Terje could see the upper management was all there, slowly distributing themselves along the chairs in the first row. Johanna eyed him and Olaf, directing them silently to sit in the back, just behind her. The silence in the chamber felt eerie, only cut by the echoes of rustling capes against chairs, old men and women grunting as they tried to find comfort in the ancient chairs.
Meanwhile, Milnok just gazed into each person that entered the chamber, smiling like a child on Christmas Eve. Terje felt his mind free ever since the nisse looked away from him and could almost reflexively smile back, were it not for the fact that everything felt wrong. This was no way to conduct business. This was the realm of insanity.
His thoughts were interrupted by the beginning of the ceremony.
“All Glory to the Milnok!”, half of the inner circle chanted.
“Praise the Milnok!”, replied the other half.
“Let there be profit”, they all sounded together.
Terje did not join in. He did not know if he should. The whole thing still seemed like a bad dream, a nightmare he couldn’t wake up from. He could see Erik Jørgensen, the CEO, from where he was sitting. Erik’s face was joyful, a smile pushing against his wrinkles, cheeks slightly raising his thick eyeglass frames from his nose. It indeed had been a good year, even if they didn’t quite reach their end goal.
The Milnok turned to Erik and his smile vanished, his pupils shrinking into oblivion, leaving behind a fully blue iris surrounded by an empty expression. He then directed to the whole group, his voice now not his own, possessed by this entity whose glare commanded him.
“Praise the Milnok, for the Milnok brings bounty. Praise the Milnok, for the Milnok lessens the struggle. Praise the Milnok, united in profit, united for eternity.”
“Praise the Milnok, for we are him and he is us”, the board replied back.
“Bring out the slide deck! Customer Engagement!”
At the naming of their business unit, Johanna reacted, pulling out a small stack of papers with notes and graphs. It was the slides he and her had prepared, with a broad view of their initiatives and the profit made from each one, all of them small slices of a colored bar chart inching ever closer to the dotted line of “gross profit target”. One could hardly see the two didn’t overlap, were it not for the bullet point that clearly read “0.5% below expectation”. Johanna stood and walked to the center platform, kneeling a third of the way through it. She carefully scrapped the dirt with her palm, revealing the faintest elevated platform, barely a centimeter higher than the floor, barely larger than the papers she held in her left hand.She placed them in this offering altar, which lit up, projecting the first slide in mid air, for all to see. She then went through each one, explaining to the board all of the work that her business unit had performed throughout the quarter, focusing on the positive initiatives, while also shining a light on the market struggles they faced.
“Despite all of this, we cannot deny that we were short of our goal, for which I apologize and give myself to the Milnok for punishment,” she concluded. Terje’s blood froze at the statement. What punishment did she deserve for the things she could not control? In fact, what kind of punishment could be doled out in this setting? She most certainly should not be fired for her incredible job and relentless devotion to the company. And a slap on the wrist was not warranted nor logical. He however held his tongue, remembering his bosses directive to stay quiet.
Throughout the presentation, Erik’s expression remained devoid of emotion, mirroring the thoughtful look of the Milnok. Now, just as the Milnok frowned, looking to consider the implications of not reaching the goal, so did Erik. A couple of minutes went by. The board looked worried underneath their cowls. Finally, the shell that was Erik’s body uttered,
“The Milnok… is pleased.”
Johanna audibly sighed. “Praise be the Milnok”, she replied.
“The Milnok shall see to it that the Market brings good tidings for the new quarter. But the Milnok considers you warned that Q1 will not tolerate being below the budget again.”
Again, Johanna praised the nisse. The slides stopped projecting and the paper began to burn, leaving behind an empty altar. She fished underneath her cape and brought out a large gold coin, about the size of a Frisbee. Terje considered this oddity, he had never seen such a big lump of gold in the company and she couldn’t have been carrying it around before, when they were out.
She carefully set the golden disc in the altar and retreated, never turning her back on the creature. Erik’s face became his own again and the Milnok sauntered to the altar. It smiled and picked up the coin, comically large in its small hands, almost the width of its shoulders.
Then it opened its mouth and held the coin against it. Surely it would not fit. But its mandible unhinged, lips edges parting ever more, each groove in the coin rubbing against the corners of the mouth like a cog wheel. The gold seemed to melt as it reached its pharynx, as it would not be possible for that shape to remain solid without pushing against the back of this strange entity’s head. In little time the coin was gone, and the Milnok was pleased, wobbling back into the center of the room and again possessing the CEO.
As a well choreographed dance, Erik called for each unit to present their work, and their representatives dutifully did so, showing their efforts to appease the Milnok and presenting it with a gold coin in the end. There was no end to its stomach, it seemed. Brand & Business had a decent year, fulfilling their promise, and so did Content Automation. Terje rarely had contact with the other units, his own work and his team absorbing all of his time. Johanna would likely know these status reports in advance so nothing would have been surprise. Perhaps this would be his future, a future where an “earnings call”, was a performative exercise, everyone repeating things that everyone else knew, except now with a dwarf in a pointy hat standing in the middle of them and eating away at profit.
Viktoria stood up and set her slides down in the altar. Her droning was pretty much the same as all others, Terje trying to pay as much attention as possible. He could note there was a lot of emphasis on bad market conditions, and many initiatives not having panned out, some of them actually incurring loss. By the end, her words were the same as Johanna’s.
“I apologize and give myself to the Milnok for punishment.”
They had been five percent away from budget, miles away, one could have said. Droplets of water fell in front of Viktoria, Terje unable to decipher if they were sweat or tears.
Five minutes passed before the Milnok spoke through his drone of a CEO - “The Milnok… is not pleased. You have brought shame to this house, your efforts little and wasted, the bounties of the Milnok squandered away. You shall pay for your indolence!”
Viktoria’s head bowed to the ground. There was no coin to give. The Milnok inched closer, a skip in its step. But Terje could see from the corner of his eye that this had not pleased his colleague. Olaf’s hand had been closed into a fist for the whole presentation but now trembled in rage. That fervor finally burst into a frenzy.
“What do you mean indolence? We worked tirelessly, overworked, did all we could! You all know Viktoria, she always strives to be the best and runs our unit with an iron fist!”
Viktoria tried to interject, turning back and whispering “sit down, Olaf, this does not concern you”. But his rage could not be appeased that easily.
“And you sit there complicit with this… this thing! Like there is anything she could have done! You should thank her for what she was able to do, not chastise her for something that isn’t her fault!”
The Milnok had reached the altar and Viktoria but had stopped, now interested in the outburst from this acolyte. His expression was no longer the disconcerting smile, instead it wore a vile expression of enjoyment, revelling on Olaf’s words as he went on in circles, trying to defend his boss. Eventually, Olaf ran out of steam. Milnok’s eyes were red, his expression now devilish as he peered into Olaf, took over him, and made him talk.
“Viktoria is spared. The Milnok shall take the disbeliever.”
She stood and walked back to sit down. As she sat, her head turned, and beneath the hood, Terje could almost see a half smile, a smirk on her lips. Olaf passed by him and went to the altar, where he took Viktoria’s place, removing his hood, revealing his empty expression, now kneeling and bowing.
Terje would never forget what happened next. Much like the gold, Milnok’s mouth unhinged and increased past rational standards. But it was more than that, as its body also changed, becoming a bit taller, grayer, limbs lengthening and disjointing, ripping the wool clothing. Its hair and beard grew pale gray, unkempt and recessed, its eyes red were now sunk in its sockets. The puffy cheeks grew gaunt. This horror, a creature that seemed as old as time itself, began to swallow Olaf’s head, then sank its teeth in his neck, separating it with the bony snap of vertebrae splitting. Olaf’s body contracted, then went limp and sprayed blood, fueling the Milnok’s frenzy. Chunk by chunk, it consumed the limbs, then the abdomen, and finally the torso. Every once in a while, it would stop to gaze at the job and at the silent crowd, elation in its face, breaths heavy. It only left the heart, placing it nonchalantly it in the altar.
Much like the pages of metrics, the altar burned this leftover remain, as the chamber echoed the chants,
“Praise the Milnok”.
Terje stood motionless, pale, refusing to believe what he had just witnessed, refusing to move a muscle, lest he incur the wrath of the Milnok. His mind could not comprehend the savagery of the ceremony. His eyes followed the blood seeping through the dirt, sliding to the groove and slowly leaving through the wall. The Milnok’s beard was still dripping it. There was so much blood. How could someone have so much blood… how could so many people allow this to happen.
And he was one of them. He was now complicit.
Little by little, as the fire illuminated this monstrosity, its limbs began reverting, its face returning to normal. It picked up its hat, it had fallen in the frenzy. The earnings call proceeded with the remaining business units, that thankfully had good fortune and no casualties.
Milnok’s clothes were tattered. Milnok’s beard was white and red. Milnok’s smile never wavered.
The mass went on for another hour. By the end, Milnok took control of Erik, to conclude.
“You have brought good offerings to the Milnok. Those who didn’t, atoned fittingly. May this family be blessed by good market conditions and may those be explored to the fullest, for the glory of the family, for the glory of the Milnok!”
Then, with their last praise, the inner circle began to rise and left. Terje couldn’t move, his body could not react. Johanna had to grab his arm, her resolve bringing some strength back to his legs.
“Come on, Terje, you don’t want to stay here”. She was smiling, but her eyes betrayed her. She had been crying.