The alarms still howled like banshees on espresso as the cosmic office convulsed around them. Red tape twisted and slithered through the endless cubicles like snakes, biting through binders labeled "Mandatory Optimism" and "Microaggressions 101." The fluorescent lights flickered in morse code despair.
Jake rubbed his temples. "Well, that escalated quickly."
Karen laughed, flicking her frustration flashlight like a sword. "You really just clicked Do Not Agree on the Terms and Conditions of Reality. That's like telling the CEO to go take a hike… in a volcano."
Clippy 47 popped up, blinking frantic pixelated eyes. "Uh, Jake? Karen? You might want to know… Upper Management is mobilizing. And by mobilizing, I mean The Meeting of Doom is en route."
Greg's pixelated ghost floated nearby, casually swirling a digital coffee cup. "I hear their PowerPoint slides are deadly. Like, literally."
From the shadowed cubicles emerged a new figure, a trench coat made of expired memos trailing behind him. The infamous Mr. Protocol, HR's top enforcer and gatekeeper of cosmic bureaucracy, approached with a glare sharper than a thousand unread emails.
"Noncompliance detected," he announced in a voice modulated like dial-up modem static. "You've triggered a Level Z incident. Mandatory review is now initiated."
Jake crossed his arms, sarcasm on full blast. "Review? You mean a root canal with stapled-on paper cuts?"
Mr. Protocol smirked. "Metaphorically, yes. You will undergo the Apocalypse of Accountability, followed by the Rendition of Regret, and finish with the Termination Tango."
Karen stepped forward, smirking. "Funny, I was hoping for a dance-off."
The office floor shifted beneath them, opening into a floating boardroom suspended in a void filled with spinning spreadsheets and ticking clocks. Around the table sat the Council of Compliance a dozen ghostly figures wearing suits stitched from broken promises and expired contracts.
The head of the council, a figure named The Auditor, adjusted his bifocals. "Jake, Karen, Greg… You've committed a grave offense. You dared to challenge the system's efficiency."
Jake raised an eyebrow. "Challenge? We're just trying not to get deleted for low productivity."
The Auditor smiled thinly. "Ah, but that's the beauty of the system. Efficiency is absolute. Compassion is a variable that must be minimized."
Karen smirked. "Sounds like you've been taking notes from the How to Kill a Soul handbook."
The Auditor tapped a button. A hologram flickered to life a timeline showing every missed deadline, every skipped empathy seminar, every unsigned form.
"Your rebellion is logged," he intoned. "But perhaps… a new approach might be negotiated."
Greg's ghost perked up. "You're gonna bargain with bureaucracy? That's like negotiating with a printer jam."
The Auditor nodded. "Precisely. We propose a trial. You will manage a division. Restore order in the Realm of Lost Dreams."
Jake groaned. "So you want us to work? To be part of the system we're trying to break?"
The Auditor's smile widened. "Exactly. To change it from within."
Karen whispered to Jake, "Trap or opportunity?"
Jake looked around at the buzzing cubicles, the flickering monitors, the endless sea of resigned souls.
"Alright," he said finally, "we'll take the trial."
The Auditor clapped his hands, and the boardroom dissolved into a torrent of glowing paperwork.
"Welcome to your new assignment. May your compassion levels stay just low enough to survive."
As Jake, Karen, and Greg were pulled into their new roles, the office hummed on a universe where despair was productivity, rebellion was paperwork, and hope was just another form to be filed.
But maybe, just maybe, inside the Realm of Lost Dreams, they could find a way to reboot reality.