Atomizer

  One morning in Chicago, a 21 year old Christian Arnett, wakes up in his bed next to his beautiful girlfriend Keres Organa. He gets up, dreary and tired, looks out the window of his 4th floor apartment at the busy morning streets. “Ugh, I do not want to work today.” He says, vocal cords still warming up.

  He makes himself and Keres some toast and eggs, and he takes it to their room to give to her. “Hey babe, wake up. You're gonna be late for class.” He says, shaking her and wafting the smell of the breakfast in her face. Keres is a beautiful African-American woman with green eyes and black hair. She goes to school at The University of Chicago. She has just woken up and is collecting her thoughts while looking at Christian. “What? I don't have class today.” She says. She thinks it is Saturday, when really, it is friday. It is her last day of school for the weekend. “No babe, it's friday, come on ride and shine.” Christian says, trying to wake her up all the way. “Get dressed, I want to take you to dinner tonight by the way. How's that new Italian place down the street sound? I heard good things about them.” Keres gets out of bed, and pushes Christian out of the room so she can get dressed.

  Later, at work, he has an average everyday experience at work. He is working on something huge. It is a miniaturized railgun, compacted into a regular pistol. It won't be nearly as powerful as a full sized railgun, but it will do 10 times the damage of some of the most high tech guns to ever exist. The boss's assistant walks into Christians workspace. “The man needs to see you, right now.” She says, waving him along. “Alright, I'm coming.” He says as he gets up. “What could he possibly want right now?” They arrive at the boss's office and the assistant knocks on his door. “Come in.” The boss says. Christian walks in and shuts the door behind him. “Please sit, this may be a while.” Christian takes a seat, and waits for his boss to finish up what he is doing on his computer. “So what do you need sir?” Christian asks. “Christian, you were assigned to manufacture and test the new mini rail gun.” Boss says, “It was supposed to be done two days ago.” Christian stares, trying to remember if he read the deadline or not. “Uhh, yeah I'm aware. Look sir, this is a big project, and it's the world's first. Why don't you cut me some slack here?” Christian pleads to his boss. “You better have that gun done by Monday or you're fired.” The boss waves him out of the room, and now Christian has to worry about getting fired, and possibly losing his apartment with his girlfriend.

  After work, he goes home, and gets ready for his date while he waits for Keres to get home. He is wearing a nice, business casual outfit, and he is putting on the cologne he uses for special occasions. He makes his reservation, and waits, watching tv. Later, Keres gets home and he greets her from the couch. “Hey babe, how was class?” She sits at the kitchen counter exhausted from the walk home. “You know, I don’t mind talking to my boss about coming in a bit later so I can drive you to class.” Christian offers. “No, I’m fine, besides you have that big secret you’re working on that is due soon. What is that thing anyway?” Keres asks. “I’m not supposed to talk about it too much, just know that it is really awesome– wait, you knew about the deadline too?” Christian is embarrassed that even Keres knows more about his project than he does, and she doesn’t even know what it is. “Uhhhhh, yeah. I’m your girlfriend. I remember these things.” Keres says. “So, how was work?” Christian looks away, clearly unable to face her when he says what he is about to say. “I uh, I almost got fired today- BUT don’t worry, I got my boss to give me some time.” Keres’ eyes widen, and she almost screams. “You almost what?! You know you’re our source of income if you lose that job then I won’t be able to get a good enough one to keep this roof over our heads. What even happened?” “Well, you know how I had that deadline for the project? Well turns out that was 2 days ago, but I got until monday to get it done.” Christian is blushing, clearly trying to watch his words so he doesn’t make Keres go crazy at him. “I’ll have to go into work late the next few days, I’m so close to finishing it and I have a few more tweaks to make on it.” Keres calms herself. “Alright babe, as long as you get your sleep okay? I don’t want you to lose interest in me from tiring yourself out too much or anything.” Keres is worried for the next few days, she has a bad feeling about it. “I’ll be fine babe, now look at the time, we have to get to that restaurant before our reservation expires or something.” Christian gets his coat on and throws Keres hers, and he grabs his keys ready to head out.

  They get to the restaurant, and sit down. “You know, I really expected this place to look a bit fancier from what I've heard about it.” Christian says. “This food looks good though.” They stare at their menus looking for something good to eat. “I want that risotto, it looks good.” Keres says, admiring the picture of the food. “That does look good, I think I'll have some myself.” Christian replies. They sit and wait for the waiter to come and Christian worries about his project. “H-Hey babe, if i lose my job next week, where will we go?” He asks. “Well I don't have the qualifications for a good enough job for that nice ass apartment, and you won't be able to get a new one in that short of time I bet you. We could probably ask your mom, doesn't she have a spare room?” Keres is looking for any way she can to get out of being homeless, obviously because who wants that? “Yeah she does, I'll call her tonight and talk to her about our situation.” They have small talk, and the waiter comes and they order their food. The rest of the night goes smoothly, and they enjoy every part of it.

  When they get home, Keres immediately goes and gets ready for bed. You could imagine how exhausted she is after school, learning her boyfriend might lose his job, and going out. “Alright Keres I'm gonna head to work and go try to finish that project I love you!” Christian calls out. “Alright be safe! I love you too.” Keres replies. She has a bad feeling about tonight, and worries as soon as Christian walks out the door. He heads to work and gets straight to finishing up that gun he's been working on for months. “Ah shit.” He whispers. “I need a piece to go on this barrel.” He gets up and begins searching in the dark for the supply room, hoping he can find something useful. “Where the hell was that again?” He says, unable to read the signs over doors. Christian hasn't been working at this facility long enough to know exactly where everything is in the place, he obviously didn't pay attention during the tour. “Let's try this one.” He says as he enters a random room, trying to remember if this was where the supply room was. Little did Christian know, this room wasn't exactly a supply room. It was a testing room, and he's just walked right into something he really shouldn't have walked into. He didn't realize it before he put the code in and opened the door, but he's just trapped himself in there, and there are people working in the room next to him about to start their own project. “This doesn't look right, I should get out of here.” He says, turning around and trying to get out. “What the fuck?! The door's locked!” The door shut behind him and locked as the people in the room next to him started their test. Christian began frantically searching for another way out, when he tripped over a table leg and fell, hitting the exact object they were experimenting on. “Ow, fuck dude that hurt” He says, getting up not realizing what he's just done. Suddenly a pipe connecting to the test subject bursts from the hit, and the room quickly fills with chemicals. “FUCK GET ME OUT OF HERE!” Christian yells, trying to cover his mouth and nose from the chemicals. “SOMEONE HELP ME!” He begins to feel woozy, and falls to the ground nauseous. “S-someone, please get me…” He drifts asleep as he is fainting from the sudden horrible feeling in his head. He soon wakes up after the test, it seems nobody realized or heard he was in there, and now he is stuck waiting for the door to unlock. “Oh god what happened.” He says, still feeling dizzy and nauseous from the chemicals that gassed the room. He hears the sound of the door automatically unlocking, and gets up to stumble out. He walks his way home, unable to drive as he would probably kill multiple people if he did.

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  When he gets home, he falls onto the ground, immediately waking Keres up. “Babe? Is that you, what happened? She calls out, exiting the bedroom to find her boyfriend on the ground coughing. “Christian what happened?! Why are you coughing so much?!” She yells and screams, not knowing that Christian could barely talk. “I'm calling 911.” She says, horrified by what she's seeing. “N-No Keres don't.” Christian finally gets it out. “I'll be okay” He is starting to catch his breath, and he sits up. “I must've run into something in the office.” He gets up slowly, and stumbled into his room, going straight to sleep in his clothes.

  The next morning he wakes up perfectly fine, and his breathing feels better than it ever has in his entire life. He gets out of bed, full of energy and he goes to make breakfast. He still remembers what happened last night, but he puts it aside and eats his food in complete silence. He doesn't wake Keres up, and heads straight back to work, calling a taxi since he left his car overnight. Hopefully it wasn't robbed. “Alrighty then, let's just finish this stupid gun already.” He says to himself, walking into the building. He can finally read the signs and finds the storage room. “There it is, I knew it was somewhere near this area, I must've just thought the other one said storage or something.” He goes in, and comes out with the exact part he needed, feeling amazing after getting so lucky as to find the exact thing he needs. He sits down at his desk, and continues to work on the gun. “Just a few more screws and I should be done with this.” He says in excitement.

  He is now done with the gun, and finishes the instructions to make a second one. He turns it in, and goes straight home, as he has no new assignment just yet. This time he can drive home. He walks up to his car, and opens the door. To his surprise, he almost ripped the door clean off- oh and it wasn't robbed by the way. “Holy shit how good did I sleep last night?” He drives home, and walks into the door to find his girlfriend on the couch crying. “Babe? What's wrong?” He asks. Keres doesn't answer, and just sits there still terrified of her boyfriend. “Keres, I'm sorry about last night, I don't know what happened. Good news though is that the car is fine.” He explains. “I was already worried, and then you came home looking like a huge mess, and today you didn't even say goodbye, you just left!” She yells at him, terrified and furious. Christian doesn't know how to react, and so he gets unexpectedly mad himself. “Well fuck me then for being a bit shocked myself I mean come on! I was the one who got locked into a room last night and maybe I just wanted to go to work in peace and not have to talk about that experience!” He yells back. “I'm scared too and you don't get to just scream at me when I'm the damn victim here!” He can't control his emotions, and he bursts out in anger, crushing his keys into a solid chunk of metal in his hand. He throws them at the floor and sends them straight down stairs to the lobby floor, making a hole in the ground. “Christian what the fuck was that for?! And how the hell did you do that?!” Keres screams at him now. “I don't know and I don't really care. I'm going to lay down, come in when you feel like opening the conversation like a normal person.” Christian storms into the bedroom beginning to cry. He suddenly can't stop thinking of horrible things, and he gets even more angry as he sits there. He gets out of bed, and he walks out, grabbing his coat about to leave. “Where are you going?” Keres asks. Christian doesn't say anything, and just raises his finger, trying to shush her but to his horror, something terrible and disgusting happens. He hears a terrifying noise, and looks over to see nothing but red everywhere. He looks around for what happened, frantically searching for Keres, until he steps behind the living room couch. He is horrified to see a pile of blood, mush, and bones on the ground where his girlfriend was just standing not five seconds ago. “What the fuck.” He says. He is unable to say anything else, in shock and confusion. “What the actual fuck just happened?” He can't process what just occurred, and just looks at what used to be Keres Organa. He stands there for three minutes, collecting his thoughts. “I killed her.” He finally gets out. “I killed her.” These are the only words that he can say, and he just gets up and walks out. He doesn't get in his car, because there's no point obviously since he threw his keys to god knows where just 20 minutes ago.

  And so he just walks, and walks, and walks. He repeats the same three words to himself while he roams the streets of Chicago. He looks at his hands, and then looks at a cat in an alley. He points at the cat, and just as his girlfriend did, it bursts. He realizes that what he has been saying is true. He did, in fact, kill Keres.