WebNovels

The Nights At An Ice-Cream Shop

rxsie
7
chs / week
The average realized release rate over the past 30 days is 7 chs / week.
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Synopsis
Sixteen-year-old Sophia and her best friend Tanya take a late-night job at a small, nearly empty ice-cream shop, expecting easy money and freedom from their dull routines. Instead, they are trained by a voice over the phone and given a single rule that feels less like policy and more like a warning: no one leaves empty-handed. The manager never appears in person. The customers behave as though they’ve rehearsed their lines. Orders are given without explanation, and mistakes are corrected with unsettling calm. What begins as a strange but manageable job quickly turns disturbing when reality around the shop begins to feel unreliable. Time slips. Details repeat. And something is always watching from the dark. When their fiercely ambitious friend Daisy becomes involved, the balance between the three girls begins to shift. The shop seems to respond differently to each of them—testing, isolating, and quietly dividing them. As tensions rise, Sophia realizes the job was never about serving customers. It is about maintaining a system. A system that replaces what it loses. The girls uncover hints of a cycle that stretches far beyond their small town—one involving past employees, vanished workers, and a role that must always be filled. Breaking the cycle may require defiance. Surviving it may require sacrifice. By the end of the novel, the trio’s friendship is fractured, the truth about the shop is only partially uncovered, and one role within its system has been permanently claimed—setting the stage for a multi-book series exploring loyalty, ambition, and the cost of escaping a structure designed to endure.
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Chapter 1 - Unemployment?

Another boring day. Unemployment had officially gotten the best of me and my best friend, Tanya.

One night, we finally decided to get a job. Since our mornings were spent moping around, scrolling on our phones, and convincing our parents we were doing something with our lives, a night job felt perfect.

We were lazy—yeah—but determined.

Finding work wasn't hard. Every shop owner laughed us out the door, sometimes tossing us a lollipop like we were five. Stupid old men. They didn't know we'd resell those to small kids at double the price.

That's how we ended up at an ice-cream shop called Ice-Cream for All.

We went in thinking, For a change, we'll get some free ice cream, but to our surprise, we found a timid young man who flinched at our footsteps.

We hesitated for a while, but the moment the words, "We saw the Help Needed sign," left our mouths, he jumped and happily said, "You're hired. Come at 10:00 p.m. for training."

We were shocked — how did he know we needed a night job?

I managed to say, "Uh, okay… thanks," then grabbed Tanya's arm and rushed out. I was confused, but Tanya remained unfazed, just happy to finally have a "job."

At 9:54 p.m., we met and walked together to the shop. By 10:00 p.m., we arrived and found the front door of the shop open.

We went inside and heard the telephone ringing in the staffroom. We walked in and picked up the phone.