Lydia swallowed, the ever-present lump in her throat persistent as always. She hadn’t expected the offices for the Hucow Recruitment Center to be so… cozy. Perhaps she’d expected something more sterile, something like the little white box she received in the mail from them monthly. In that precious little box, a plain white bottle labeled “Lactanium, 50mg” was packed neatly in some white styrofoam, along with a little insert containing usage instructions as well as some technical medical information that Lydia never bothered to read. All she really cared about were the pills in that little bottle- that was all that mattered.
Given the medical, straight forward nature of the monthly package, Lydia had just assumed the company headquarters would be the same. She was caught off guard by the plush red carpets, the old wooden furniture, the cozy vintage chair her ass was currently sinking into. The aesthetic evoked the image of an idyllic farm house, echoed in the hand-painted pastoral landscapes hanging on the wall.
If you thought about, it made sense- after all, they were trying to convince you to essentially sign your life away. Nobody would want to live in a cold, sterile hospital all their life. The interior had been designed to ease the anxiety of any potential signers- people like Lydia.