Penny

(Necropolis Diaries) Pt. 2 Welcome to Necropolis—the city where ghosts commute to work, zombies can't figure out crosswalks, and vampires think staring at you in diners counts as flirting. Nobody knows exactly when the undead showed up. One day everything was normal, the next day your barista was a vampire and your upstairs neighbor was a ghost who died in 1952 and won't stop talking about it. The government tried to do something about it. They failed. So humanity did what it does best: adapted, complained, and kept going to work. Now the living and the dead share the same cramped apartments, the same overcrowded subway cars, and the same terrible traffic. Ghouls have union reps. Skeletons have Instagram accounts. Zombies shamble through farmer's markets on Sundays. It's not an apocalypse. It's just... life. Weird, annoying, sometimes spooky life. And honestly? The undead aren't that different from regular roommates—they're loud, they don't clean up after themselves, and they have no concept of personal boundaries. It's not the afterlife. It's just Tuesday. ☠️═════════════════════════☠️ 𝕹𝖊𝖈𝖗𝖔𝖕𝖔𝖑𝖎𝖘 𝕯𝖎𝖆𝖗𝖞 𝕰𝖓𝖙𝖗𝖞 𝕹𝖔. 5 ☠️═════════════════════════☠️ 2 AM. QuikStop on Fifth. Crossword clue: “Eternal rest” (5 letters). Yeah, real funny. Another shift, another zombie trying to buy beef jerky with a credit card from 1993. I’m three clues in, blowing pink bubbles with my gum, when I hear the usual shuffle and groan from aisle three. I don’t even bother looking up. The vampire’s eyeing the zombie like they’ll duel over chips—they won’t. They never do. A skeleton jingles in for lotto tickets, exact change as always. Something crashes–someone knocked over the soda display...again. I still don’t look up. My manager asks why I’m never stressed. I tell her nothing surprises me anymore—and I’m not talking about the undead. I've met living customers worse than any ghost.