Not well

"Hey, open the door!"

Meanwhile, Shirona furiously knocked on the door on the other side.

When neither the security nor her husband answered, she pressed her ear close to the crack in hopes to eavesdrop on what they were doing.

Unfortunately, not a single sound slipped out from inside.

"Marcus..."

Shirona murmured with her head pressed against the door.

She didn't want to be alone in this place.

Then, a blinding cerulean light flashed from behind, accompanied with many science-fiction like sounds.

Shirona turned around and saw a duo of workers wearing full protective gear coming towards her while towing a huge steel pod.

The worker holding a clipboard looked at Shirona, did a quick scan over her body, then frowned.

"Where is Mr. Hamilton? We need him to sign here before we can hand him his product."

Shirona pointed at the locked door while barely holding back tears.

Apparently, this was a regular occurrence to them, since the worker simply nodded with a deep sigh.

"Ah, I see. Then we should wait for him..."

"W-what is going on inside there?"

Shirona asked, but the workers ignored her.

They exchanged a brief "Take 5?" "Take 5." and zipped out of their protective gears and took a seat on the pod.

"Excuse me?"

Only when Shirona pestered them some more did one of them looked up with an annoyed expression.

"That skanky bitch is probably earning some tips inside that room. They'll be back in...I dunno, 5 to 30 minutes."

His hand-wavy answer didn't help at all calming down Shirona.

"Earning some tips? What does that mean?!"

"Hey, lay off on thing that is none of your buisness."

The other worker chimed in with a leering smirk.

"How is that none of my buisness!? I'm his wife!"

Shirona snapped back.

She had expected the workers to apologize for their lack of interest, or at the very least, be very much taken aback.

Instead, the workers shared a smug glance before bursting out in laughter.

"Wife? You're a character, madam. You're no human. Have you ever heard of a man marrying his vacuum cleaner?"

"I-you-"

Infuriated, Shirona tried to come up with a retort.

She had seen countless instances where someone married a character on the news or the internet.

Sure, they were mostly considered odd and weird, but it was possible—dare one would say, probable.

But even as she thought of that, the small seed of resentment she have had about Marcus rasied its head.

'If marrying a character was possible, why wasn't Marcus trying to marry me?'

As Shirona stood with her mouth slightly open, the workers grinned and slowly stood up. Before she knew it, Shirona was surrounded by two muscular men.

"Wh-what's going on here? What do you want?"

Shirona said with a trembling voice.

"Oh, nothing. Just looked like you were on a lot of stress, so thought we'd help."

The worker grinned and reached his hand out.

"...!"

As soon as his hand squeezed on her breast, Shirona felt a rush of disgust unlike anything she had ever felt before.

Her hand shot out before she could make any sort of rational judgment.

Slap!

The worker's head jerked sideways.

Shirona heaved heavily, glaring at the filthy man who dared to lay his hands on her.

"Don't you dare touch me without—"

Before she could go on, the other worker quickly got behind Shirona and locked his arms around her neck.

Shirona choked and gagged as the air was suddenly cut off from her lungs. She pulled on the arm strangling her, but the thick muscular arm didn't budge.

"You just attacked a prime human. That makes you a rouge character."

The worker behind her snarled with a grin.

"Do you know what the company do with characters that goes rouge?"

"I-I'm n...ot...!"

Shirona tried to argue, but the grip around her neck tightened to silence her.

"We dispose of them. But before they do...workers like us get to have a little fun with them before we throw them in the blenders."

The workers chuckled as they began to untie their belts.

Realizing what was going to happen, Shirona desperately tried to break free of the grasp, but she was held too tightly.

Struggling only depleted her oxygen much faster, leading to her loosing strength more quickly.

"Don't worry, we'll make sure you won't get to think of your prude master when we're done..."

'N-no...please, help...'

The worker holding her neck lifted her legs in the air.

The second worker who got slapped grinned excitly, easily pushed aside the feebly kicking legs and grabbed the waist of Shirona's jeans.

And right when he was about to pull it down, the door swung open.

"...What are you two doing?"

Marcus asked, his voice ever so chill in monotone.