Claudia stepped out of the restricted equipment locker and closed the door behind her. She felt it click shut in the doorframe, but something seemed off about it. She tried turning the doorknob and shaking it. It refused to open. Definitely locked. It still felt wrong, but *why* it was wrong eluded her. She let go of the doorknob and let go of the thought just as easily.<br /><br />She turned to the left and walked on autopilot down the hall to her office. She nearly rolled her ankle twice in twice as many steps. Her right shoulder bumped against the hallway wall. Claudia slowed herself down and wondered why she was so clumsy. She hadn&#8217;t had a problem walking in heels like this in yea-<br /><br />Ouch! Her left knee bashed into a filing cabinet. It shocked her more than it hurt. Wait - this was the cabinet to the right of her office door. She should have known this was right here. Claudia resolved to retain her focus. She forgot that promise the moment she opened her office door and stepped inside.<br /><br />What did she need in here again? Was it paperwork? Probably&#8230;but paperwork for what? She just finished doing&#8230;something&#8230;in the restricted equipment locker! She returned a device - no, she wanted to sign something out&#8230;right? Why was this so hard to remember?<br /><br />Cladia turned around. She leaned on her desk and put the back of her hand loosely on her hip. Try as she might, it felt nigh impossible to rack her brain for any answers. She never felt this defective before.<br /><br />Defective? That sounded right. That WAS right. She was inspecting restricted equipment and something was defective. But what equipment was it? What was defective about it?<br /><br />Claudia pondered this as well as a headless woman could. She was right so far. She had been inspecting a defective industrial strength plasma laser made for cutting metal. It had activated on its own and blasted a beam of white-hot energy out of the back-end of the aiming mechanism&#8230;while she was holding it. Her involuntary jerk in reaction had sent the line through her neck in a clean sweep. Claudia&#8217;s head was still sitting on the floor of the equipment locker where it had landed.<br /><br />How her beheaded body still functioned was beyond a mystery, especially to her. She rose her hand to her still-heated neck stump and scratched a particularly itchy spot on the top of it, then put her hand back on her hip. She had no idea anything was missing, or that her head should have been where her neck ended.<br /><br />Claudia decided to return to the locker to figure out this mystery. A few moments of unbalanced staggering later, she practically fell against the equipment room door. She fished the key out of her pocket, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.<br /><br />Where had she been? It was harder and harder to think. She was fairly sure she was near the entrance when she was in here the first time. Her arms circled in the air as she took a few steps in. Her foot struck something on the ground. She knelt down and patted down the ground in front of her. She found what she had kicked.<br /><br />It was kind of heavy. Somewhat round, mostly hard with some softer spots, and covered in strands of&#8230;something. It didn&#8217;t feel like string or wire. Fur, maybe? Was this the defective device? What kind of device was this?<br /><br />Claudia wedged the object under her arm and managed to stand up. She stumbled forward. After a couple minutes of searching, she found what she was looking for. Since she didn&#8217;t know what the object was - besides deeming it to be garbage - Claudia had found a trash can for it. She took (the defective device) her head out from under her arm. She ran her fingers through her cropped brown (fur?) hair and (weird fleshy tabs?) ears one last time, but still couldn&#8217;t figure out what it was supposed to be. She shrugged her shoulders and threw her own head in the trash. Satisfied, she turned around and blundered her way to the exit.<br /><br />The janitorial service arrived half an hour later. They vacuumed, swept, and emptied all of the trash from the common areas of the building - including the trash bag with Claudia&#8217;s head. They never saw it or questioned the weight.<br /><br />Claudia never saw it or questioned it either.<br /><br />&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;<br /><br />An edit from&#8230;(checks Patreon)&#8230;DECEMBER finally makes its way here! Some of these just kind of get lost in there. See the depths of posts yourself for $3 a month at patreon.com/lackingcpu