Young Writers Society

Your character works in one of four corporate offices in the building: Haden Family Dentistry, the Merger Health Insurance call center, The Green Planet Initiative, or Viper Incorporated. What do they do at the latter? It has always been vague and mysterious and shall stay vague and mysterious, though many rumors surround the company.

The owner of the building that loaned the offices out to these companies collaborated with all of your bosses, and now the whole building is having a very big, grand Christmas Party at the end of the year.

There are decorations. Christmas-themed snacks. There's an ugly Christmas sweater competition. There are Christmas games. A Secret Santa gift exchange. There's live music. There's a Santa Claus. There's even a petting zoo (though the janitorial staff is not looking forward to cleaning that up).

Wilson stood behind Santa with a small smirk as she watched all of the festively dressed employees begin to flood into the building. Swinging a candy cane around her finger, she stood with one hip popped and one hand on that hip. It felt fitting, you know. To be an elf with attitude. Because today, she wasn't Wilson █████, she was merely one of Santa's goonies. One of Santa's unpaid servants who was loyal for some reason she didn't really know, but it meant she was good at making presents. They never really explained how Santa had aquired his elves in the movies. Did elves have a worker's union? Did they get benefits?

Ah, whatever. At least Last Christmas was blaring on the loudspeakers.

She glanced about the large room, scanning the layout. One corner was devoted to treats, and there were big tables that intersected in an L in the corner filled with every kind of Christmas-themed food you could imagine, including some definitely-spiked eggnog. Did she spike it? No. She was completely innocent. Obviously.

Bright Christmas lights, fake greenery, and tinsel were strung across the walls in arches, and there, of course, was a giant Christmas tree positioned right next to Santa's throne. The white-elephant gifts were supposed to go under that. There was a sign saying so, but they'd see how many people could read.

In the opposite corner of the room, there was a tiny, fenced-off area where the petting zoo was. She poked her head in earlier. It was mostly bunnies, ferrets, and one sole goat with reindeer antlers strapped to its head. Very classy.

"Hey, Santa," she said, knowing the man who was dressed as Santa was not named Santa, but they both were committed to the bit.

"What is it?" he asked, looking over his shoulder at her.

"How long do you think it'll take before a bunch of tipsy grown adults start sitting in your lap and telling you their deep dark secrets?" she asked.

Underneath his beard (which looked very real but she wasn't fully convinced it wasn't fake) he made a slight grimace.

"Aren't you supposed to be wrapping gifts or something?" he asked instead.

Wilson cackled.

"That's the spirit!" she said with a skip, and she began to hop over to the food bar, sticking her candy cane in her mouth very much in the way one would hold a cigarette in their mouth.

Siqi had only been at this party for fifteen minutes and she was already starting to get bored. The start of a party was always so incredibly boring with everyone pretending to be all nice to each other and saying hi and walking around and looking all normal and respectable. None of the excitement that too much food and spiked punch brought was present yet which meant no one was feeling brave enough to approach her. Not that it was a bad thing. Not at all. Siqi was not bored being by herself in a corner with her most terrifying glare in place to keep up appearances even in such a relaxed atmosphere.

Calida walked in to the office, white elephant gift tucked neatly under their arm. They really didn’t see the point of this whole thing when everyone here could be working to make sure everything launched smoothly come New Year’s, but corporate wanted it so Calida was there.

Today they had on a dark green blazer over their usual black button-up and their tie had little Christmas lights on it. No one could complain that they weren’t festive. Business festive, maybe, but that was enough. They scanned the room for instructions for what to do with their gift. Ah, under the tree. Perfect!

Following the smell of corporate fear and pine, Magnolia went and joined the others by the Christmas tree. She’d made it to the office not long after Calida had arrived, despite each and every effort to try and think of a way out of going to yet another office party.
“Hi,” Magnolia said. “I’m guessing the white elephants go here?” She gestured towards the tree with her free hand.

On the way to the food bar, Wilson got distracted by the sight of a woman with a shock of bright unnaturally red hair. The woman seemed to be brooding, so much so as to be standing in a corner shooting glares around the room. Clearly, she was committed to the act.

With a smirk, Wilson skipped up to her, grabbing a pre-poured cup of eggnog along the way. As she skipped to a stop right next to the bottle-made redhead, she took a sip and waggled her eyebrows.

"Are you the pooper they hired?" she asked.

"I am not." Siqi had no idea what to make of that line of questioning and that took her completely off guard, forgetting about the glare she was meant to be maintaining.

"Every party needs a pooper," Wilson said with a grin. "That's why they invited you, right?"

In the middle of the dancefloor, Nicholas Everard was slowly swaying side to side with one hand in the air and a plastic cup of most-definitely-not-spiked eggnog in the other. He was singing along to the lyrics of Last Christmas like his life depended on it. Which it maybe did. Were his eyes closed? Absolutely. Did he still know his boyfriend was at the bar across the room watching him while he sang and danced? Of course. Did Nich care? Absolutely not.

Did he realise people were staring at him? Duh. That was kinda the point.

Marcus poked his head into the doorway, assessing the scene before him. He had never been to an office Christmas party before, and he wasn't sure if what he was seeing was typical for one. With a guy singing loudly in the middle of the room to seemingly nobody, a small pen of animals in the corner, someone dressed as Santa, and some people who definitely did not look happy to be there, everything was looking more chaotic than he'd expected.

When he had arrived earlier at Haden Family Dentistry, he had been surprised when Dr. Haden had suddenly said that there was a Christmas celebration going on in the building with the other businesses and that Marcus should go have fun since he was here. He thought the experience would probably be fun, but now that he was here, he hesitated. But he took a breath and stepped into the room.

He saw a girl who looked about his age dressed as an elf talking to another woman in a corner, so he decided that would be a good place to start. He approached them and said, "Hi, my name's Marcus. What are yours?"

Swiveling around to face the newcomer, Wilson flashed the new guy a smile.

"Ohhhh, hey, Marcus!" she said, tone chipper. "My name's Wilson Smith. Some people call me Will Smith. Not to be confused with the movie star Will Smith. You can call me Will. Or Wilson. Or whatever, really."

"They invited literally everyone." Siqi was still too confused to respond properly although she was pretty sure she sounded snappy anyway.

"We didn't get your name by the way," Wilson said to the red-headed chick. "I don't actually want to call you party pooper the whole evening. But I will if I have nothing else to work with."

"Siqi." Siqi's frown returned as she got used to the slightly less confusing question. She tried to shoot a question of her own. "Aren't you a little too tall to be an elf?"

Calida glanced at the person who had just approached them. "Well, the sign says the White Elephant gifts go under the try." They hummed. "So I'm going out on a limb and saying they go under the tree."

They walked further into the room and gently set the present down. While they had better things to do, this was fine. They would survive as long as...

They froze.

"You."

They locked eyes with Siqi, the menace, the wannabe ruiner of their life, the worst coworker to ever coworker.