MONOLITH

I roll the trolley down the aisles, the wheels squeak for oil.
A greasy A4 page lists things I need. The paper seems to suck the skin off my fingers. I felt dust under my skin. No matter how much I rub on my clothes, none comes off. I wipe the back of my hands on my sweaty face, more black dust smears my hands and face.
Pins spacers knives arms cables washers pulleys oil filters
All these pieces make machines.
Thick black dust cakes everything.
I hear most dust comes from outer space.

“A word?”
My boss appears behind me. His skin hangs off his bones. His lumpy spine is visible through his shirt. He moves quickly and silently. He moves like a dying marionette.
“What is wrong with this?”
He holds up a piece of paper in his left hand, and a shiny black piece of rubber in his right.
“Look at the part numbers”
The part number on the paper is AK786544HG67XX. The part on the rubber thing is AK786545HG67XX.
One number different.
I open my mouth but he cuts me off. I get a ten minute tirade on my uselessness, expendability and lack of concentration.
Back to work.
Gaskets hoses connectors hooks decals nuts strippers
These are the things on my trolley.
I can see the dust under my skin. I have blisters full of black and grey specks. My dead white skin is too satisfying not to tear into with my nails. I scratch the skin against my knuckles, turning them pink, then red. Odd little lumps appear. I scratch them. Skinflakes cascade onto the concrete floor. They scab over. I scratch the scabs off.

Rows and rows and rows of parts. Like mini skyscrapers, the shelves go on infinitely. I pray the next part I touch won’t be covered in the same horrible, greasy dust as the last. My neck starts to itch. Skin under my nails. More lumps. More scabs. Light coloured blood smears the greasy paper. I can’t tell where I am bleeding from.
I catch my reflection in the mirror. I am covered in grease and dust. I can’t see my skin. I wipe at my face with my hands, but more greasy dust slicks from skin to skin. I use my shirt, which just smears the greasy dust over my face. My eyes sting. I can feel a heartbeat in my head. Every time it pulses I wince in pain. I can feel a sick feeling in my head, same as i get in my stomach.
I don’t want to do this anymore.

I put the parts on the table ready to be sent away. I pick up the last piece of paper. A ray of sunshine warms the side of my head as I see this order only has one part, a cog. Easy. I’ll get this then it'll be time for lunch.
Looking at the paper, I don’t recognise the location.
I ask my boss.
“Where the fuck do you think?”
He rubs his temples and points.
The pain he is feeling is me.
Inflicting pain is control. Control is power. Power is happiness.
My head still hurts, but the pain gives me focus.
I still tear at the dust under my skin, but it doesn’t bother me.

Rows and rows and rows and rows. My trolley squeaks. If I yelled out, nobody could hear me, I am so deep in the dusty warehouse.
I am nearly at my cog, I can feel it.
Then I see something.
On the lowest shelf, to my left, is a spiderweb. I’ve seen a few spiderwebs around the warehouse, but never one this big.
And there she is. A spider. Other than people, I have never seen an animal in the warehouse, ever.
The spider looks up at me with wet black eyes. Big juicy black abdomen. Legs like needles.
You are so beautiful.
She sits in her web, by choice. She is living wild and free, even in this horrible place.
Anywhere, no matter how horrible, you can live wild and free she teaches me.
I put my fingers in the web. I give her the choice of biting me. If she bites me, I will use it to go home sick.
The disturbance in her web causes her to shift her needle legs slightly.
I feel my penis start to swell.
I move my fingers more.
Bite me lady. Give me your poison.
She moves delicately onto my finger.
I am rock hard.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?”
The spider falls gently back into her web as I stand up.
My boss, hunched over is standing so close my erection nearly touches him.
I try to explain about the spider, but he doesn’t understand.
He reminds me of my expendability, then lurches off.

I roll my trolley deeper into this uncharted part of the warehouse.
My throbbing head comes on harder, ruining my focus, leaving only frustration.
I tear into my skin more, my forearms now layered deep with black, oily soot.
Skin is indistinguishable from oily dust underneath my nails.
My untainted skin, that doesn’t itch, is cool and smooth. It taunts my itchy skin.
My itchy skin taunts my smooth skin. They charge at each other and everywhere I scratch stops itching, painful and unsatisfying.
I want to rip my skin off.
The cog.
I make another turn, hoping this aisle is the right one.
And I see it. Reflecting light in the far off distance. I run towards it. A small beacon reflecting sunlight. I know it is the cog. I run and jump on my trolley, the trolley rolling quickly with all my weight on it. The squeak of the wheels sounds like excited chatter from my trolley, telling my all about this glorious cog.
Then I reach the cog.
Right location, right parts number.
I pick it up and hold it.
It is the size of a dinner plate, and as heavy as a bowling ball. It is chrome, so clean I can see my reflection.
INDIVIDUALITY IS A CAPITALIST ILLUSION.
I look around. Did I hear that? Or say it? Think it?
My reflection is filthy. Covered in oil dust. Facial hair growing like weeds. Disproportional, malnourished body.
ALONE WE ARE NOTHING.
TOGETHER WE ARE EVERYTHING.
I held the cog up above my head, looking at myself. This should have strained my arm muscles, but didn’t.
TOGETHER WE ARE EVERYTHING.
I saw it now. Behind me.
The pale form of skin and lumps was in the distance, behind me. Speckled eggshell skin. Beady black eyes. He had his back to me, and was doing something I couldn’t identify with his hands. I heard a disgusting chatter.
I turned around, cog under my arm. I left my trolley.
The sick marionette. He seemed to rise and fall, moving on invisible strings as he stood stationary.
What was he doing?
I approached him silently. Flies buzzed around his head. I was a few meters away from him, cog under my arm.
I saw.
He coughed, quietly, yet fiercely. He was regurgitating something into his hands.
I looked at the cog. The reflection showed black soot, oily dust, filthy grey specks spewing from his mouth. He shuffled slowly to right. The excrement fell onto his hands, which he then rubbed onto the shelves. He was in front of me now. He sounded like a cat coughing. Too much dust and oil came out of him, more than should have fitted inside of his small frame, his small sack of a stomach.
I held the cog in front of me, saw my reflection.
Saw myself in the cog. I am the cog. A small part of a machine I could never hope to understand.
Free from individuality.
I raised the cog.
I stepped forward.
I brought the cog down.
A small shock went through my wrists and the thick cog snapped into his skull.
Blood anodized the chrome cog a transparent red.
I followed my boss to the ground, on my knees, him face down.
I brought the cog down again, harder.
I felt the cog connect with the concrete floor, piercing his skull, brain matter and cheek.
One more, for good luck.

I put the cog on my trolley. I checked it off the list. The only item on the list.
My itching sores hardened into skin again.
Time for lunch.

...Holyshitwhatthefuck?

Holyshitwhatthefuck also, but in a good way.



Fun with removing things from context, even though in all fairness that appears like 3 lines after talking about erections almost touching the boss.

Also, LAWL erection.

Had to get it out of my system. Carry on.

First of all, unless you are writing poetry, you don't need to put every single sentence in a new line. Secondly, this story jumps around and takes forever to get somewhere that could have taken all of a paragraph. Guy hates his job. Guy is covered in soot. Guy mutilates himself. Guy's boss yells at him. Guy goes to get things and gets a hard-on from a spider. Guy's boss yells some more. Guy mutilates his skin some more. Guy is still covered in soot. Guy finds a cog. Cog speaks/Guy hallucinates COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA. Guy is still covered in soot. Guy kills boss. Guy eats lunch.

That? Was your entire story, without leaving out any plot points or major details.

This isn't creepy or shocking. I have no idea what this was supposed to be, just that I greatly disliked it.

Also, when you make a list of things (say, various parts) there should be commas between the words.

Some of the CAPS LOCK words are blatant rip offs of 1984. But other than that, I didn't get creeped out, my skin felt gross though.

That's pretty much what I was going to post when I read it earlier this morning, but I read Rocketpants' comment on it and thought that perhaps this was brilliant somehow and I just didn't understand it.

I had the feeling that this was a God-awful story from the surface to the core, and I thank you for confirming that for me with a perfect summary of how I felt about it.

By the way, throughout the whole story, I was expecting the shocking twist ending to be that he was a caucasian robot with a black person's skin all over him. Instead, the shocking twist ending was just that he works in a Home Depot for a guy who has tuberculosis and a smoker's cough, and he gets sick of it and kills him with a shiny chrome gear.

Glad to be of service.

I wouldn't say brilliant. I just meant that the way it was written kinda had me wondering the whole time "where is this going and how is it going to end?". When you boil it down to what actually happened, yeah, I guess it's kind of a lame story.



That would have been pretty fucking awesome actually.

Whatever, you guys- I thought it was excellent.

only advice I can offer



might want to move "she teaches me" to the beginning



something about that first comma seems off grammatically


trolley trolley trolley etc you may want to reword this part

I dunno. It didn't chill me, but I really enjoyed it and found it to be of better quality than a lot of what ends up being posted here.

at first I thought it was about some sort of purgatory or hell so COMMUNISM! kind of initially shocked me

it's relatively weak as political satire/shock material but again I liked it very much

I ain't afraid but it's probably one of my favorites out of those I've read

to each their own

I really appreciate the feedback guys. It was my first attempt at anything creepy, I love creepypasta so much I just had to try and give something back.

One problem with my writing is a lack of planning, I just jammed my fingers to the keyboard and let loose, I only gave it one edit, so considering that I'm glad I could entertain a few of you. I think predictability can plague creepypasta a bit too much, but I think I was trying too hard to avoid that. Plus I write a lot of terrible poetry so chalk the bad grammar/lack of prose up to that.

Again, I appreciate the feedback, negative and positive.

"I really appreciate the feedback guys. It was my first attempt at anything creepy, I love creepypasta so much I just had to try and give something back."

This is a good thing, sir, but only editing your story one time before posting it isn't actually giving back as much as you intend, right? Just take more time and make it pretty....if the content itself is a flop, that's fine (I've had flops before), but if it's hard to physically read, that's just lazy, amirite?

Rite rite rite.