
R: 6 / I: 3
Chud blinked awake. The ceiling was a normal, non-water-stained white. Sunlight, actual sunlight, was streaming through a window. This was not his basement. Panic, his old friend, began to tap-dance on his spine.
He turned his head. There was a person in bed next to him. A woman. A black woman. She was sleeping peacefully, one arm draped over a Funko Pop of Miles Morales that was on her nightstand.
Chud’s brain short-circuited. Error 404: Worldview Not Found.
“How… how did I get here?” he whispered to the uncaring air. His mind, traitorously, began to supply answers. It started with the fryer.
***
He’d gotten the job at McDonald’s out of a dire need to afford more energy drinks and a new keyboard. His online persona, ‘AryanGlory88,’ was really popping off in the /pol/ threads about the cultural decay of the west. He needed to keep up his post count.
His first day, he was assigned to the drive-thru window. His soul died a little with every “Would you like to upsize that?” He was a soldier of ideology, forced to peddle sugary grease.
Then *she* was hired. Soyniqua. She had braids with little colorful beads on them and a lanyard with so many pins it could be classified as a blunt weapon. She was assigned to the window next to him.
Chud’s internal monologue was a torrent of recycled 4chan slogans. *‘Degeneracy. Low-test. Soy-based lifeform.’* He avoided eye contact.
But Soyniqua was… relentlessly cheerful. And she talked to him.
“Ugh, can you believe they scheduled me during the new Nintendo Direct? I’m gonna miss the whole thing,” she’d said one day, arranging nuggets in a box with undue solemnity.
Chud, whose entire knowledge of Nintendo was that it “appealed to the masses,” grunted. “Sounds… dumb.”
“Dumb?!” she gasped, fake-offended. “You take that back about my king, Shigeru Miyamoto!”
He had no idea who that was. He’d muttered something about Sega Genesis being superior, a opinion he didn’t actually hold but felt was oppositional enough.
She’d just laughed. “Okay, grandpa. Let’s get you back to your retirement home.”
It kept happening. She’d debate the merits of the X-Men movies. She’d explain the entire lore of a Funko Pop she’d just bought on her break. She’d offer him a half-eaten bag of fries. He’d grunt one-word answers, but he’d also… listen.
The great deconstruction of Chud began not with a debate, but with a forgotten chicken select.
A particularly karen-esque customer was screaming at Soyniqua over a missing sauce packet. Chud felt his old anger rising, but it felt… misdirected. This lady was the problem. Not the cheerful girl who could recite the entire MCU timeline.
Without thinking, Chud leaned over. “Ma’am,” he’d said, his voice a dry croak from disuse. “The only thing melting down here is you. Now please, pull forward. You’re holding up the line of people with functional brains.”
The customer drove off, sputtering. There was a moment of silence. Soyniqua stared at him, her eyes wide.
Then she burst out laughing. “Chud! That was the most incel thing I’ve ever heard… but thank you.”