Darryl had worked quite a few odd jobs in his lifetime, but this was going to be by far his oddest one. A nearby plastic factory had put out an ad looking for paid volunteers for quality control jobs, which the weasel assumed would consist of breaking and tearing apart different types of packaging to make sure that everything was up to standard. In some ways, he was right- but what he didn’t know were the methods they intended for him to use to carry out these tests.


After a quick phone call, he received a date for a “recruitment event”, where a few potential volunteer candidates would be shown around the facility and introduced to the workings of the factory, and finally, some of them would be chosen for a part-time job. The promised pay was pretty enticing for factory work, and the working hours were flexible, so Darryl couldn’t see a reason not to apply.


When he walked in, one thing instantly became obvious: There were a lot more people than he thought there would be. The medium-sized waiting hall was filled with all sorts of different people, all waiting for someone to do something; the whole thing seemed to be a little disorganized. The weasel quietly stepped aside into a corner, as all the seats had been taken by the many other candidates, who were reading, scrolling on their phones with expressionless faces, or catching up on some sleep that they missed the night before. It was clear that no one really wanted to do this job, it was just one step above being unemployed.


Darryl stood awkwardly, balancing from one foot to the other, and kept checking the time on his phone, as the promised start of the event was already past by almost half an hour. He didn’t have to wait for very long, however, as a gold-furred labrador wearing a white lab coat stepped into the waiting room with a sheet of paper in her hands. Everyone looked up to see what would happen next, but no one made a sound besides some quiet murmurs until the strict, yet slightly monotonous voice of the dog broke the silence.


“Good morning, I hope everyone who wanted to come could make it! We’ll be going into the factory in smaller groups…” Her thick lens glasses slid far down her nuzzle as she looked at the sheet filled with the volunteers’ names, calling them out one by one. There were about five or four called from the bunch, Darryl being the last. He politely stood behind all the others who lined up in front of the dog neatly and then followed the employee into the factory through a heavy, metal door that she seemed to be able to open with relative ease despite its size and weight. They stepped onto a bridge suspended above the factory before the door was closed and locked behind them and the labrador began to give an introductory greeting that sounded so generic and irrelevant, that it could have very well been written by a robot.


The factory was so much bigger and more spacious than the tiny, stuffy space the volunteers had been waiting in; it almost made Darryl dizzy as he looked down, admiring the endless lines of conveyor belts that seemed to be slithering around on the ground like a big nest of metallic snakes. The ambiance was loud from the many buzzing, flashing machines, some emitting a constant, quieter sound, while others only roared up from time to time, almost shaking the entire building with their deep resonance. Not all the action was restricted to the ground, however: long, flexible strips of plastic were transported around using rotating rollers that reached up into the air, creating what resembled a spider web of transparent wrapping material that was constantly in motion and covered the entire depth of the factory below. Some of the plastic even reached the level of the bridge that the little group was walking upon, sometimes close enough that Darryl could have reached out and touched it with his hands.


The whole area was dizzying, loud, and perhaps even a little intimidating, but the weasel was quite impressed by all the state of the art technology that he’d have the pleasure to work with. He was always a little bit of a nerd when it came to big, complex contraptions, so he felt right at home among the noisy machines. He was so distracted by the sight, that he didn’t even notice the labrador finally reaching the end of her monologue and stopping at the end of the bridge where several sets of stairs lead down into the heart of the factory.


“...so basically, this is what your testing duties are going to involve. Now that I’ve said everything that I’m required to say, I’ll give everyone the choice to either sign the contract and begin work, or to go home!” She said, handing the piece of paper over to Darryl. “Just sign it right next to your name, Sir!”


“O-okay…” The daydreaming weasel suddenly snapped back into reality and quickly scribbled down his name onto the sheet, before giving it back. The procedure seemed a bit fickle for an official work contract, but he couldn’t care less as long as he got paid for his time. He was caught so off-guard, that he didn’t even notice the facial expressions of the others, who seemed to be a little less thrilled about the opportunity after hearing the introduction of the guide.


“Fantastic, welcome to the family! You can go down right there at entrance B, and we’ll soon follow you with the rest of the volunteers!” She said, pointing towards the set of stairs on the right. Darryl nodded and made his way down, his legs shaking just a little bit as he held tight onto the thin metal railing attached to the flimsy stairs. He wondered why they weren’t given any work uniforms or a hard hat before entering the facility, but to be fair, that wouldn’t help much anyway if he were to trip and fall down what seemed like three stories of depth beneath him.


After a couple of minutes of careful climbing, he finally reached the bottom floor, happily jumping off the stairs and feeling happy to be on solid ground again. He grabbed a pair of ear protectors that was hung up at the bottom of the staircase on a rack and slightly cringed at the greasy, musky feeling against his ears, but he was ultimately happy to finally have his ears a little rest from all the noise. He waited for a little while for the others to join him below, but after about five minutes, only the labrador came down, with nobody else tagging along.


“Where are all the others?” He asked, looking up to see some figures heading back to the exit on the exact same bridge. Suddenly a strange feeling took over him, like he was caught in a situation that he wasn’t supposed to be in.


“Well, they just decided to go elsewhere.” The labrador replied, seeming a little dismissive about the situation. “I guess they weren’t expecting to do real work. I still appreciate there’s at least someone who’s willing to break a little sweat to test our products.”


“O-oh yeah, happily! I came here to work, after all!” The weasel nodded, although he was still a little confused as to why everyone decided to leave. Still, he didn’t dare ask for a recap of the intro as he found it embarrassing enough already that he had been daydreaming, so he just went along, hoping that there really wasn’t anything sketchy about the job. The dog grabbed some ear protection of her own and went ahead, leading our protagonist deep into the factory.


“Wow, these machines are… Pretty big!” The weasel exclaimed as they walked along a robot arm that was screwing caps onto barrel-sized plastic bottles. Looking down from the bridge, nothing really seemed to be unusual about their size, but it became quite apparent with this change of perspective that there was something oddly different about the factory.


“Does that really come as a surprise at this point?” The dog replied in a little bit of a sarcastic tone as they finally reached what seemed to be their destination. They walked next to a conveyor belt that was transporting empty, transparent trays, each one big enough to comfortably fit a normal-sized mattress inside. Despite the humongous size however, their designs made them look more like the kinds of packages that stored thinly sliced deli meat at the grocery store. Just a couple of meters down the line, another machine could be seen applying sheets of thin, flexible plastic onto the tops of these trays to seal them off, before the products headed into a dark tunnel, the end of which couldn’t really be seen as the line turned to the right and was lost from sight behind some other appliances working on other products.


“This is the first phase of your testing! What I need you to do is to get into one of these trays and travel along the production line to test if all our machines are working as intended.” She explained, delivering the admittedly strange request in such a quick and professional tone, that at first, it almost sounded like there really wasn’t anything “off” about it. By the time she finished talking, the conveyor belt had slowed to a speed that would allow the weasel to easily climb into one of the trays.


“Uhm… What?” Darryl looked at his employer confused, at first believing that this request was merely a joke. There surely had to be more efficient ways of testing the functionality of these products than having a volunteer climb in and expose himself to the whims of the production line…?


“What?” The labrador didn’t seem to understand what was so funny about the job as she stood next to the conveyor belt that slowed down even more. “Is there something wrong? Are you not able to do the job?”


“Oh no! I’m absolutely able to do it!” Darryl quickly replied, not wanting to lose his position at the first obstacle. He scurried over to the line and picked out a tray at random, quickly jumping up on it and laying down on his back. “L-like this?”


“Yes, perfect!” The dog replied from the distance as the belt sped up again and transported the volunteer even further into the depths of the factory. “Remember to report your findings at the end!”


The weasel his hand up to signal a thumbs up to his boss before his tray finally reached the machine that quickly rolled the sealing sheet of plastic over the tray, locking him inside. Although the tray was wide and long enough for the small mammal to comfortably fit into, in terms of height, there really was a bit more space to be desired. He had to tilt his head to the side to breathe, as his face uncomfortably buried into the soft seal if he turned it towards the ceiling.


Even though he wasn’t a claustrophobic person at all, the tight packaging, mixed with the limited amount of air in there did strike a little bit of anxiety into the volunteer, as he tried to control his breath, because he felt that his oxygen supply was already getting a little stale inside. The transparent plastic became foggy from the exhaled moisture as a thin layer of water condensed on the walls of the tray, which could be wiped away if Darryl cumbersomely extended his hand beneath the tight plastic and dragged his furry finger on it. He tried not to panic as the belt carried him up a few stories, fighting to keep his breathing under control. He could feel the sheet getting just a little tighter on him with every breath he took, and expanding slightly with each exhale- but never completely back to its original pressure.


Suddenly, his tray came to a stop. Was the test finally over? Darryl tried looking up to identify where he was, but the sheet was already way too cloudy to really make out anything- he could only see the blurry halo of a bright lamp above him. Then he heard hissing. A loud, almost deafening hiss sounded inside his tight prison, instantly accompanied by the feeling of the plastic sheet getting even tighter around his body. It was getting harder to breathe and to move: the air was being sucked out of the package!


This was enough to send the weasel into a panic, making him desperately wiggle around and shake his entire body, which got gradually harder as the vacuum sucked the plastic sheet onto his body and pushed it into the hard tray below. He couldn’t even move his hands to try and break free from the cruel package, as they were restrained tightly between his legs and the plastic, making it so the only movement he could soon make was weak wiggling, before the package finally reached a complete vacuum, sealing the volunteer in an inescapable grasp, and freezing him in a position that he was too weak to break free from.


Breathing had become impossible as the plastic pushed hard on his face; not even the faint, painful moans of the tiny mammal could escape the airtight prison, which took away his last remaining tool to let someone, anyone know about his predicament. This surely wasn’t supposed to happen, there was no way he would make it out of this alive… Terrifying, dark thoughts flooded his mind, imagining his death in this horrible freak accident, cursing at how unlucky he had to be to get into it right on his first day of work.


His lungs burned terribly and worked overtime to suck in even just the slightest hint of oxygen through the unforgiving sheet, but he wasn’t able to exhale or inhale. If someone were to look at him from the outside, they would’ve only seen a silly, deformed weasel face being pressed tightly against the seal of a vacuum package, and perhaps a hint of the immense desperation flashing in the victim’s eyes as he stared intensely out through the foggy veil, hoping that it would be lifted soon.


Just as his vision was beginning to darken and his muscles were slowly relaxing, the pressure was finally released around his body, with a hint of air flooding into the package, which the oxygen-deprived weasel hungrily breathed in. Soon enough, the sheet was lifted from his body by the labrador. Her face looked neutral, as if she was completely unphased by the gasping, coughing employee in front of her.


“W-what the hell was that about??” Darryl screamed at the dog between two coughs, his lungs still aching from the experience. His limbs were tingling as oxygen returned to his muscles, and his lips were still a little blue, his body struggling to recover from the traumatic experience.


“Have I not mentioned this in the introduction?” The labrador shot a disapproving glance at the volunteer as she put down the knife and picked up a piece of paper with a pen, scribbling something on it while carefully examining the torn remains of the package. “Now I need you to answer a few questions before we can move on.”


“I… I’ll be honest, I didn’t pay attention! I wasn’t listening to your introduction, I was… Daydreaming, or something! I didn’t know I was going to be suffocated in a plastic package!” The weasel lashed out, jumping back on his feet and getting down from the belt. He nearly fell over as he still felt a little dizzy, but eventually managed to grab onto the stationary conveyor belt. “I’ve had enough, I’m going home!”


“I don’t think that’s gonna work, buddy.” The labrador said coldly as the weasel was stumbling away, making him turn around with an angry, confused look on his face. “As I’ve stated previously…I can’t just simply let you go, as you could pose a threat to the security of our trade secrets. You’ll have to reside in the housing facility until the products that you’ve worked with enter mass production.”