Eddie everything but drops the stack of papers he's holding. He fumbles like mad as they slip. He arches his back like a scared cat and catches them. Their neatly positioned pile undoes itself in his hands. A few sheets off the top fall to the floor, slowly rocking back and forth in the air like leaves after a windstorm.

If this had been a normal situation, Eddie would have groaned. He would've picked up his papers, making sure to first place the rest of the stack on the table to his left, place the few scattered sheets back on top, and neatly tap the bottom of the stack against the table and cross over to his desk, ignoring whatever had made him startle for the sake of getting back to work. 

But this was not a normal situation.

This was David.

Eddie could do nothing but stand there, openmouthed, as the few runaway papers settled to the floor. The office was in shambles. The shelf in the back corner was knocked completely over, bent at an odd angle, the side of it looking like it had been blown in by the fist of some raging supervillain. His office books and file organizers were in heaps on the floor around it, his knick knacks and things of the sort were surely broken. (his poor little globe from Las Angeles) And then there was the desk. It was chopped almost neatly in two, and the two halves stood at opposing mirrored diagonals from each other. The things that had sat on the desk were pooled on the floor between the split in the wood. Eddie knew he would not be sitting down to work the job for a long time until it got repaired. He should call a repairman— he should do a lot of things right now. Scream, perhaps, but he could not make a sound. The office light that usually stood stationary overhead was swinging steadily, casting its beam back and forth like a lost victim's flashlight in a woodsy horror flick he would certainly have not been allowed to watch in high school.

David, who Eddie had not seen in fourteen years, was perched, quite literally, in Eddie's office chair, knees drawn up to his chin, sitting there in his all-black robesy outfit like some kind of dejected bird-child. His arms were drawn around his knees and his nose was tucked in the crook of one elbow. He was recognisable immediately, and Eddie knew immediately that what they had started back then was not over. But his poor office–

He had thought the boom was from the construction site next door. He had stood at the printer waiting for his copies (still warm in his trembling hands as he surveyed the wreckage of his poor office), and had said as such to Debra from sales, who had leaned against the side of her desk and chuckled through a sip of her coffee. They were all waiting for the building next door to go up because it was to house a new bakery. The workers at Ofthauser Insurance were sick of their 🤬downstairs "café", if you could even call it that. It was a few tables, a microwave, coffee machine, and one very run-down vending machine, which only vomited Nutri-grain bars and stale 0-calorie chip-bags back at its sullen consumers. 

This is the part where I realize that I like my days to be boring.

I swish open the door to the office, this one is much lighter than the one at the entrance, to see the most disastrous disaster my eyes have ever beheld to me. The windows were smeared with what looked like the purple glue sticks, as I was no longer able to see the subpar view of the city, but only thin, purple, semi-translucent lines that from my perspective seemed to be sticky. All of the rolling office chairs were completely disembodied. Every part that could have come undone was loose and all over the desks, floor, etc. I swear I saw lone screws stuck into the wall, appearing as though there was enough force behind them, whether from being thrown or from an actual explosion of office chairs, to pierce the cool gray, freshly painted drywall. 

“I swear to god…,” Emily put both of her hands out toward the room around her. Kiera’s paperwork and laptop were strewn across the rug. She didn’t want Kiera to think that she had done all of this, although it would be very out of character for Kiera to assume so of her friend anyways.  

“Yup. I mean… told you,” Kiera responded, throwing her hands out and slapping them back down on her hips. She wasn’t surprised. Frustrated maybe, over the fact that she had to deal with this force that technically did not exist in the world of self-proclaimed rational people. She could never say at a cafe “Ugh, yeah, this is just such a better workspace because my office is haunted and some old lady from the 1800s likes to mess with me,” which made the whole experience all the more agitating. 

Kiera had started working at the mansion last summer, as a caretaker over the winter and secretary during the more touristy seasons. People loved to stop by and visit the historic house, and have picnics on the large lawn. Some of them came for the ghosts, but rarely got so much as a flickering light or a misplaced shadow. The spirits saved their fun for Kiera and the other workers in the house. 

So far as she could tell, there were five in the Murphy Mansion. Aside from the old woman in her office, Kiera had deduced that there was a middle-aged caretaker who patrolled the lawns at dawn. Before that, she had been told when she arrived that there were a young set of twins - a boy and a girl- and their very calm mother, who spent most of her time standing facing into a corner in the drawing room. The spirits weren’t malicious, mostly just unsettling when Kiera had to take bathroom breaks in the middle of the night, but the office’s old woman had grown to be a burden.

Roger- “This was your final mistake, you owed money to me, you owed money to all of us, and you should’ve listened, but it’s too late now, nighty night Jeremy.

The gun clicked, the pin snapped, and fired. A sound of ringing with a flash and it went to black. Jeremy was dead. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to that envelope.

A long day turns into another long night, Robert thought to himself, walking to his office which sat at the end of the hallway. He took the doorknob in hand, and tugged the door closed before fitting the key inside. It was an old door inside an even older house, so he had to accommodate for its lack of alignment. 

Unlocking the door, Robert pushed the door open. A loud bang rang in his ears, making him jump. A book shelf that sat on the opposite wall, had fallen over. Books running out of it like blood from a wound. Robert placed a hand over his chest, that bookshelf had been practically drilled to be a part of the wall, how could it fall.

The bookshelf wasn’t the only thing that was a mess. Papers littered the ground, rain blotching some of their words, books were ripped to shred and drawers were flung, broken, all over the room. Robert lifted his gaze to the back corner of his office, where the window sat. He must’ve left it open by accident, but even then, how the heck did all this happen?

When he saw the person standing in the corner, his question was answered. 

Nyle was frozen where he stood, drenched in rain and sweat with torn pieces of paper sticking to his clothing. He was clutching papers to his chest, they were all bunched together after constant worrying. Nyle had been Robert's friend for as long as he could remember, but they had lost contact about a year-and-a-half ago. Something about Nyle’s new job, him moving away, something along those lines. 

Seeing Nyle stand there, now, in all the papery mess, Robert went from surprise, horror, to being the closest he’s ever been to wanting to hurt another living creature. Millions of questions flooded his head while millions of answers went to his mind. So this was why his boss had instructed him to lock his office everytime he left for work. This was why Robert had been given special “privileges” at work. 

Radio silence buzzed between Robert and Nyle, anticipating for one of them to make the first move. And Robert wasn’t going to let Nyle get the satisfaction of running off with whatever information he gripped in his hands. He had been looking for something, but Robert didn’t care enough to hear the actual answer, he just wanted to scream.

“What in the ever-loving f--- are you doing here?” Robert shouted, stepping into the room, slamming the door behind him. The house shook, its bones rattling. Robert half expected to hear another bookcase fall. 

“Jesus f-----g Christ.”

“Jesus f-----g Christ is right. What the h--- are you doing?” Robert demanded. Nyle clenched his saw, giving him a look Robert knew all too well. A look of superiority. 

“You shouldn’t be home.”

“You shouldn’t be in my office, tearing the place apart,” Robert countered, extending his arms wide, gesturing to the remains of the room. “I haven’t seen you in how long? This is how you come to visit me? Breaking my belongings.”

“It was never -”

“-Your intention?” Robert asked, glaring at Nyle. “It seems it was or else you’ve made a fine job of it. Maybe you could’ve called and I could’ve told you whatever information it is you are looking for through my papers.”

“You’re not supposed to be here. You’re supposed to be with Nancy.”

“I canceled because of the - how the f--- did you know about that?” Robert asked, his mouth getting dry and his nerves telling him to f-----g run. Nyle kept the same stone-still expression. How he had mastered that, Robert didn’t know, he used to be able to tell even if Nyle smelt something funny by the way his eyes dilated. He took a step forward, raising a finger to Nyle. “How. The f---. Did you know about that?”

“It’s best that you forget this,” Nyle responded. 

“Since when do you talk like a robot?” Robert asked, lowering his hands and clenching his fists. Nyle didn’t answer. 

“Forget this, Rob.”

“Nyle I swear to -”

Smash! AHHH!

"what was that?" Eric said as he heard a blaring loud noise in the other room. It was only the beginning of the work day so nobody except Eric was supposed to be at the office yet but clearly that wasn't the case. Rushing over, Eric, who had assumed the worst darted through the door and found something even worse than what he had imagined. Standing in the middle of the room was his coworker and good friend Riley and around him was what can only be described as a complete disaster. The entire room was in tatters with smoke coming out of pieces of scrap that had been flung across the room. Strangely enough though, the room smelled really good. 

"Um, I can explain..." Riley said nervously as he took off his stained jacket.

"What the hell is this!" Eric shouted. "It better be good for you and I both are in some deep stuff."

"Well... you see... the coffee machine exploded." Sure enough, looking around the room it appeared that a small explosion had occured, scattering bits of metal and coffe across the room.

"The coffee machine what!?" Eric said in disbelief.

"Exploded... you know... like BOOM! SPLAT! AHHH!"

"That was a terrible way to describe an explosion." Eric replied snidley.

"Well, that's what happened. BOOM! SPLAT! AHHH!, in that order."

"Yeah I get that but why the splat?"

"Because the coffee splat everywhere. Like look, my jacket, the walls, the rug, everywhere."

"Then what was the ahhh supposed to be."

"That was my scream. You see, I thought I was gonna get a stain on my brand new white Jordans with the coffee that was splating everywhere. Lucky for me though, they’re still clean!"

"That was your biggest concern?"

"Hey look. These things probably cost more than your monthly salary. it took me a whole week to afford these babies." Riley said as he cheekily showed them off.

"That is a ridiculous waste of money and also my salary is higher than yours."

"Well… whatever. What are we gonna do about this mess?"

"Who knows. We certainly can't do it on our own so I guess we just wait. Hope we don't get fired."

"You're right. Guess there's nothing we can do but just wait and see. Hey, want a coffee?"

"Sure." Eric took the coffee from Riley and sipped it carefully so as to not cause any more of a mess. However, as the coffee touched his tongue his face twisted with disgust. As soon as it had entered, the coffee ended up making its exit through Eric's mouth as he violently spit it up, dowsing Riley's shoes in it in the process. It was decaf.