "Want one?"

Izzy nodded quickly, to which the man tossed the drink his way. He fumbled the catch but managed to stop it from falling to the floor. The man let out a slight chuckle and got himself the same drink.

"Saw your fight with that purple kid, pretty hard stuff. How'd you survive the neck wound?" His voice was smooth yet deep.

Izzy scratched the back of his head, "I... Ummm... Don't really know." He was struggling to hide his increased blushing.

"Damn, you two must be pretty green then." He twisted his bottle open and took a sip. "When'd you join?"

"2 days ago."

"Nice, anyone showed you around the place?" He leaned up against the machine.

Izzy looked about, spotting Jax also quietly contemplating which drink to get at a far away machine. "Only him and Nat."

The man's eyes widened. "Nat? Man, you probably know nothing then huh?"

"I mean... I don't know I guess." Izzy struggled to make eye contact with him.

"It's fine, I'll give you some of the basics, name's Dan." He reached out for a handshake.

Izzy obliged him, "Izzy."

"Let's take a walk, I can show you some of the cool stuff around here." Dan started to head away from the canteen area.

Izzy looked back at Jax, worried, but chose to follow Dan.