1 Late shift at the gas station

It's Friday night, well, it's pretty much already Saturday morning. It's 2:55 am, Vals shift at the gas station is about to end in 5 minutes. He is dead tired, working since 3 pm the previous day. He is violating multiple laws by simply working 12 hour shifts but what else does he have to do? He is 19, no friends, no hobbies, his family threw him out when he was only 14 years old so he had to grow up quickly. It's only been a year since he was able to rent his own apartment. At least by working this much he is able to afford rent as well as saving some money for a hobby, friends or a girlfriend, should he ever get one that is.

Lost in thought he is staring out the window, it is pitch black and apart from a few loney cars speeding down the street, not much is happening. It's been about two hours since he served the last customer. In the background of the register an old TV is hanging, sometimes Val apprechiates the backghround noise, but ever since that stupid game was released about half a year ago he primarily annoyed by it, as the same catchy advertisements keep repeating and repeating themselves.

"Domination Online - 1,5 billion Copies sold! Team up with your friends! Form a guild and conquer vast areas of land! Build Kingdoms or destroy them, explore Ruins and discover secrets of a long forgotten era! Buy your Copy today and join the community of Domination Online!"

Val is rolling his eyes annoyed, he has probably heard this ad about 100 times today only, he already tried one shift with the TV turned off but the silence resulted in his 12 hours shift feeling like an even longer. boredom filled eternity than it already was. The amount of customers the gas station entertains is really low in the first place, that's probably also the reason why, unlike pretty much every major gas station chain, his particular shithole is still not automated and the only reason why he has a job. If that's a blessing or a curse, Val is still unsure of.

Where the hell is Jonathan? - Val asks himself. Jonathan is usually the one who has the shift after Vals, and so far he has always been perfectly on time, it was like clockwork, but now it's already 3:05 am and there is still no trace of Jonathan. That's highly unusual, should I tell somebody? But who? It's not like I know any of his familiars - It's also just 5 minutes, it's probably nothing.

After 5 more minutes Jonathan finally arrived. "Sorry" he says in between breaths of exhaustion. It seems like he was running towards the gas station and is pretty done for. Jonathan is, well, more on the well endowed side in terms of weight and definitely not used to running this much. He pants for a few more minutes before he gets himself up again and apologizes to Val with a slightly embarrassed smile one his face: "I'm sorry bud, I finally bought Domination online and kinda lost track of time. Have you tried it? It's amazing, at first I was a bit skeptical but this new VRMMORPG technology is truly marvelous!"

Val smiles a bit, Jonathan is probably the one who is closest to being his friend, seeing him happy like that also puts a smile on his face. "No I haven't, recently the Ads just keep annoying me, one would think that they don't need any more advertisement since they already sold 1,5 billion copies right?" he chuckles a little as he imagines the ridiculous amount of money the devs have probably made from the game.