Chapter 1: “I will take your pain and make it my own.
I know death. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say death knows me. It's known me 522 times: deep beneath the Pacific Ocean, high above the Rocky Mountains, at your next-door neighbor's backyard. Doesn't matter the place; death is always on time, like that one punctual friend who is never late to a party.
Not that death and I are friends. We’re not. But despite whatever pain it brings me—whether starvation, drowning, infection—I can count on death to be there, I can count on its word, which is more than I can say for most people.
I was scared the first time we met, as I am when meeting anyone unknown. Would I stutter? Appear weak? Cry? (The answer, by the way, is yes to all of those). But fear fades after the fourth encounter. Fear and the embarrassment of looking like a fool. What doesn’t dissipate is the pain. I should know: I’ve been asphyxiated, axed, assassinated, and those are just the deaths that begin with an A. Dying hurts, and you never get inured to the pain, I don’t care what anyone else has told you. You don’t get used to it. You simply learn to bear it.
You’re filled with many questions, I’m sure. Why have I died so many times? How can I be alive writing this story? These are the wrong questions. What you should be asking is why I first met death. And that's an easy one. My best friend, Claire Morrissey, introduced us. All she had to do was pull a gun and fire the bullet.
* * *
I suppose I should have noticed earlier—how strange Claire was acting at school. Quieter. Reserved. Uncertain about her weekend plans. But we weren't the type of best friends connected at the hip, so I can understand how I missed the signs. In fact, we rarely saw one another. We had different classes. A different set of friends. Different interests. The only things we did share in common were our secrets. She would tell me hers, and I mine. And those secrets bound us.
Before my death, she asked to talk privately. She said, "Damien. Something's happened. I've remembered something terrible." The sound of ripping Velcro separated her words (another sign I should have noticed). An old tennis injury left her wrist damaged, and she fidgeted with the brace whenever nervous.
I assured her she could tell me anything. She promised she would, soon.
Soon arrived three days later. We met at the warehouse of her father's employer, Paws n Toys. They manufactured items for cats and dogs: chew bones, scratching posts, flea collars. But that's beside the point. What mattered was that we met after hours, when no one was around. I was talking about purchasing another toy for my cat when she revealed the gun.
"I’m sorry." She stood ten feet from me, the barrel aligned to my chest. "But I have to kill you."
A murderer's face is usually imagined grimy, with scars cutting across the eyelids, or some obtrusive tattoo painted on the neck or forehead. A dirty face. An evil one. But this was not Claire's face. Hers was something far scarier: friendly.
"You don't have to," I said foolishly.
"I want to." She readjusted her brace with her teeth, keeping the gun grasped tightly with her bare left hand. Strands of her blond hair fell across the weapon as if to dust it for fingerprints before the crime was even committed.
Fear lingered in the air. I could sense it in the flickering of the warehouse lights, the saliva stuck in my throat, and mostly, Claire's finger, trembling on the trigger. Everything caught between two worlds, the living and the dead, the one I resided in and the one I was heading to.
I stared at Claire in disbelief. We were friends who thrived off secrets. If she couldn't share hers now, what did we have left?
"Were we even best friends?" My voice roiled deep. "Just tell me what you want and put that thing away. Now. Put—it—away."
She didn't. Instead, the metallic click of the safety being released pierced through the silent factory. Another secret she had withheld: she knew how to use a gun.
"Claire," I pleaded. My heart thumped a thousand times faster than normal, intent on using up the remaining beats of my lifetime. Hundreds of choices coursed through my mind. Tackle her. Run away. Duck. Fight. Play dead. Beg for life. Even with all those choices, my body chose the one I hadn't considered. Cry.
"We were best friends." She yanked at her brace, tightening the Velcro straps as if to cut circulation from her hand. The ceiling lights fizzled off, and in the darkness, with the pops of the Velcro still bouncing through the hollow chamber, my soul drifted away.
I was only seventeen at the time, but death, as cliché as it sounds, does not discriminate by age. Some people call it the great equalizer, though I’d have to disagree. Death is not equalizing. Death is not fair. It feeds off the unfortunate. And it devoured me with voracity.
A factory worker found my body the next day. Dead yet fresh. A trail of blood led him right to it. Apparently, I tried to crawl away. If Paws n Toys had been a big company with a standard surveillance system, I suppose it would have been easy for police to link Claire to the crime. But it wasn't. Police could not identify my killer.
As for what happened to my corpse, it was buried underground. My parents hosted a small funeral, which some of my friends attended. Claire didn't. But by then, she had already killed two more. A normal life was no longer an option for her.
Typically, the story would end here. I'd transcend to heaven (if you believe in that), or I'd reincarnate as a leopard, or more plausibly, I'd decompose in the ground, molecule by molecule, atom by atom. And I'm not saying any of those aren't true possibilities for other people. But for me, it was different.
I awoke in stillness, a silence so dense it stuck like syrup to my skin. I stood and observed my surroundings. Whiteness—that’s all that existed. I smelled it. Breathed it. Tasted it. The color was alive, and my lungs craved for more.
A cough rang from my feet. Beneath me sprawled a teenage boy, blood saturating his shirt and flowing onto the white floor like the first strokes of paint on an empty canvas. Convulsing, he clamped his hand to his chest, keeping his insides from pouring out. He had been shot. Right in the heart. Right where I had been.
I panicked. "Are you okay? Should I get someone?" There was no person or thing to get. I reached down to help, but he shook his head.
"Just a second," he gasped. "I'll be fine." He removed his hand to reveal a bullet wound deforming his dark-brown skin. "Dang that one really hurt. You'd think I'd get used to it by now." He hopped to his feet and wrung the blood from his shirt. Though thin and bony, his arms performed the maneuver with ease.
He reached out to shake my hand, but his blood-stained skin prevented me from responding to his offer.
"Oh, right." He curled his fingers. "Fist bump then?"
I declined his request. "Where's Claire?" My head spun in all directions, but only whiteness greeted me.
"You mean the girl who killed you?" The boy smiled. Blood coated his front two teeth. "She's still on Earth." He pointed up, hesitated, and pointed down.
"So I'm..." I didn't finish the question because I already knew the answer. Instead, I asked, "Why did she kill me?"
"Now that's a question you never hear from the living." He licked a spot of dry blood from his lips. "Sorry dude. You know as much as I do. But hey, we can be friends now."
My smile felt fake, but so did his apology, so I didn't feel bad.
We were best friends. Claire's final words echoed in my mind. I focused on the most important one: were. I'd once heard that friendships could transcend death, but apparently, Claire didn't believe ours would. To be fair, I wasn't so sure either.
"You're Damien, right? I'm Raveen. Raveen Satish," he said. "Been a while since we’ve gotten a new one. Glad you’re here pal." He almost patted my back, but I quickly jolted my shoulders to avoid the touch.
"And where is here?"
"First things first. You need to meet the others."
He tilted his head, and we started moving, or to be more precise, everything around us started moving. I got the impression we hadn't changed locations at all, even when a large stone mansion loomed into view. Above its entrance mounted giant red letters spelling Absoulute.
A mat with the words, Souls Step Here, lay before the front door. Raveen swiped his bloody shoes against it. "Lame pun, right? But Julie wanted it. She'll ask what you thought so you should come up with a punny response to get on her good side. Oh, but saying it’s to die for is overdone. So try to be a bit more creative." He jabbed my side.
"Okay." I shrugged. I already didn't like the guy. I'd met people like him before—the type who immediately talked to you as if you were best friends. They were nice, sure. But being nice didn't equate to being genuine.
The doors opened to a spacious room spanning the size of a train station. The interior did not match the mansion's antiquated exterior. A ping-pong table occupied the center, its blue coating gleaming beneath Pikachu’s light. I say Pikachu’s light because that's what it was. A metallic version of the Pokémon hung suspended from the ceiling, its body positioned mid-attack. But instead of discharging lightning from its cheeks (as it does in the television show), it emitted a warm yellow light. I had to admit, despite its childishness, the design was imaginative.
A girl sat alone at the ping-pong table, sipping from a cup of tea. I immediately noticed her perfect appearance. Flawless skin. Sculptured eyebrows. Smooth black hair. The only abnormality was a pair of bulky glasses. She strutted toward me.
"Angelika." She extended her hand with a nod, sending her glasses down her nose. "But call me Angel."
"Damien." I shook.
"She's what we call the best at what we do," Raveen said. "Saves more souls than any of us combined."
"I try my best," she accepted the compliment. "But let’s stay focused. Damien, what's the last thing you remember?"
"Well." Velcro ripping apart, like a rainfall of plastic pellets, buzzed in my ears. "I remember—"
"Being shot." Raveen grinned. "Yeah, I remember too." He pointed to a hole in his shirt. "That girl’s got good aim."
I stared at Angel for help. I was honestly tired of Raveen's joking demeanor. And she...she was different than him.
"This is a lot. I know. But don't worry," she said. "We are all like you. We all died. Different ways too."
"And you?" I immediately regretted the question. Being nosy was a trait I despised in others.
"Lobotomy."
"Oh, I'm..." I coughed into my sleeve. Then, not wanting to look naive for missing an obvious joke, I chuckled.
"She's serious dude," said Raveen.
"A spike pierced my brain. Right here." Her finger traced a circle above her left eye. "It took my life, along with my memories. So asking for details won't do you any good."
The image of her symmetrical face punctured in a non-symmetrical way disoriented me. "I wasn't going to ask," I said.
She paused. "Oh. Ummm...okay then." I suppose I hadn't responded the way she expected. "So, what has Raveen told you?"
"He's mentioned that I died, and I guess he took the bullet for me since I can't recall any pain. Maybe I should thank him." I turned to Raveen, but the words were suddenly lost on me.
Angel laughed. "He doesn't need a thank you, he's doing his job. Sorry, I know that doesn't make much sense to you right now. We'll explain later." She pulled a dangling cord near the entrance; the gong of a bell rang through the mansion and sent goosebumps across my arms. I felt as if something terrible was bound to happen any minute.
"You'll get used to that," Raveen said. "Us souls can sense death. This bell evokes that feeling whenever we hear it." He patted Angel on the back. "She’s the inventor."
"It’s nothing special. We just use it to call meetings," she added.
I shuddered. The feeling grew worse and worse the longer the tone sustained. When the sound faded, I sighed a breath of relief. "I never want to go through that again in my life."
"You won't, silly." A high-pitched giggling voice emerged. "Your life's over."
Two people stood before me. A young girl around ten years, and an older guy whose features matched hers. His presence calmed me. Everyone else was my age or younger; he was in his college years, so I assumed he was the leader. But like many of my assumptions that first day, I was wrong.
"Nice to meet you," I said to the girl, realizing she was probably the Julie Raveen had mentioned. "I'm Damien."
"Never met a new one," she said. "What did you think about the mat?"
Raveen gave me a told-you-she'd-ask look.
"Souls step here, right?" I said, trying to come up with a punny response. "It was..." I had nothing. "Clever."
Her eyes lit. "You think so? You know, I also came up with the name of this place. Welcome to Ab-Soul-lute."
I chuckled. "Yes, I see the pun." I repeated the name. "Absoulute. Not bad."
The college guy cleared his throat. "This is Julie. She gets a bit excited. I'm her brother, Emmett."
Coldness emanated from his hand as we shook. "It's nice to meet you."
"Well, this is everyone," Angel said. "Sorry. There aren't many of us."
"I prefer small groups," I said. "But, mind telling me what's going on here?"
Emmett saluted goodbye while saying, "Angel and Raveen are the official orientation leaders. We'll catch up with you later." With a tilt of the head, he and Julie vanished.
"Orientation leaders?"
"We just like the name," Angel said. "We rarely get newcomers. But Raveen's made an amazing video. It will explain everything."
The world around me twisted, and when it unwound, I found myself in a movie theatre. On either side of me sat Raveen and Angel, both munching from individual bags of popcorn. The buttery scent warmed the air, and though my tongue salivated from the aroma, I did not ask for my own bag.
A public service announcement promoting Soul Saving currently aired across the large screen with Angel's voice broadcasting through the speakers "Do your part to lessen the pain; save a soul a day."
"You put in these ads?" She nudged Raveen. "I thought these were just for fun."
"Have to make it accurate." Raveen stuffed a handful of kernels into his mouth. "This is my first official screening. Everyone knows boring ads before the real deal is part of the movie-going experience."
After Angel's PSA, a medicinal advertisement aired with Emmett selling salve guaranteed to heal any sports injury or your money back, then a message featuring Julie kindly asking all guests to silence their cell phones, and finally Raveen, giving a short preview of his next action film. The cast consisted of Angel, Julie, and Emmett, but the villain's face remained hidden behind a pall of shadows.
"That will be you," Raveen said excitedly to me. "I needed one more actor to finish the flick. And now, I can!"
I didn’t respond. The movie began.
A close-up shot of Julie’s sleeping face commenced the film with a lullaby-like melody playing softly in the background. Her brown hair fell messily across her ten-year-old face in an almost organized manner, as if each strand had been purposely placed to prove her sleeping state. A narrator, Raveen, spoke in a deep, heavy voice. "On Earth, a death occurs every two seconds. And Julie is next."
Julie's lips curled into a small smile. Did people smile while they slept? I didn’t know, but the scene did its trick; I felt connected to her. She looked too peaceful, too young, too innocent—I didn’t want her to die.
I had forgotten at the time, quite foolishly, that she was already dead. And she had been for seven years.
The music paused, and the scene, as if controlled by the tune, froze. Then, chaos. The smoke detector alarmed, screeching in sharp intermittent punches. Julie opened her eyes. Flickering flames rippled like the red tide across her pupils. The lullaby resumed, but its gentle rhythm, which had initially represented peacefulness, now induced fear.
The camera zoomed out to display a room ablaze. Smoke coated the ceiling, feeding off the stucco. A bookcase toppled. A fiery desk spewed embers. And Julie screamed, unable to run away.
I peered over at Angel, but she urged me to continue watching, explaining that it will make sense soon.
"This is her fate," Raveen’s voice-over emerged again. "To die in flames." Another shot of Julie’s terrorized face. "But her last moments need not be marred by pain."
Bright light engulfed the screen, and when it dimmed, there stood Angel, appearing just like her name. Massive white wings sprung from her back with more feathers than one could count. They spanned the length of the room, fluttering softly as if to stoke the flames. But the feathers were like holograms, passing through objects with no effect.
She sat next to Julie and waited, listening to her screams, the alarm, the crackle of fire. Her neutral expression disturbed me. Did she not care that someone was dying before her eyes?
"One minute. That is the limit of our power." Narrator Raveen said. "We cannot save a soul until one minute before the person dies. Any suffering before then must be endured by the living."
The flames inched closer and closer, but they weren’t the issue. A camera shot of a creaking support beam above Julie’s head foretold her fate.
The music shifted. Racing violin strings and vibrato French horns brought the eerie melody to a halt. Angel flapped her wings. Once. Twice. Three times. The flames didn’t respond. But something else did. A silver vapor floated from Julie’s body and into the air. For a second, it remained suspended, a miniature version of Julie’s face etched across the gas. Her soul. Then it disintegrated.
"With the body clear of its previous inhabitant, it is now primed to be entered by a new soul."
On-screen Angel breathed in deeply. "I will take your pain and make it my own." With one last flap, she hurtled herself into Julie’s body.
But Julie’s body continued to act as it had. Scared. Crying. Screaming. Angel had no control; a fact soon confirmed when Raveen said, "Fate is fate. Though we may take the pain, we cannot stop the inevitable."
A one-minute countdown flashed on the screen. At forty-five seconds, Julie retreated under the blankets, like any kid would. At thirty, she hugged her teddy bear and prayed for her mom and dad to save her. At twenty, she wiped the tears from her cheeks. And at fifteen, the beam fell, crushing her feeble body.
The countdown proceeded to tick like a heartbeat. Twelve. She moaned. Ten. She whimpered. Eight. The music stopped. Five. Blood spewed from her chest and legs where the beam had collided. A nail jutted from her abdomen. Two. Her eyes drooped. She no longer made any noise. One. They closed. Zero. And it was over.
The lights flicked on. I squinted to avoid the burning sensation that came when moving from darkness to light too quickly, but there was no need. My eyes were already adjusted.
"So," Raveen said. "What did you think? Was the music okay? The camera angles? The effects? Anything I should change?"
I told him the acting was the best part, but then added a, "It was good, seriously," after observing his scrutinized face.
"Really. Let me know. You can be honest. Directing was kind of my thing on Earth. Never got the chance to pursue it."
"None of us got to pursue our dreams." Angel placed her hand on Raveen's shoulder. For a second, something in his face shifted. But when I blinked, he was smiling again.
"Well." He patted my back. "We all had dreams on Earth. You lost some too, I guess. But dreams don’t have to die when we do."
His words brought me back to reality. Dead. I was dead. What did that mean? What did dead even feel like? I moved my fingers. My toes. My nose. Everything felt like it had on Earth. If this was being dead, then what was the difference from being alive? We could still pursue our dreams. Watch movies. Eat popcorn. And part of me started craving sleep. All attributes of being alive.
Looking back on my first day, I now realize how naive I was. I knew nothing. Nothing of what I would see. What I would experience. Or to be more precise, what I wouldn’t.
Alive. The word lingered in my mind for hours, even as Angel and Raveen gave me a tour of the mansion. The kitchen was filled with the highest quality of pots and pans, the gaming area was cluttered with every arcade game imagined, and the gym was crowded with more workout machines than I’d ever use.
Being dead certainly felt like being alive. But I was (and I misuse this phrase), fatally wrong. I was wrong to compare death to life. What I should have compared it to...what I’d later only compare it to, was if being dead meant I was still human. If any of us were human.
"I have to apologize," Raveen said.
"For what?" I wondered if being dead meant he could read my mind. Did he know I thought he was annoying?
"For saving you. I didn’t know you’d be joining us. If I had, I would have let you die on your own."
"Why’s that?"
"Because dying really sucks. Especially the first. And you, my friend, have not yet experienced a death."
I picked up on his implication and gulped. "Do I have to?"
"It’s our job," Angel said. "Soul medic is the title we’ve agreed upon. And as soul medics, we’re expected to perform certain duties."
"Soul medic. Sounds like we're doctors or something."
Angel nodded.
"And we’re expected to die for people? Isn’t that a bit extreme? Can’t I just... Are you sure I have to go?"
Angel’s fingers gripped my shoulder, her face inches from mine. "We’ll be there with you. Be brave, Damien. It’s time for you to save your first soul."
Not that death and I are friends. We’re not. But despite whatever pain it brings me—whether starvation, drowning, infection—I can count on death to be there, I can count on its word, which is more than I can say for most people.
I was scared the first time we met, as I am when meeting anyone unknown. Would I stutter? Appear weak? Cry? (The answer, by the way, is yes to all of those). But fear fades after the fourth encounter. Fear and the embarrassment of looking like a fool. What doesn’t dissipate is the pain. I should know: I’ve been asphyxiated, axed, assassinated, and those are just the deaths that begin with an A. Dying hurts, and you never get inured to the pain, I don’t care what anyone else has told you. You don’t get used to it. You simply learn to bear it.
You’re filled with many questions, I’m sure. Why have I died so many times? How can I be alive writing this story? These are the wrong questions. What you should be asking is why I first met death. And that's an easy one. My best friend, Claire Morrissey, introduced us. All she had to do was pull a gun and fire the bullet.
* * *
I suppose I should have noticed earlier—how strange Claire was acting at school. Quieter. Reserved. Uncertain about her weekend plans. But we weren't the type of best friends connected at the hip, so I can understand how I missed the signs. In fact, we rarely saw one another. We had different classes. A different set of friends. Different interests. The only things we did share in common were our secrets. She would tell me hers, and I mine. And those secrets bound us.
Before my death, she asked to talk privately. She said, "Damien. Something's happened. I've remembered something terrible." The sound of ripping Velcro separated her words (another sign I should have noticed). An old tennis injury left her wrist damaged, and she fidgeted with the brace whenever nervous.
I assured her she could tell me anything. She promised she would, soon.
Soon arrived three days later. We met at the warehouse of her father's employer, Paws n Toys. They manufactured items for cats and dogs: chew bones, scratching posts, flea collars. But that's beside the point. What mattered was that we met after hours, when no one was around. I was talking about purchasing another toy for my cat when she revealed the gun.
"I’m sorry." She stood ten feet from me, the barrel aligned to my chest. "But I have to kill you."
A murderer's face is usually imagined grimy, with scars cutting across the eyelids, or some obtrusive tattoo painted on the neck or forehead. A dirty face. An evil one. But this was not Claire's face. Hers was something far scarier: friendly.
"You don't have to," I said foolishly.
"I want to." She readjusted her brace with her teeth, keeping the gun grasped tightly with her bare left hand. Strands of her blond hair fell across the weapon as if to dust it for fingerprints before the crime was even committed.
Fear lingered in the air. I could sense it in the flickering of the warehouse lights, the saliva stuck in my throat, and mostly, Claire's finger, trembling on the trigger. Everything caught between two worlds, the living and the dead, the one I resided in and the one I was heading to.
I stared at Claire in disbelief. We were friends who thrived off secrets. If she couldn't share hers now, what did we have left?
"Were we even best friends?" My voice roiled deep. "Just tell me what you want and put that thing away. Now. Put—it—away."
She didn't. Instead, the metallic click of the safety being released pierced through the silent factory. Another secret she had withheld: she knew how to use a gun.
"Claire," I pleaded. My heart thumped a thousand times faster than normal, intent on using up the remaining beats of my lifetime. Hundreds of choices coursed through my mind. Tackle her. Run away. Duck. Fight. Play dead. Beg for life. Even with all those choices, my body chose the one I hadn't considered. Cry.
"We were best friends." She yanked at her brace, tightening the Velcro straps as if to cut circulation from her hand. The ceiling lights fizzled off, and in the darkness, with the pops of the Velcro still bouncing through the hollow chamber, my soul drifted away.
I was only seventeen at the time, but death, as cliché as it sounds, does not discriminate by age. Some people call it the great equalizer, though I’d have to disagree. Death is not equalizing. Death is not fair. It feeds off the unfortunate. And it devoured me with voracity.
A factory worker found my body the next day. Dead yet fresh. A trail of blood led him right to it. Apparently, I tried to crawl away. If Paws n Toys had been a big company with a standard surveillance system, I suppose it would have been easy for police to link Claire to the crime. But it wasn't. Police could not identify my killer.
As for what happened to my corpse, it was buried underground. My parents hosted a small funeral, which some of my friends attended. Claire didn't. But by then, she had already killed two more. A normal life was no longer an option for her.
Typically, the story would end here. I'd transcend to heaven (if you believe in that), or I'd reincarnate as a leopard, or more plausibly, I'd decompose in the ground, molecule by molecule, atom by atom. And I'm not saying any of those aren't true possibilities for other people. But for me, it was different.
I awoke in stillness, a silence so dense it stuck like syrup to my skin. I stood and observed my surroundings. Whiteness—that’s all that existed. I smelled it. Breathed it. Tasted it. The color was alive, and my lungs craved for more.
A cough rang from my feet. Beneath me sprawled a teenage boy, blood saturating his shirt and flowing onto the white floor like the first strokes of paint on an empty canvas. Convulsing, he clamped his hand to his chest, keeping his insides from pouring out. He had been shot. Right in the heart. Right where I had been.
I panicked. "Are you okay? Should I get someone?" There was no person or thing to get. I reached down to help, but he shook his head.
"Just a second," he gasped. "I'll be fine." He removed his hand to reveal a bullet wound deforming his dark-brown skin. "Dang that one really hurt. You'd think I'd get used to it by now." He hopped to his feet and wrung the blood from his shirt. Though thin and bony, his arms performed the maneuver with ease.
He reached out to shake my hand, but his blood-stained skin prevented me from responding to his offer.
"Oh, right." He curled his fingers. "Fist bump then?"
I declined his request. "Where's Claire?" My head spun in all directions, but only whiteness greeted me.
"You mean the girl who killed you?" The boy smiled. Blood coated his front two teeth. "She's still on Earth." He pointed up, hesitated, and pointed down.
"So I'm..." I didn't finish the question because I already knew the answer. Instead, I asked, "Why did she kill me?"
"Now that's a question you never hear from the living." He licked a spot of dry blood from his lips. "Sorry dude. You know as much as I do. But hey, we can be friends now."
My smile felt fake, but so did his apology, so I didn't feel bad.
We were best friends. Claire's final words echoed in my mind. I focused on the most important one: were. I'd once heard that friendships could transcend death, but apparently, Claire didn't believe ours would. To be fair, I wasn't so sure either.
"You're Damien, right? I'm Raveen. Raveen Satish," he said. "Been a while since we’ve gotten a new one. Glad you’re here pal." He almost patted my back, but I quickly jolted my shoulders to avoid the touch.
"And where is here?"
"First things first. You need to meet the others."
He tilted his head, and we started moving, or to be more precise, everything around us started moving. I got the impression we hadn't changed locations at all, even when a large stone mansion loomed into view. Above its entrance mounted giant red letters spelling Absoulute.
A mat with the words, Souls Step Here, lay before the front door. Raveen swiped his bloody shoes against it. "Lame pun, right? But Julie wanted it. She'll ask what you thought so you should come up with a punny response to get on her good side. Oh, but saying it’s to die for is overdone. So try to be a bit more creative." He jabbed my side.
"Okay." I shrugged. I already didn't like the guy. I'd met people like him before—the type who immediately talked to you as if you were best friends. They were nice, sure. But being nice didn't equate to being genuine.
The doors opened to a spacious room spanning the size of a train station. The interior did not match the mansion's antiquated exterior. A ping-pong table occupied the center, its blue coating gleaming beneath Pikachu’s light. I say Pikachu’s light because that's what it was. A metallic version of the Pokémon hung suspended from the ceiling, its body positioned mid-attack. But instead of discharging lightning from its cheeks (as it does in the television show), it emitted a warm yellow light. I had to admit, despite its childishness, the design was imaginative.
A girl sat alone at the ping-pong table, sipping from a cup of tea. I immediately noticed her perfect appearance. Flawless skin. Sculptured eyebrows. Smooth black hair. The only abnormality was a pair of bulky glasses. She strutted toward me.
"Angelika." She extended her hand with a nod, sending her glasses down her nose. "But call me Angel."
"Damien." I shook.
"She's what we call the best at what we do," Raveen said. "Saves more souls than any of us combined."
"I try my best," she accepted the compliment. "But let’s stay focused. Damien, what's the last thing you remember?"
"Well." Velcro ripping apart, like a rainfall of plastic pellets, buzzed in my ears. "I remember—"
"Being shot." Raveen grinned. "Yeah, I remember too." He pointed to a hole in his shirt. "That girl’s got good aim."
I stared at Angel for help. I was honestly tired of Raveen's joking demeanor. And she...she was different than him.
"This is a lot. I know. But don't worry," she said. "We are all like you. We all died. Different ways too."
"And you?" I immediately regretted the question. Being nosy was a trait I despised in others.
"Lobotomy."
"Oh, I'm..." I coughed into my sleeve. Then, not wanting to look naive for missing an obvious joke, I chuckled.
"She's serious dude," said Raveen.
"A spike pierced my brain. Right here." Her finger traced a circle above her left eye. "It took my life, along with my memories. So asking for details won't do you any good."
The image of her symmetrical face punctured in a non-symmetrical way disoriented me. "I wasn't going to ask," I said.
She paused. "Oh. Ummm...okay then." I suppose I hadn't responded the way she expected. "So, what has Raveen told you?"
"He's mentioned that I died, and I guess he took the bullet for me since I can't recall any pain. Maybe I should thank him." I turned to Raveen, but the words were suddenly lost on me.
Angel laughed. "He doesn't need a thank you, he's doing his job. Sorry, I know that doesn't make much sense to you right now. We'll explain later." She pulled a dangling cord near the entrance; the gong of a bell rang through the mansion and sent goosebumps across my arms. I felt as if something terrible was bound to happen any minute.
"You'll get used to that," Raveen said. "Us souls can sense death. This bell evokes that feeling whenever we hear it." He patted Angel on the back. "She’s the inventor."
"It’s nothing special. We just use it to call meetings," she added.
I shuddered. The feeling grew worse and worse the longer the tone sustained. When the sound faded, I sighed a breath of relief. "I never want to go through that again in my life."
"You won't, silly." A high-pitched giggling voice emerged. "Your life's over."
Two people stood before me. A young girl around ten years, and an older guy whose features matched hers. His presence calmed me. Everyone else was my age or younger; he was in his college years, so I assumed he was the leader. But like many of my assumptions that first day, I was wrong.
"Nice to meet you," I said to the girl, realizing she was probably the Julie Raveen had mentioned. "I'm Damien."
"Never met a new one," she said. "What did you think about the mat?"
Raveen gave me a told-you-she'd-ask look.
"Souls step here, right?" I said, trying to come up with a punny response. "It was..." I had nothing. "Clever."
Her eyes lit. "You think so? You know, I also came up with the name of this place. Welcome to Ab-Soul-lute."
I chuckled. "Yes, I see the pun." I repeated the name. "Absoulute. Not bad."
The college guy cleared his throat. "This is Julie. She gets a bit excited. I'm her brother, Emmett."
Coldness emanated from his hand as we shook. "It's nice to meet you."
"Well, this is everyone," Angel said. "Sorry. There aren't many of us."
"I prefer small groups," I said. "But, mind telling me what's going on here?"
Emmett saluted goodbye while saying, "Angel and Raveen are the official orientation leaders. We'll catch up with you later." With a tilt of the head, he and Julie vanished.
"Orientation leaders?"
"We just like the name," Angel said. "We rarely get newcomers. But Raveen's made an amazing video. It will explain everything."
The world around me twisted, and when it unwound, I found myself in a movie theatre. On either side of me sat Raveen and Angel, both munching from individual bags of popcorn. The buttery scent warmed the air, and though my tongue salivated from the aroma, I did not ask for my own bag.
A public service announcement promoting Soul Saving currently aired across the large screen with Angel's voice broadcasting through the speakers "Do your part to lessen the pain; save a soul a day."
"You put in these ads?" She nudged Raveen. "I thought these were just for fun."
"Have to make it accurate." Raveen stuffed a handful of kernels into his mouth. "This is my first official screening. Everyone knows boring ads before the real deal is part of the movie-going experience."
After Angel's PSA, a medicinal advertisement aired with Emmett selling salve guaranteed to heal any sports injury or your money back, then a message featuring Julie kindly asking all guests to silence their cell phones, and finally Raveen, giving a short preview of his next action film. The cast consisted of Angel, Julie, and Emmett, but the villain's face remained hidden behind a pall of shadows.
"That will be you," Raveen said excitedly to me. "I needed one more actor to finish the flick. And now, I can!"
I didn’t respond. The movie began.
A close-up shot of Julie’s sleeping face commenced the film with a lullaby-like melody playing softly in the background. Her brown hair fell messily across her ten-year-old face in an almost organized manner, as if each strand had been purposely placed to prove her sleeping state. A narrator, Raveen, spoke in a deep, heavy voice. "On Earth, a death occurs every two seconds. And Julie is next."
Julie's lips curled into a small smile. Did people smile while they slept? I didn’t know, but the scene did its trick; I felt connected to her. She looked too peaceful, too young, too innocent—I didn’t want her to die.
I had forgotten at the time, quite foolishly, that she was already dead. And she had been for seven years.
The music paused, and the scene, as if controlled by the tune, froze. Then, chaos. The smoke detector alarmed, screeching in sharp intermittent punches. Julie opened her eyes. Flickering flames rippled like the red tide across her pupils. The lullaby resumed, but its gentle rhythm, which had initially represented peacefulness, now induced fear.
The camera zoomed out to display a room ablaze. Smoke coated the ceiling, feeding off the stucco. A bookcase toppled. A fiery desk spewed embers. And Julie screamed, unable to run away.
I peered over at Angel, but she urged me to continue watching, explaining that it will make sense soon.
"This is her fate," Raveen’s voice-over emerged again. "To die in flames." Another shot of Julie’s terrorized face. "But her last moments need not be marred by pain."
Bright light engulfed the screen, and when it dimmed, there stood Angel, appearing just like her name. Massive white wings sprung from her back with more feathers than one could count. They spanned the length of the room, fluttering softly as if to stoke the flames. But the feathers were like holograms, passing through objects with no effect.
She sat next to Julie and waited, listening to her screams, the alarm, the crackle of fire. Her neutral expression disturbed me. Did she not care that someone was dying before her eyes?
"One minute. That is the limit of our power." Narrator Raveen said. "We cannot save a soul until one minute before the person dies. Any suffering before then must be endured by the living."
The flames inched closer and closer, but they weren’t the issue. A camera shot of a creaking support beam above Julie’s head foretold her fate.
The music shifted. Racing violin strings and vibrato French horns brought the eerie melody to a halt. Angel flapped her wings. Once. Twice. Three times. The flames didn’t respond. But something else did. A silver vapor floated from Julie’s body and into the air. For a second, it remained suspended, a miniature version of Julie’s face etched across the gas. Her soul. Then it disintegrated.
"With the body clear of its previous inhabitant, it is now primed to be entered by a new soul."
On-screen Angel breathed in deeply. "I will take your pain and make it my own." With one last flap, she hurtled herself into Julie’s body.
But Julie’s body continued to act as it had. Scared. Crying. Screaming. Angel had no control; a fact soon confirmed when Raveen said, "Fate is fate. Though we may take the pain, we cannot stop the inevitable."
A one-minute countdown flashed on the screen. At forty-five seconds, Julie retreated under the blankets, like any kid would. At thirty, she hugged her teddy bear and prayed for her mom and dad to save her. At twenty, she wiped the tears from her cheeks. And at fifteen, the beam fell, crushing her feeble body.
The countdown proceeded to tick like a heartbeat. Twelve. She moaned. Ten. She whimpered. Eight. The music stopped. Five. Blood spewed from her chest and legs where the beam had collided. A nail jutted from her abdomen. Two. Her eyes drooped. She no longer made any noise. One. They closed. Zero. And it was over.
The lights flicked on. I squinted to avoid the burning sensation that came when moving from darkness to light too quickly, but there was no need. My eyes were already adjusted.
"So," Raveen said. "What did you think? Was the music okay? The camera angles? The effects? Anything I should change?"
I told him the acting was the best part, but then added a, "It was good, seriously," after observing his scrutinized face.
"Really. Let me know. You can be honest. Directing was kind of my thing on Earth. Never got the chance to pursue it."
"None of us got to pursue our dreams." Angel placed her hand on Raveen's shoulder. For a second, something in his face shifted. But when I blinked, he was smiling again.
"Well." He patted my back. "We all had dreams on Earth. You lost some too, I guess. But dreams don’t have to die when we do."
His words brought me back to reality. Dead. I was dead. What did that mean? What did dead even feel like? I moved my fingers. My toes. My nose. Everything felt like it had on Earth. If this was being dead, then what was the difference from being alive? We could still pursue our dreams. Watch movies. Eat popcorn. And part of me started craving sleep. All attributes of being alive.
Looking back on my first day, I now realize how naive I was. I knew nothing. Nothing of what I would see. What I would experience. Or to be more precise, what I wouldn’t.
Alive. The word lingered in my mind for hours, even as Angel and Raveen gave me a tour of the mansion. The kitchen was filled with the highest quality of pots and pans, the gaming area was cluttered with every arcade game imagined, and the gym was crowded with more workout machines than I’d ever use.
Being dead certainly felt like being alive. But I was (and I misuse this phrase), fatally wrong. I was wrong to compare death to life. What I should have compared it to...what I’d later only compare it to, was if being dead meant I was still human. If any of us were human.
"I have to apologize," Raveen said.
"For what?" I wondered if being dead meant he could read my mind. Did he know I thought he was annoying?
"For saving you. I didn’t know you’d be joining us. If I had, I would have let you die on your own."
"Why’s that?"
"Because dying really sucks. Especially the first. And you, my friend, have not yet experienced a death."
I picked up on his implication and gulped. "Do I have to?"
"It’s our job," Angel said. "Soul medic is the title we’ve agreed upon. And as soul medics, we’re expected to perform certain duties."
"Soul medic. Sounds like we're doctors or something."
Angel nodded.
"And we’re expected to die for people? Isn’t that a bit extreme? Can’t I just... Are you sure I have to go?"
Angel’s fingers gripped my shoulder, her face inches from mine. "We’ll be there with you. Be brave, Damien. It’s time for you to save your first soul."
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