Trapped between two abominations, Bubble did the only thing she could think of.

She curled into a ball and wailed, eyes shut painfully tight, as though the mere act of denying the monsters' existence would make them go away.

The split demon looked up from the mare, meeting the nonexistent gaze of his boss, "I take it you've dropped the glamour?" He asked, pointing to the sobbing mess on the floor with a dangling finger.

The flesh petals of what was once Dire Straits twitched and throbbed rhythmically.

"All things considered, she could've reacted worse. Kinda impressed she didn't have a heart attack like the last one."

The flesh petals briefly curled in on themselves before relaxing.

"Sure, I don't mind. Just tell me when she's finished. . ." He waved a hand vaguely at the curled up pony, "Doing that."

The petals curled again.

"Oh! Uh, yeah, I guess I can try. Pharis tells me I'm pretty good at talking with ponies.

A long tube of necrotic flesh slowly flowed out of the stamen, slithering across the floor before climbing up the wall, leaving flakes of dead tissue in its path.

Coiling around the door knob, the rope of meat abruptly grew taut, slamming the door shut.

The split demon looked back at the curled up mare, noticing that the viscous fluid he had been excreting had already started to soak into her fur.

"This might take a while."

——————————————————————<

Drip.

Bubble never thought that sound be so terrifying. It was just the sound of liquid falling and hitting something. Nothing awful about that!

Drip.

But it wasn't the sound itself that scared her, it was what the sound implied.

Drip.

The dripping came from the monster. If she could hear one, it meant the other was near.

Drip.

A stray droplet landed on her back, soaking the fur.

So very near.

"Hey, pony. Can you look at me?"

The fact that it could speak didn't surprise her. The thing that called itself Dire Straits could speak too. It put on a skinsuit so she wouldn't realize the truth until it was too late.

"Be not afraid!"

She wished she didn't have to listen to it, that she could cover her ears and block out the sound, but her forelegs were busy covering her eyes in case the beast tried to pry them open.

"You gotta give me something to work with here, pony, I still need to finish that quarterly report. Can't spend all day playing therapist for you."

It felt surreal, how normal the voice sounded. It would be so easy to pretend like this was all just a bad dream. Just a-

"WAKE UP! YOU'RE HAVING A NIGHTMARE!"

Bubble's eyes shot open out of reflex, and she lifted her head from her hooves.

Only to come face-to-half-of-a-face with the monster.

"Wow, that actually worked?"

Bubble screamed, frantically backing up until she was against the wall. Her eyes remained wide-open despite her best efforts, locked onto the monster out of pure fear.

"Well, at least you're looking at me. That's progress, right?"

Bubble knew she had a few more pressing things to be worried about, but she couldn't help but wonder how it was speaking to her without a visible mouth.

"So! Now that I have your attention, let's do one of your pony rituals. The one where we each say our name. Ready?"

Bubble choked back a sob.

"Great! My name is Schisma."

Bubble managed to tear her gaze away from the monster, cautiously peering down the hall to see if there were any more of them coming.

She froze up as a hand clutched her head and forcibly turned it back to the monster, whose beady black eyes were staring at her.

"This is the part where you tell me your name."

Bubble gulped. She hated the idea of speaking to this thing, but she was even more scared of making it angry. Her will eventually cracked under the pressure of the monster's many-eyed stare, and she stuttered out an answer, "B-B-Bubble."

"Well, Bubble, allow me to be the first to welcome you to the team! We don't hire many ponies, you know, so it's really quite a big deal that you decided to join us."

"W-What?"

". . .What do you mean, 'what'? You signed the contracts, right? That means you work here now."

Though Bubble was still terrified, her growing confusion at the situation in general granted her to confidence to keep talking.

"B-But you're all monsters, o-or demons! That was like, me signing away my soul, right? The job was just to lure me in!"

Schisma tilted his heads, causing the halves to connect together with a moist thud, "Mf. . .mmfm m fnfmfmm."

"What?"

Schisma unconnected his heads, snapping strings of connective tissue as he pried the two halves apart, "Ugh, hate it when that happens. Anyways, yes, yes, and no. Yes, we are monsters and demons. Yes, you did sign away your soul. But no, the job wasn't a lure. We really do need a janitor."

Bubble started hyperventilating as she took in that information, "M-My soul! I lost my soul! What's gonna happen to me? Am I gonna die!?"

"Beats me, my contract was probably different than yours," Schisma shrugged, before putting a hand to one of his chins in thought, "Wait, did you sign the NDA?"

Bubble nodded.

Schisma snapped a finger in realization, "Ah, so you only conditionally lost your soul!"

"So. . .what does that mean for me?" Bubble asked, a faint tinge of hope in her voice.

"It means as long as you don't violate the NDA, your soul is yours to keep."

"That's. . .good? I think. Wait, is all this a-"

"Company secret? Yes. Just a little precaution so you don't tattle on us to the princesses. But you wouldn't do that. . ." his tone turned dangerous, and his voice morphed to a shaky warble, "Would you?"

Bubble shook her head frantically, "N-No! N-Never! I swear!"

"Good! Now, anymore questions before the grand tour?"

"Grand tour? Wait, were you serious before? Am I really just gonna be a janitor?"

Schisma almost tilted his head in confusion again, but caught himself before he repeated his mistake, opting instead for a puzzled glance, "Yeah, of course. Why would we hire a janitor if we didn't need one?"

Bubble opened her mouth to reply, but found herself speechless before Schisma's blunt logic.

"Anyways," Schisma turned to the end of the hall, "Our first stop is the cubicle room! Most of your coworkers have already clocked out by now, so we won't be disrupting anything."

Schisma started leisurely walking through the hall. Bubble didn't really want to follow him, but the alternative was. . .

She looked back at the door to the CEO's office and shivered at the memory of seeing a pony unpeel itself before her very eyes.

She trotted after Schisma, making the easy decision to pick the lesser of two evils.

——————————————————————<

Bubble was slowly getting used to Schisma's presence.

She wasn't so sure if that was a good thing.

Nonetheless, his lax pace and casual way of speaking took away at least some of the horror in her situation, even if she still couldn't bear looking at him for too long.

What she wasn't getting used to, though, was just how normal everything was. The place was occupied by demons, but there was an astonishing lack of torture devices and pools of lava. Just desks, files, and a water cooler.

Schisma must've noticed her looking around the room, and tapped her forehead to get her attention, "Looking for something? The bathroom is back in the hall."

Bubble shivered involuntarily at his touch, making a mental note to take a very thorough bath once she got home.

"Uh, no, that's not it. I was thinking of how normal this all is. Like, it doesn't look like somewhere demons would work."

He nodded in understanding, "I take it you don't know much about how demon society works?"

Bubble shook her head.

Schisma clapped his hands together, "Right! I'll give you a quick lesson before we continue the tour. If you're gonna be working with us, you should probably know some of this."

He pulled a chair from a nearby desk and took a seat, "I guess the first thing to know is that us demons are split into seven main categories, Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth, Lust, Greed, Envy, and Pride. For example, our CEO is a Greed Demon, and I'm a Sloth Demon."

Bubble tilted her head curiously, "I can get that, but shouldn't demons be corrupting mortals and stuff, instead of running a business?"

Schisma shrugged, "Not necessarily. We demons sustain ourselves with demonic energy, which is usually produced by corrupting mortals to act within our domain. But corruption is a pretty dangerous gig, since exorcism is the closest thing to death for us."

"So if you're not getting energy by corrupting mortals, where are you getting it from?"

"Let me answer your question with one of my own: What do you think the CEO pays us with?"

Bubble mulled the question over for a second before her eyes lit up in understanding, "Wait, isn't sharing kind of the opposite of greed?"

Schisma stood up from his chair and casually slid it back to the desk he took it from, "Most Greed Demons are greedy, sure, but they also have a good business sense. If he hired ponies instead, he'd have to spend a lot more demonic energy maintaining his glamour."

She was about to ask what a 'glamour' was, but Schisma was already walking to another room. She hastily caught up with him just as he stopped at a door in the hallway to the lobby.

"This is the janitor's office," Schism explained as he opened the door, revealing a small room with a desk, chair, and a shelf of familiar cleaning products, "We've got some basic supplies here, but if you need something else you'll have to buy it yourself or run it by the boss."

Bubble couldn't help but notice the lack of any PPE or uniform, "I'm guessing I'll need to provide my own hoof covers?"

"Probably. The office isn't very pony-friendly. Like I said, though, I can take you back to the boss and see if we can order something for you."

She shook her head immediately, "N-No, don't worry about it! I still have my old stuff I can use! No need to talk to the boss," She assured.

"If you say so. Anyways, that about wraps up the-" Schisma's eyes widened, "I almost forgot to show you the devourer!"

Bubble froze, ". . .The what?"

Schisma was already moving out of the room, beelining for a red door besides the cubicle room's entrance as Bubble trailed behind, "The devourer!" He repeated, "We don't want the city investigating any. . .unusual organic residue in our trash, so we get rid of it our own way."

"How do you get rid of it?" Bubble asked, though she felt as though she really didn't want to know the answer.

Schisma threw the door open, revealing a seemingly endless tunnel of pulsating peristaltic flesh. Digestive fluid pooled at the bottom, forming acidic puddles that were occasionally disturbed by the wave-like motions of the muscles.

"Remember how I said that most of your coworkers clocked out already? This is the exception," Schisma explained, ignorant to how Bubble was rapidly backpedaling away, "It's a Gluttony Demon we contracted to work for us. Any trash you clean up should get fed to it."

Just standing near the devourer was like standing on the very edge of a cliff. Bubble knew that she was technically safe, that the thing couldn't move, but being so close to it was still a nerve-wracking experience.

"A-Anything else?" She asked, trying not to think about how easy it would be to accidentally trip and fall right into the opening.

"Just one more thing. Most of us demons have a weird interaction with pony magic. It's kinda hard to explain, so try and hit me with magic."

"Just any magic?"

"Sure, try and lift me with your telekinesis or something."

Bubble obliged, and her horn lit up with a translucent red glow, one that also faded into existence around Schisma.

She knew her magic wasnt near strong enough to lift him, but she tried anyway.

Her body slumped to the ground as soon as she did, and her heart started beating slower and slower.

She took a deep breath, and slowly let it out.

Her eyes started flickering shut as she struggled to stay awake.

A few moments later, she lost the struggle, and dozed off, her magic fading with her consciousness

"WAKE UP!"

Bubble screamed as she shot up to all fours, "W-What? What happened?"

"That," Schisma answered, "Was how pony magic reacts to a Sloth Demon's energy."

Bubble was still blinking some spots away from her eyes, "It makes me tired? I mean, I guess that makes sense, but why do I need to know that?"

"You won't just be picking up loose papers and cleaning up spills here, you'll also be expected to clean up any demonic messes. Like my secretions, or Vulcan's moulted feathers. You'll get the same kind of reaction if you try to levitate or use a cleaning spell on stuff like that."

Bubble didn't even bother asking who Vulcan was, in fear of getting another demonstration to something she'd be having nightmares about tonight.

"Okay, so magic is fine for normal messes, but demonic stuff I have to clean manually?" She asked.

"Pretty much. I can't really think of anything else you'd need to know. If that's all your questions answered, I'm about to clock out myself."

Bubble did have many more questions, but she had learned to keep her mouth shut before she learned something she'd never forget.

"I think I'll be fine, when do I start?"

"Don't ask me, you left your contract with the Qliphoth."

Bubble tilted her head, "The Qliphoth?"

"Oh! That's right, you never learned his true name. The Qliphoth is the CEO."

Bubble's blood ran cold, "D-Do you think you could get them for me?"

Schisma was already walking away, "Just get it over with!" He called out as red runic symbols etched themselves into the floor below him, "You'll need to get used to him eventually, he's your boss!"

With a parting wave, the runes flared up in a blinding red light, causing Bubble to squint her eyes in response.

And then he was gone, with nothing but the stains of his secretions serving as proof of his existence.

Bubble slowly looked around the room, there was nopony there except for her, the empty desks, and-

Oh, right. The devourer.

Bubble's magic slowly closed the red door, blocking the meat tunnel from sight.

Author's Note

Hey folks, glad to say that the exposition dumps are now OVER! (mostly)

The hard-core janitorial action will be coming soon.