Jon woke up to the annoying sound of his alarm clock ringing. He cringed; It was Monday again. At least he had gotten a good amount of sleep. He stretched in bed for a minute before getting dressed.

He continued his daily routine, first taking a warm shower and then having toast with marmalade, boiled eggs, and some orange juice for breakfast.

After finishing his usual morning routine, Jon got on his bike and went to work. His way to work had much more traffic than expected, and when he finally arrived, his clock showed that it was 7:20 AM.

He was 30 minutes late.

God darn it, Jon, why are you always late on Mondays he thought to himself as he entered the building. He noticed that the receptionist, Melanie, was not there. That’s strange. Maybe she is sick today. He thought as he hurried into his office space.

He was expecting to see his boss, Jim, standing in the office space, ready to yell at him when he got in. Instead, he saw nobody.

There was nobody in his office space, not his boss, not any of his coworkers. Nobody was there. I guess they’re all sick, Jon joked to himself as he made his way to his desk. He zipped up his jacket, feeling a bit cold.

Jon was getting a very eerie sensation, Like in a horror movie when suspenseful music played, and the main character had no idea they were minutes away from their doom.

As Jon slumped back onto his chair he remembered that he was not very well organized and checked on his phone to see if there was a day off today, but his calendar only showed one thing, Jon's Birth-

He was interrupted as all his colleagues jumped out from under their desks and began singing "Happy Birthday!" as Jon lost his balance and fell out of his chair.

His colleagues erupted into laughter at Jon who had already gotten back up and turned towards them.

Jon now fully understood the situation but was confused about why his coworkers had made such a big deal about his birthday. Birthdays were rare, but if his colleagues would surprise each other at every one of them, then this would happen every two weeks, which was ridiculous.

As he made his way to all o his colleagues most of whom had collected themselves after Jon’s "stunt”. Jon had no idea what he should ask them. So he just asked the first thing that popped into his head.

“ For how long were you guys hiding under your desks?” Jon asked, sounding like a three-year-old.

He immediately regretted asking the question and wondered why he always asked the most irrelevant questions in important situations.

"Knowing that you usually do not arrive that early to work we decided to meet up 30 minutes before work to all get ready. So we probably were under our desks for more than half an hour " Brady, one of Jon's co-workers answered, chuckling as he said it.

That just made Jon feel bad. Because of him, his coworkers had to stay under their desks in what Jon assumed to be quite an uncomfortable position for what must have felt like an eternity.

Jon just stood there staring at his colleagues. He was still confused about why the surprise party had happened; so he asked a much more relevant question

“Why did you guys do this? I know It’s my birthday and all but it is not that important. I didn’t even know today was my birthday until just a minute ago,” Jon said.

He reckoned that the second thing he said was more of a testament to how bad he was at remembering events rather than how vital his birthday was.

“Are you kidding,” Jon’s good friend and colleague Nick chimed in “It is not just any birthday it’s your 25th birthday, man! How can you not make a big deal about that, and on top of that it is your 5th anniversary here! There is seriously no way that you forgot one of your most important birthdays!”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“To be fair, I don’t think birthdays are that big of a deal. I mean why does it matter that you were born exactly 25 sun cycles ago?” Jon said defensively.

“No big deal!?” Nick exclaimed, “How can you, a living sentient being of Earth say that your 25th Birthday is not a big deal?”

“I don’t know, I guess it’s just not that important for me,” Jon responded in a meek tone.

He had arguments like this a lot with Nick but after all, that was just normal for friends. He had known Nick since he was very small. Jon always felt safe around Nick.

As everyone began dispersing Jon’s boss who had not been present for the surprise party entered the room, “O.K. everybody. Now that we’re done with the festivities we better get back to work. And since we’re starting so late, lunch break will be shortened by about 30 minutes.” Jim said in his regular grumpy voice, not even wishing Jon a happy birthday.

Not that Jon cared. He had never liked Jim; he had always gotten that feeling that his superior didn’t do his job because he wanted It but because he got paid. Although some of Jon’s colleagues shared this sentiment, Jon probably hated Jim the most.

After a lot of groans and complaining coming from all around, Jon and his colleagues got to work. Jon always worked best when not distracted which was the reason why he often worked alone.

It was not that he hated working with everyone. People like Nick and Brady were nice to work with, it was simply the fact that not everyone was as good working in a group as Nick and Brady.

And if there was one thing Jon had learned from working with people it was that 99% of people were either going to take over the project or do nothing at all, and it was not worth it to search for that 1% of people who managed to find a balance.

As Jon kept working he thought of the fact that he had worked here for 5 years.

After doing very well in school Jon had had a lot of good job opportunities, to say the least, but had instead settled on a job in macroeconomic analysis in a think-tank.

Not that being an economic analyst wasn’t a great job, it was that it was something that nobody had expected him to pursue

Jon simply found it very soothing to analyze raw data and make it into graphs, into useful information. Sure it might not be the most exciting but it was just right for him.

Jon managed to finish all he needed to do for the day right before lunch. Maybe a bit of birthday luck he thought to himself. He wondered what he would do after lunch when his thoughts were interrupted by the lunch bell ringing.

“Hey birthday boy, do you want to join us for lunch?” Nick asked Jon.

“You know how much I hate that name, but I will join you. We probably won’t have enough time to get a coffee because of the shortened lunch,” Jon responded

“Yeah good thinking, I didn’t think that Jim could even ruin a birthday,” Nick said, who also shared his hate for Jim with Jon.

As Jon and Nick got to their lunch seat they saw Brady, already sitting there and eating a sandwich.

Jon liked Brady. His friend often acted like a leader of sorts in their group, always motivating everybody to stay focused and helping them through the day.

As Jon began eating his salad it was oddly quiet. Checking his clock he saw that it was 12:53 PM. They had seven minutes left for lunch.

“We better get going soon,” Jon said interrupting the silence. He usually wasn’t one for small talk, which made breaking the silence feel awkward.

“OK, whatever you say, birthday boy, or should I say forget-your-birthday boy.” Brady chimed in.

“C‘mon man you’ve got to rub it in” Jon responded in a playful tone.

“But I mean how can you forget your 25th birthday?”Brady said as he and Nick erupted in laughter.

As Jon and his friends started walking back Jon got an eerie feeling that something bad was about to happen. He looked around but nothing was suspicious.

Maybe I’m just paranoid, Jon thought to himself as he got back to his desk. Looking at his clock again he saw that it was 1:00 PM

Jon heard the bell again; lunch was ending. He logged back into his computer. But then, remembering that he had finished all of his work for the day he decided to rest a little.

Just as he was about to fall asleep he heard a voice near him loudly yelling “And what do you think you're doing Mr.Ravenson?

It was his boss Jim. He did not get the idea of going east on Jon on his birthday.

“Well m, I finished my work for today so I thought it was okay to …”

“You thought it was okay to slack off? You thought for one moment that because today is your 25th birthday I would give you a single moment of rest. No! This enough. You are always late to work, and now you are not even working when you are here. You are fired” Jim interrupted him.

At that moment all Jon wished was to disappear; to not exist.

And that is exactly what happened. Jon began to get woozy as something appeared in front of him

*Initiating Introduction of 15th universe Galaxy number 1 Planet: Earth*

And then Jon blacked out.