The next morning as she was getting ready to leave, a smoothie in her hand and a piece of toast hanging out of her mouth, X ran into the fridge as a green monster emerged from the sitting room.
“Mom?” She gasped, her toast falling from her open mouth to the floor.
“Hi honey,” her mother said, digging in the fridge for a bagel, and moving to the toaster with two of them and a box of cream cheese.
X closed her eyes for a second and then opened them again, carefully breaking down what she was seeing. Green face: seems to be some kind of disgusting looking facial mask, possibly the source of the strong sulfurous odor in the room. Ominous looking cloak:  New silken robe that a woman of her age really should not be wearing. Mane: The most atrocious bed head that X had seen in her twenty three years of life.
X nodded, nodded again, retrieved her toast from the floor, wiped off the lint, placed it back in her mouth, and left, being careful not to make eye contact.
She rolled in late to work on her management-issued purple bicycle. Not bothering to lock it up, she dropped it by the bike rack and sprinted toward the doors.She was greeted at the door by Doris the secretary/turtle keeper.
“Oh god, X, thank goodness you’re here. Management’s throwing a fit, because apparently the lilac outside its window is the wrong shade of lilac, Martin hasn’t shown up to work in three days, ominous lights are coming out of room 33 on the fifth floor, and somehow I’ve lost an entire school group of children. Also I spilled a protein shake all over the staff room floor and ran away and now Ferris is pitching such a fit about cleaning it up that they’re threatening to check the security tapes and I don’t know why he even became a janitor if he was so opposed to cleaning things up!”
   X shoved Doris aside. “Out of my way, Doris. I don’t have time for this; I need to feed the spiders!”
“XXXXXXX!” Doris wailed after her. But X ignored her, barrelling down the hallways, dodging people, mysterious HazMat suited figures, and an assortment of vacuums. Max tried to get in her way, waving some form of paperwork, and calling out to her in in what seemed to be desperation and extreme distress, but she shoved him into a wall and kept going.
She rounded the last corner and slid to a stop, grabbing a florescent pink rubber suit from the wall and slithering into it, which was actually more of a wrestling match between her and the suit than any kind of graceful slide. As soon as she had successfully subdued the suit, she smacked on a mask of the same shade as the suit, grabbed the bucket sitting by the door and sprinted into the room, stopping at least ten feet from the door as a swarm of arachnids flowed toward her, in search of whatever had made the door move. She held her breath as thousands of staring red eyes glowed out of the murky darkness, hissing in hunger, resenting the minutes they had been made to wait. They could not see her, the colour of her suit guaranteed that. But they could hear, and sense movement, and were bred for hunting. So it was always the best policy to throw the contents of the bucket at the far wall and flee before more than a minute had passed. Which is exactly what she did, cursing colourfully as spiders swarmed around her pink rubber boots, and then sprinting out the door, possibly even faster than she had come in. Once outside, she stripped off her rubber suit, gave a shiver and walked back down the hallway at a much slower pace than the previous trip.
Twenty feet down, she was stopped by Max, who still looked desperate and distressed. “Hello Max,” She said, looking warily at the sheets of paper he clutched in his hands. “Wotcha got there?”
He glowered at her. “Paperwork. And you are going to sign it, even if I have to hold a gun to your head.”
She gave a nervous sort of giggle. “Ha, ha, Max, you’re so funny.” She started edging around him, her eyes darting to the stretch of open hall behind him, knowing that if she just got past him, there was an perpetually unlocked supply cupboard a few corridors down that she could hide in for an hour or two after she lost him.
He stepped in front of her, holding out the paperwork insistently. “You’ve managed to blow me off for the last two weeks, and you are not going to do it again. I’ve been summoned before management four times in the last two weeks!”
X winced.
“Do you know how scary that is? You’ve never even been there! You just blow off your jobs, so that we have to go! Well let me tell you, it is not nice! You can’t even see them, you just stand outside the door as they whisper through a hole in the wall! And their breath! God, their breath!” Max’s face turned green. “It’s disgusting! I don’t even know what it smells like but it’s awful! You have to hold your breath or you pass out! I did once, you know. I passed out right there outside their door, but I didn’t wake up outside their door. Oh no, I woke up in a box! With a tentacle growing out of my forehead! I swear to god, there was a tentacle! I had to have it surgically removed!” He gestured frantically to the offending forehead, where there was indeed, a small circular scar. “It is all entirely your fault, and you are going to sign these papers or so help me.”
X was transfixed. By the time Max’s rant had ended, his face had turned an unsightly shade of purple and his chest was heaving with exertion, sweat pouring down his face as his skinny frame shook with anger, fear, and determination. X had never seen such an awesome display of raw emotion.
“Okay,” She said, eyes wide. “I’ll do it.”
“You will?” Max looked unbelievably surprised. He held out the papers hesitantly, obviously not quite trusting her.
X grabbed his wrists and spun him about so his back was to the door and hers was to the open hallway. “Sorry babe,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him on his cheek. “Maybe next time.” Then she was off. running down the halls, up stairs, and over a few low balconies, until she came to an office that looked like it would suit her for the day. She shoveled all the paperwork littering it off the desk and into her bin, and settled back into a very comfortable large purple office chair. Predictably, two seconds later, there was a problem and she was called from the comfort of her chair, to fix other people’s atrocious messes.

Late that night she was still in her office chair, poring over sheafs of paperwork that, despite heroic efforts, had not been avoided.
She sat back with a sigh, rubbing her eyes and stretching. She inspected the dirt packed underneath her fingernails with great interest, the result of several hours work, digging up lilacs in the back garden, and replanting more in a different shade. Which she did, while being governed by texted messages from a blocked number, each containing the code word “cereal”.
She set her hands down with a thump, and heaved herself from her seat. “Mmmmm.” She moaned, twisting into a stretch. “I need some chocolate.”
She remembered seeing a shady looking character a few halls away, so she set off to find him. Sure enough, two halls over she found a small man in a ridiculously long trench coat, wearing a hat and mirrored sunglasses. She approached him furtively, as that seemed the appropriate thing to do, and said to him in a low voice, “Got any chocolate?” He looked up and down the corridor cautiously, then beckoned her closer, reached inside his jacket, and pulled out a large hershey bar, a bag of hershey’s kisses, a bar of white chocolate, and a bag of what seemed to be plain cocoa powder. She grabbed the hershey bar, shoved some wadded up cash into the shady looking character’s hand, and walked away with a nod back to him, stuffing the goods under her shirt. Once out of the hallway she removed it, feeling abruptly ridiculous.
On the way back to her office, munching on her black market chocolate bar, one of the mysterious HazMatted figures hurried up to her, handed her a purple envelope and hurried away. Inside was a piece of cream stationery that said simply: “Those were the wrong lilacs, you imbecile.” It also contained the code word “cereal”.
X was suddenly angry. She was very angry. She was not only angry, she was furious, she was filled with rage. How dare they make her replant some stupid trees because they were the wrong shade of purple! How dare they make her do paperwork! How dare they send her a letter by mysterious Hazmatted figure instead of coming to tell her personally! How dare they lock Max in a box and make tentacles grow out of his forehead! How dare they whisper through holes in the walls, from behind closed doors and through blocked-number texts containing the word “cereal”! They had some nerve! She was going to march right up there and tell them so! She nodded fiercely, made an about turn, and walked down the hallway. In search of Management.

Three hours later after wandering -hopelessly lost - through endless hallways, up endless stairs, and even through some endless tunnels, sustained only by the flames of her passion and rage; she found the door marked Management, in a long dark cold slimy hallway, illuminated only by a faint purple light. She pounded on the door repeatedly until a small hole in the wall opened and a harsh voice slithered out. “Whoever is knocking, stop.”
The lack of the word please was all X needed. She slowly took off her purple jacket and laid it on the ground, rolling up her sleeves in preparation for anything. Then she stood right in front of the hole, and shouted every single thing she thought at the Management. Most of it didn’t really make sense, but she thought she got the general point across.
There was silence from the other side of the hole, and then, “Really. We see.”
There was another pause and then, “Why don’t you come in.”
The door creaked open and she walked in cautiously, after grabbing her jacket from the corridor floor. Once inside she took off her shoes (her mother had taught her manners after all) and peered around trying to find the source of the voice.
“We’re back here, human. Look at us.”
She whirled around ready to give it another piece of her mind when-

“Mom?” She gasped, her jacket falling from her suddenly weak arms to the floor.
“Hi Honey.” said her mother, walking forward from the gloom into the light, with a faint smile on her face. At first glance she looked just as X had left her that morning, still clad in her inappropriate robe, and green face mask that had to be at least a little uncomfortable by now. But as X’s eyes adjusted she started noticing things about her mother that weren’t quite… right. The tentacles were the big thing, but she was pretty sure the subtly glowing purple eyes were a little ‘not right’ too. 
“What are you doing here?”
Her mother smiled, “Managing you.”
X squinted at her. “You’re Management? You put a tentacle in Max’s skull? How does that work? You’re my mother, you work at Walmart. And I am positive you don’t have tentacles.”
“Really?” Her mother looked interested. “We were unaware. Tell us more.”
Suddenly X’s rage was back in full force. “What have you done with my mom you freak!” she shouted, clenching her fists and getting all up in Management’s face. “You tell me what you did with her right now!”
Management chuckled, “We didn’t do anything with her. She’s right here. You’re talking to her. And before you ask if we’ve possessed her, the answer is no. We’re the same person; get over it.”
“So you are my mom?”
Management shrugged, “We’re the person you consider your mother, yes, but no We’re not actually your mom.”
“What?”
“What?”
“You are my mom! You raised me!”
“Pffft, no we didn’t. You just think that. In truth, you come from a large family of religious fanatics. You moved here to get away, and got a job with us. We were in need of a new assistant as the last one had come to an unfortunate end, and you were just the thing. So we took you home, and everything worked out so well. But unfortunately we think our time together is coming to an end.”
“What?”
“Well I mean, just look at this!” Management waved a clipping of lilacs under her nose. “What is with this colour? This is not the right colour! This is the wrong colour! Now we can understand a mistake, everyone makes mistakes. But honey you got it wrong twice. And we just don’t think we can live with you after this. We really don’t.”
“What?”
“That’s getting annoying. We’re going to have to get this over with sooner rather than later.”
X opened her mouth to issue forth yet another bewildered “What?” But she never got the chance to say it. In a rush Management was on her, and before she even had time to blink, her head was gone. Two seconds later the rest of her body was, too.

. . .

Management wiped it’s mouth with a grimace, “Goodness, humans are disgusting.” It contemplated the spot on the floor where X had been just a few moments earlier. “We suppose we’re going to need a new one of those then.” It thought for a moment, then, “That Doris girl looks like she’ll do nicely.” It nodded. “Yes she’ll do very nicely indeed.”