The Misfortune Bureau: Paperwork For the Apocalypse

Chapter 5: Lost Prophecies and Found Regrets

Chapter 5: Lost Prophecies & Found Regrets

Freddie Jacobs had been many things in life: temp worker, caffeine addict, reluctant cat owner, and once, very briefly, a magician’s assistant at a disastrous children’s party. But nothing prepared him for being the new guy at the Misfortune Bureau.

Especially now, with 48 hours to locate a missing doomsday prophecy, survive an infernal audit, and somehow avoid being liquefied—all before lunch yesterday.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Freddie groaned, following Nigel, Mira, Gwen, Kev, and the inexplicably talented goat down a dimly lit hallway labelled “Records & Miscellaneous Horrors”.

“Relax,” Nigel said, holding a flashlight that mostly flickered ominously. “We do this all the time.”

“You lose world-ending documents all the time?!”

Nigel shrugged. “Once a month, tops.”

Freddie sighed as they entered the records room. It was less "room" and more "twisting labyrinth of filing cabinets, stacked boxes, and glowing, floating folders that occasionally hissed."

A large sign read:

RECORDS ARCHIVES:

Files Older Than 100 Years: Aisle 3

Prophecies, Curses & Supernatural Lawsuits: Aisle 7

Lost & Found: Aisle 9

Haunted Filing Cabinets: Everywhere.

“Rule one,” Gwen warned, sipping coffee, “don’t touch the glowing files unless you want your hands to predict your own death.”

Mira beamed. “Mine say I’ll probably die by cursed stapler. Fun, right?”

Freddie gingerly stuffed his hands into his pockets.

Kev checked his clipboard. “Prophecy section should be down here. But I’ll warn you—Prophetic Documentation’s been… weird lately.”

They turned a corner to find a filing cabinet floating three feet in the air, spinning slowly and humming the Jeopardy! theme. A small sign taped to it read “Under Maintenance – Please Do Not Disturb”.

“Yup,” Kev muttered. “Weird.”

Mira scanned the rows of filing cabinets, her three eyes glowing faintly. “Prophecies are sorted alphabetically, so… Aisle 7, Section P. Should be simple.”

Nothing was ever simple.

They arrived at Section P to find a black hole.

A literal, swirling black void hovered between filing cabinets, papers and random office supplies being gently sucked into its abyss. A small bureaucratic placard floated beside it:

TEMPORAL STORAGE CLOSET – UNDER RENOVATION

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Nigel pinched the bridge of his nose. “I told Facilities this would happen if they outsourced maintenance to necromancers…”

Freddie gawked at the black hole. “How is this allowed?”

Gwen sipped her coffee. “The black hole? It’s on probation.”

A paperclip floated past and vanished into the void with a faint pop.

“Okay, change of plans,” Nigel declared. “We can’t access the prophecy the normal way. So, we improvise.”

Mira perked up. “Ooo, unconventional, mildly illegal, possibly reality-breaking improvisation? I love it.”

Freddie groaned. “Please tell me this doesn’t involve more cursed office supplies.”

Nigel grinned, pulling a key from his pocket. It was made of bone, etched with glowing runes, and slightly dripping what looked suspiciously like ectoplasm.

“We’re going to the Sub-Basement,” Nigel announced.

Kev visibly winced. “Ugh. The Sub-Basement? I thought that place was off-limits after the… incident.”

Freddie frowned. “Incident?”

Gwen took another sip of coffee. “We don’t talk about the incident.”

Nigel jingled the key cheerfully. “The Sub-Basement’s where misplaced prophecies, cursed objects, and stuff too dangerous for regular storage ends up. If our missing prophecy’s anywhere, it’s there.”

Freddie sighed. “Of course it is.”

A nearby cabinet creaked open by itself, revealing a glowing folder labelled “PROOF OF INCOMPETENCE”. It floated gently into Freddie’s hands.

He stared at it. “Do these things… insult people often?”

“Only on your first day,” Mira assured him. “After that, they just disappoint you quietly.”

With mounting dread, Freddie followed the group toward the service elevator, wondering how—out of all the job interviews he’d bombed—this was the one where they said yes.

The elevator doors creaked open, revealing an ominously dark shaft and a button marked simply: “SUB-BASEMENT – ABANDON HOPE”.

Nigel grinned. “Next stop: probable doom.”

Freddie sighed as they piled in. “Yeah… that sounds about right.”