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⚠️ Content warning: Gore and spiders.


⚠️ content warning  

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Randolph stood in the elevator staring at the floor number counter. The metal box was carrying them up to the main office on floor thirteen. They'd never been to floor thirteen before, on account of only being hired recently. They'd wanted to get a proper corporate job with the company their whole life, but child labor laws had prevented it until now.
The ding of the elevator ripped them out of their mind, back to the unreality of the Greazeburger main office. The metal doors slid open revealing a seemingly endless expanse of cubicles, desks, and beige carpet. Randolph was home.
They danced across the slightly sticky carpet and into the empty cubicle that was soon to be theirs. The lifeless box was full of untapped potential waiting for Randolph to start working.
They sat down in front of their computer and pressed the power button, ready to begin the job that would last the rest of their life.
"Hey Randolph, good to have you back."
They looked up at the intrusion. Looking down at them from over the cubicle wall was another Greazeburger employee with a nametag identifying them as Charmaine Greaze. Randolph had never met this person before, since they were hatched less than a week ago and had never met anyone.
"It's been really boring without you here, shame what happened to the previous you."
Randolph did not know what had happened to the previous Randolph, or any of the Randolphs down the long line of failed iterations. All they knew was the last one had been fired and they were here as a replacement.
"But hey, look on the bright side. You were re-cloned just in time for the Halloween party!"
"A party? I thought we weren't allowed to use that word after the incident."
"Higher court threw out the ruling, we're having another party!"
Charmaine ducked back down into their cubicle, and Randolph went back to work. Seconds slipped by like hours as they focused all their attention on the computer screen in front of them. They selected a row or column from one spreadsheet, then they pasted it in another. Then they did it again.
And again.
And then another time.
And again.
And once more.
and again.
And another.
And again.
And an extra one for good measure.
And again.
They looked up at the clock. It had been about ten minutes. This was the life.
Charmaine filled their vision again, leaning over the cubicle wall.
"Halloween party starts in five minutes, better wrap up your work."
Randolph hit the save button, and watched the system crash and delete all their hard work. This is fine, they told themselves. Just means they've got an extra chance to do it even better next time.
Assuming there was going to be a next time.
The door to the elevator started glowing bright orange, smoke pouring from the metal. The bubbling pile of molten steel gave way to reveal Martin Greaze, CEO of Greazeburger Earth.
"Hey gang, sorry I'm late. Door got stuck."
The greazey salesman put the heat ray in their pocket and walked into the office space, followed by a cart with a white sheet over it.
"Who's ready for a Halloween party?"
The office erupted in cheers as employees cast aside their work for a brief moment of pleasure. They were all so lucky to receive this boon, an entire evening with no desks, no spreadsheets, no jobs. Just entertaining, corporate sanctioned fun. They all had a chance to forget that tomorrow they'd be back in their desks as if nothing had happened. They could forget that they had been blessed with the opportunity to spend the rest of their lives toiling away in here.
Randolph stood up from their desk and moved with the crowd to the front of the office where everyone was waiting for Martin to start the party. They didn't much care for the celebration, but they hadn't been working as long. Maybe they'd understand after the party began.
"Alright everyone, line up in front of me and we can start working through the list of fun things to do on Halloween!"
Martin reached into the void and pulled out a long scroll coated in cobwebs. They unfurled the page and read aloud to the room.
"First order of business: costumes. We don't have it in the budget to provide full costumes or pay any of you enough to get your own, so I brought this new device the R&D team came up with."
They whipped the sheet off the cart, revealing a marvelous contraption. It looked like an old toaster with the word 'BONER' messily painted on the side. Martin jammed the plug into their hand and the machine came to life, spewing forth scraps of fabric and glue.
Randolph felt a strange tugging sensation on their face, and soon all the rest of their body. As if they were being pulled apart at the seams. Pain shot through their stretched nerves as their skin was ripped off, collapsing in a heap on the floor. Their muscles went next, and by that point there was so much missing they couldn't even feel it. In a matter of seconds Randolph was a skeleton standing in a pile of viscera that was starting to soak into the carpet.
Everyone else in the office went through a similar transformation. The skeleton that had once been inside Charmaine's body leaned over to Randolph's bones.
"This is way better than the last party, nobody passed out!"
Randolph very much wanted to pass out.
Martin's skeleton unplugged the boner and pushed the cart away.
"Great work team, now the real party can start. Who's up for pumpkin carving?"
Some of the skeletons raised their hands. Randolph raised both.
"Well that's a shame, because pumpkin carving is cancelled. The legal department said we can't bring knives into the office so we're just going to have regular pumpkins this Halloween."
Randolph gave a pained smile. They'd been really excited to drive a blade into a fruit and peel away its flesh until it looked like the face of a monster. But if the legal department said it wasn't okay, then it can't be done. After all, the legal department knew what they were doing and was always right.
Martin read through the rest of scroll and tossed it aside.
"Sorry gang, but the rest of the Halloween instructions are just a shopping list of candy I forgot to buy and all the stores are closed by now. Anyone got any ideas for how we can continue the celebrations?"
Randolph had an idea.
"How about we go trick or treating? We've got skeleton costumes, and I'm sure someone else has candy we can take."
"Nope, can't do that anymore. What if someone puts drugs in the candy? If any of you guys take drugs then you'll fail the piss tester and won't be able to compete in sporting events."
"When do we get to compete in sporting events?"
"I don't know, I'm not your mom. Now stop asking questions, you're not the main character here."
Randolph shrunk back down into the crowd of mostly identical skeletons. They looked around for Charmaine, but it was impossible to tell who was who when nobody had any skin or muscles or tendons or blood vessels or nerves or any other organs.
Martin tapped their foot on the pile of bloody remains they'd dumped on the floor.
"Anyone else got an idea?"
The mob of bone people shuffled around, nobody really sure what to do with the rest of the night.
Martin's watch beeped and they looked over at the clock on the wall. Midnight.
"Well looks like it's November first now. Party's over, back to work everyone."
Martin turned the dial on the boner from popcorn to reverse, and all the skeletons grew new bodies around them. A roomba drove into the office and started cleaning up all the excess skin off the floor while all the workers went back to their cubicles.
Randolph sat down at their desk and stared at the blue computer screen. Their new eyes burned in the harsh glow.
Charmaine leaned over the wall and waved.
"Hey Randolph, you have fun at the party?"
"Oh yeah, it was great. And there's only three hundred sixty four days before we get to do it again!"
They leaned forwards over their desk and got to typing. This holiday thing was going so well, they couldn't wait for the next one.