"He's going to suck my soul?!" I asked Ping in a panicked whisper. "Is Grigori a vampire?! I bet he's a vampire, oh god I hope he's not like one of those dracula ones with the stereotypical accent! Augh I would be so scared but then I would end up laughing!"

"Seriously?! What kind of worry is that?!" Ping demanded. "And no, it's not like that at all! It probably just means he's going to make you do lots of overtime for the foreseeable future!"

I paused and looked at Ping. "What?"

"That's how it's always worked! Well, at least for the last couple hundred years," Ping said, tapping their chin. "To be honest most of the past couple thousand has just been in-fighting and trying to figure things out. The CURRENT Daemon King didn't come into power until the last hundred or so, but man he's the worst of the lot..."

"What do you mean that's how it's always worked?" I whispered, and caught the look of a coworker who was checking their phone just outside of my cubicle. "Uhhh..." I said, trying to think of a way to make this less weird. "Computer troubles?"

My coworker let out an exasperated sigh. "Girl, I know how you feel." Thankfully she moved on after that.

"What do you mean that's how it works," I turned back to Ping, keeping my voice lower than before.

"I-it's not as scary as you think!" Ping said, getting defensive. "See, the human soul is naturally connected to the world's magic, but that connection is only as strong as that person hopes or dreams, or y'know, has ambition!" Ping got up and started pacing across my desk on their hind legs. "So after the daemons won the war and cast the Veil Curse on all of humanity to cut off their perception of magic, the question was: how to break that link? Well, they figured it out."

"What did they figure out?" I asked.

"The answer was simple: capitalism!" Ping said happily.

"I knew it," I said, pounding my fist into my hand.

"Well, okay, not really just capitalism," Ping said sheepishly. "Specifically work and crushing hopes and dreams with a brutal socioeconomic structure that places a person's entire sense of self-worth onto their success and forever increasing the standard of productivity while also lowering the returns as much as they physically can!" Ping stood there proudly and I felt my jaw fall open. "The best part of their plan is they somehow managed to convince a lot of humans that this is good! So now they don't even need as many middle-management Daemons like Grigori here! You're doing most of the work for them!"

I continued to stare at Ping until I felt my head slip and fall onto my desk with a loud bang. Nobody even flinched at the familiar sound.

"H-h-hey stay with me here! At least this is the part where I tell you this is how we fight back and crush this cruel system!"

"And how am I supposed to do that," I said, rest my head in my arms instead of against the cold particle board of the desk. "I'm just a low level accountant, I doubt I was even the best option to fight some global war on demons."

"Daemons," Ping corrected again. "But yes, actually, you were. See, you still have hope and ambition! Somehow! That means it's not over yet and if you can keep it then I know you'll only get stronger over time!"

"Y'know," I said slowly. "I don't think dying depressed and overworked sounds that bad compared to being torn apart by octopus eyeballs."

"You would be surprised!" Ping said, panicking and trying to lift my head with their cute, fuzzy paws. "And you won't get torn apart! I know you can do this!"

"Up and at 'em, Sue!" I heard a bright, familiar voice announce from behind me. I yelped and jumped in my seat, spinning around slowly to see the impossibly cheerful face of Jonathon standing there behind me. "Oh jeeze, sorry! I gotta stop surprising you like that, huh!"

"H-hey Jon, what brings you here?" I asked.

"Oh, I was just checking up on you, is all," Jonathon said. He leaned against my cubicle wall casually, and I noticed he was holding at least four full cups of coffee in his hands. "I heard what happened yesterday and was a little surprised to see you back here today. You doing alright? Need any meds or something? I've got a spare stash at my desk if you need it, you would be surprised at how many people come to work sick but unprepared!"

"N-no I'm good, I just needed a full night's sleep," I said sheepishly. It wasn't often that people came to visit me at my cubicle, and when they did it was almost always work related. Especially not the Star Accountant, Mr. Popular himself. "Thanks for checking up on me, I got a lotta work to catch up now."

"Oh, yeah, absolutely! Definitely!" Jonathon said, pushing himself off the cubicle wall and somehow not spilling all the coffee. "But hey, before I go and before I forget! A bunch of us were going to go get some drinks tomorrow and I was wondering if you were interested!" I felt my jaw fall open once again and didn't know how to respond. "It's just a few of us accountants, y'know, gettin' some of that good ol' team building spirit in! But really it's just a casual fling. I haven't gotten a chance to talk to you much and figured it would be a good way to know your neighbor!" I sat there, slack-jawed, and Jonathon was clearly picking up on the awkward atmosphere. "S-so to speak!"

I shook my head, trying to get the immediate anxiety out of my thoughts. "I-I'll think about it," I managed to squeak out. Thank god I said something. Jonathon perked up immediately and the radiant enthusiasm glowing from his face was blinding.

"Great! Let me know as soon as you can! I'll let you get back to work, see ya!" And with that, Jonathon strutted off down the cubicle lane and almost immediately I could hear his voice again, striking up another conversation.

"What about him?" I whispered to Ping. "Shouldn't he be perfect? He's got LOADS more hope than me!"

"Ah, sad case that one," Ping said, sitting down on the desk. "I mean, he has SOME ambition, but it's like a little candle about to go out. Barely there. Textbook soul-sucking, what it is."

I wheeled my chair out of the cubicle and looked down the lane in the direction Jonathon went. He was still down there, talking with another coworker, the smile was wide as ever on face and his tone still impossibly friendly, but now I felt like I could see the cracks in his mask, and something deep down... felt for it. I pushed myself out of my chair and almost bumped into another worker walking down the lane.

"Hey, Jon?" I called out, and his attention perked in my direction. "On second thought, I'd love to go drinking! Where and when?"