“Are you fucking kidding me,” whimpered Aster as she watched the score of youth follow Sylvia inside. The throng splintered off in various directions as they filled the shop to the brim, plunging it into the throes of abject chaos. In every direction, down every aisle dozens of mostly teen girls descended with little care for decorum or orderliness. Records were snatched from their spots and thrown to the wayside, put back into the wrong categories, or left outside of their sleeves altogether.

Aster stood at the register, frozen and wracked by nausea, her facial expression locked stiff and unchanging in an awkward way as her eyes grappled at a loss for where to settle amongst the growing crowd of people looking back at her.

“Where's the new Cherubs album?!”

“My mom said you guys had it!”

“I was here first, get me a copy!!”

—cried out various voices at the trembling, baggy-eyed mess before them. Aster struggled to meet their eyes, her concept of time faltering into a slow, lethargic march as they overwhelmed the register.

A will-devouring malaise rose up from within as their eyes seared into her, a blackened maw from which self-love could not escape unsatisfied with anything less than her heart at which it gnawed at hungrily. That million-mile-an-hour heart that thumped and ached so mournfully and disappointedly as she watched the hysterical girls' flustered faces morph into looks of confusion and slight concern as she failed to respond in any way. She died inside as her stuttering tongue failed to make sense, the pandemonium around them only growing in pitch and wanton recklessness as Aster's measure of self promptly melted and contorted unsightly and grim, like wax in the sun.

Aster struggled for words as she tried desperately to wrestle back the immense feeling of sickness which was welling from within her. The crowd's clamor— the litany of questions which it lobbed at the fragile girl soon lost their distinct voices, morphing into what sounded like one grotesque demand of her.

“Excuse me! Excuse me!” Sylvia cried, moving in to aid her ailing, violently trembling coworker. “Aster, go help Mr. Floyd put away the records, I can handle it up here,” she directed, taking the register. Aster looked up at her in shock, her heart racing straight out of her chest.

With all the quickness in the world she scurried away to the far side of the shop, where Floyd was desperately attempting to wrangle shelves that emptied faster than he could stock them. Aster looked back. The sight of a register swamped was all that was visible, Sylvia lost within the tide of screaming all around it.

“That fool!” shouted Floyd in a frenzy at nothing in particular as Aster came to stand beside him. The oft-reserved fellow was hastily flipping through the alphabetized tabs, shoving records in with little care as teens hustled past them on all sides. Aster scurried into his protection, the scenes and sounds of disarray laid plain around them as the mob tore into shelves, records and magazines falling to the floor curled and battered.

I knew I was useless but holy shit, Aster agonized. I'm given a job and all I can do is sit here and cower like a fucking fool while they struggle like this? she thought, her heart aching as Floyd yelled indiscriminately, brandishing his cane around with wild abandon. Aster knew that even if she could somehow find the courage, she would never be able to ask for a job after this. She huddled beside the row of records in defense of her current panic attack, lamenting why she was cursed with this broken brain.

“Sylvia!” Floyd shouted, rising from beside the box of records. “We are going to need to call in Cecil! Right this minute!” he commanded from across the shop. Sylvia's little blonde head popped out of the crowd amassed around the register, bow bouncing in turn as she jumped to the phone's rotary. Aster doubled over in a stomachache, aghast at the prospect of yet even more people getting involved.

“Miss Aster,” Floyd began with valiance as his hand fell on her shoulder. “Remember me for my strengths, and not my weaknesses,” he uttered before charging his way through the crowd where Sylvia found herself buried. “Alright, alright!” he warbled as he cleared a path to the peppermint girl. “I am sorry to say but we have no Cherubs' records, nor do any exist!” he declared to the crowd, ushering forth a litany of whines which swallowed his voice whole.

Aster lowered her eyes as their screams and sobs littered the store, ornamenting the rubber-banding pandemonium with a veritable breadth of human emotion. “I want to go home,” she wept to the rows of records below her as the letters demarcating the sections blurred in her teary-eyes, “I want to go fucking home!”

I get it okay? she thought, tears welling fat and heavy onto the cardboard sleeves which now wore her anguish as faint, damp splotches. I know I'm not good at anything. I know I'm not deserving of anything turning out alright, so please, just get me the fuck out of here, she pleaded in sobs as the shop's bell to which she had become numb rang out into the cacophony.

A brown-haired, moppy-headed man stood in the doorway, dumbfounded as he watched the mayhem unfolding across the shop. Aster fell to her knees beside the records, hoping with all her might he wouldn't see her. He began to walk, pushing his way through the mob as he approached the register.

“Sylvia, what the hell is going on?” he inquired.

“They think we're selling a Cherubs album, Cecil!” she replied, desperately bagging records up as fast as she could possibly manage. Cecil threw his cabbie hat and suede jacket upon the rack, and began to help her in earnest.

“What do you mean? The Cherubs are unsigned, they don't have any records,” he replied, his confused glance falling to Floyd who shuffled by with several record players in hand.

“You know who it is Cecil!” Sylvia continued, attempting to force ten records into a small paper bag.

Cecil's eyes wandered from the frenzied colonial impersonator to the apple-headed girl cowering at the far end of the store as the sounds of Sylvia's groans and the tearing of paper bags mingled with the orchestra of mayhem ensuing around them.

“Is that a customer?” he inquired. Sylvia looked up, her eyes falling onto that same bushy brown head which just silently fumbled through the records, baggy eyes settling on no one thing but the phantom of anxiety which could never be found to be a fixed notion.

“No, that's Aster. Mr. Floyd helped her get into The Cherubs' show yesterday and she's paying it off by working a shift here today,” she replied, taping the bag back together.

“He what?” he replied in confusion, watching the girl cower beside the records. “Sylvia, it really doesn't look like she's enjoying herself."

“She's a very sensitive girl. Besides, can you blame her?” she remarked as a record flew past her head.

Cecil looked back at Aster. Her position was completely encircled by lines of shoppers in each neighboring aisle.

“Good god Floyd what are you doing?” he mumbled.

“Where are you going?” Sylvia asked as he began to walk off.

“To go talk to her, she's not much help if she's just shaking against the boxes is she?”

“You better be nice to her, you hear me Cecil?!” she commanded, her bow swaying in kind.

“Sure thing,” he gave half-heartedly, darting through the chaos as he approached Aster. She thumbed quietly through the records, her gaze unmoving from the vinyl below as he neared.

“So, I heard you're working here for the day,” he began. Aster jolted upon noticing him, jumping back with such power that it startled Cecil himself. Her swollen baggy-eyes wore clearly the stains of tears which blemished her soft cheeks with sad, dirty streaks.

“Hey, are you alright?” he started again with significant concern.

Aster did not respond, which pushed Cecil to draw nearer in a weak attempt to console, but which only made her shaking that much more profuse and worrying.

It was at this point that Aster— whose usual response in the face of overwhelming social stimuli was a doubling down of abhorrent recoil and a subsequent display of self-hatred through tears or retching— just simply broke. The sheer weight of the situation proved to be too colossal, and Atlas who held her brows shrugged, her brain rendered non-compliant. She suddenly collapsed to her knees, her hands wrapped over her head as she stared blankly at the wooden floor, all stimuli she could perceive warping in on itself as Sylvia ran over to her.

“Cecil, you doofus! What did I say?!” she yelled, helping Aster up. Cecil could only watch silently as Sylvia lifted Aster to her feet, utterly stupefied as the store continued to burn around them.

“What the fuck is going on..?” he whispered.

“Go on, go take the register!” she commanded, shooing him off as she made her way to the storeroom with the shocked girl in tow. “It's gonna be okay,” Sylvia whispered, pulling her along through the havoc to the back of the store.

She swung the storeroom door open, bringing Aster to safety inside.

“Aster,” she began softly, pulling up a chair for her. “Believe in me and Mr. Floyd, okay?! This'll be no sweat,” she declared, flexing her tiny bicep.

Aster, upon seeing Sylvia's smile, burst forth in tears, her terrified heart once again free to ache. She sobbed a guttural, terrified cry, shaking in her chair. Sylvia held her tight as the girl hiccupped and choked on her misery.

“I have to go back out there,” she told her, standing back up. “But don't you worry. Leave it to us!” she said, smiling brightly.

The door shut, leaving Aster to herself for the first time since that very early morning. She could scarcely feel her heart it was so numb from it's incessant thrashing.

It was so fucking stupid of me to think everything might turn out alright, she lamented, weeping into her hands.

As the terror inside the shop raged on, Aster cried profusely and deeply. She had never been more certain, she realized with the utmost horror— that there was no place in existence for her.