From the very first moment I saw him, I knew he was trouble. Of course, when you're almost asleep and you suddenly have a fugitive trying to hide in your room, trouble is only one of the things that pop into your mind. Most of the other things are curses. But I guess I'm just a big softy, and I had to help him. In a weird way, he sort of reminded me of my friend... damn, I can't even remember his name anymore. I've been here too long.
Anyways, when I sent him off, I thought that was the last of it. That just goes to show how much of an idiot I am, though. Later on Kanzah sends me on this stupid mission to bring him back in, as if Kanzah needs one more serial killer to boss around. And you know what? I should have just brought him in. I didn't owe him anything. I had no idea who he was—hell, I still have no idea who he is—but I couldn't resist the urge to screw Kanzah over in any way possible. So instead of doing what I'm told like the loyal worker I am (yeah, that's a laugh), I hide him away and take the blame for it.
Then you'd think that would be the end of it, but you'd still be wrong. I mean, it must have been a year since I heard the names “Abidan” or “Jordan” or anything similar, but just when he was slipping from my memory, I hear rumors about Kanzah finding the prodigal son. So once again I stick my head out for him, and turns out he's a pony rancher nowadays.
So I go and warn him, and it even seems like he remembers me a little bit, but I can't just end it there. Now I'm standing outside of Kanzah's office door about to do something I know I'll regret.
I bite my lip and knock on the door. He answers almost immediately. The door swings up open easily, silently, and he's sitting at his desk. I'll be damned if I know what he does all day, but it seems like whenever someone's looking for him, he's at his desk in front of his computer alone. Little pervert.
“What do you want, Machiel?”
I don't respond. Before he has time to act, I'm reaching over his desk and pressing my palm against his forehead. There's a loud crack that I know no one besides us can hear, and his memories flood into my head. An unnerving majority of them are him looking at his screen, and to my disappointment it's actually all work related.
There it is. I only see Jordan's name for a split second, but it's enough. I latch onto the memory and yank it from his head, sending him crumpling to the ground.
“Aah, shit,” I sigh. It's bad enough that I'm infiltrating my boss' memories for some guy I hardly know, but you can bet I'm going to be the first one he yells at when he finds himself waking up from a mysterious nap.
I heave back into his chair and try to reorganize the paper he knocked off his desk in the fall. When it's at least a little presentable, I flee as quickly as possible.
Hopefully this will be the last time I have to worry about this shit, but we all know that's not going to happen.
She still doesn’t look at him. She mumbles something, but not even she can hear it, much less understand it.
“You’ve accomplished zero jobs. You have gotten nothing done in five hours. What have you been doing for five hours?”
She mumbles something again.
The boy in front of her stares at her for a moment, before telling her matter-of-factly, “You are worthless.”
She flinches at these words, taking them to heart. “I’m sorry!” she squeaks, and this time it’s hearable.
“Go to your room,” the kid commands.
She nods briskly and flees from his desk, tears trailing off her face and watering the ground beneath her feet. Her mind repeats the words, ‘You’re worthless,’ to her, and each time she audibly responds, “I’m sorry.” After she’s gotten a comfortable distance between her and her boss, she falls to the ground in a heap and buries her face in her knees, allowing the tears fall freely and strongly into her lap.
After a few minutes of crying, a voice finally breaks into her self-loathing:
“S**t, kid, if you’re going to cry, do it in your own room.”
Without looking at the newcomer, she cries, “I’m sorry!” and disappears into thin air.
The man watching her gives a sharp whistle. “I bet that’s handy,” he laughs. Seeing it’s not persuading her to come back at all, he sits down next to where he thinks she is and says, “Come on out and talk?”
A few seconds later she reappears, but he can see the reluctance all over her form. “I don’t want to talk,” she says into her legs.
“Okay, then. I’m always up to talking to myself every once in a while,” he laughs again, eying his companion to see if she makes any movement towards lightening up. She doesn’t. “Well, then, what don’t you want to talk about?”
She makes a ‘hmph’ sound and turns her head away from him. He sighs.
“If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. If you want, you can just tell me what to talk about, and I’ll give you the earful of a lifetime.”
She slowly turns her head towards him, says, “Kanzah,” as quickly and quietly as possible, and then immediately buries her head back in her lap.
“Yeah, that explains a lot,” the man laughs. “He can be pretty f**ked up some times. Not to say I’m bitter or anything, though. Of course not. He just manipulates us on a constant basis and tricked me into letting him kill me. Why would I be bitter?
“You sound bitter,” she points out as she turns to look at the man talking to her.
He shrugs. “Yeah, I bet I do. But just think: at least he hasn’t killed you yet, right?”
“I guess…” she says, casting her eyes downward in a manner that shows the man’s comforting isn’t having any beneficial effects.
“Of course, if you’re working for him, you’ve probably already died. …Sorry. But… you can turn invisible! That’s pretty cool, right?” His uneasy smile makes it obvious to the girl that he has run out of ways to cheer her up. Sighing, he finally says, “Just… don’t let him get to you. Nothing good will come from taking him too seriously, alright?
“Okay,” she says falteringly as she takes to staring at the ground in front of her.
“So… you going to stay here for awhile, then?” he asks, his eyes flicking between the girl on the ground and the door to his
“No, I’ll leave,” she says
“Thanks. I’ll be seeing you, then, I guess.
“Yeah,” she says, and the man ducks back into his room. A few minutes later, she drags herself away from her spot on the ground and makes her way to her own room.
I tried to tell him something—anything—to comfort him in his last few minutes, but the words stuck in my throat. As his grip on my hand slowly loosened, all that managed to escape from my throat was senseless stammers.
“You can’t have him,” I said without turning around.
“Well, isn’t this interesting,” a female voice responded. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person.”
My whole body clenched. “You aren’t taking him; I won’t let you.”
“Oh, really. And why is that?” she asked, coming to stand next to me at the foot of his bed.
“He’s the only person in this world I ever cared for, and the only who’s ever cared for. You can’t take him fro me.” I felt tears rolling down my checks, but I didn’t care. All that I cared about right now was not letting her take my only friend.
“I’m sorry, Michael, I really am, but it’s nothing personal. It’s just my job. All of you people die eventually.”
Suddenly there was a sickle in her hand and it slashed through him without leaving a trace and just like that I could tell that whatever had been left of him was now gone forever.
Grabbing the woman who just killed my one and only friend, I looked her straight in the eyed and said through clenched teeth, “Bring him back. Now.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” she said through a smile. “If you’d like to negotiate his return, though, I can take you to my boss. I’m sure he’d love to meet with you.”
“Fine. I’ll do whatever it takes.”
As soon as I let go of her and stood up, the floor suddenly fell out from under us. In an instant, the hospital room I was in was replaced by endless, swirling black.
Then, in another instant, I was coughing my lungs out on a hard, gray floor. At first I thought it was another endless color, but then gray walls and a gray ceiling came into focus. There was no distinctive feature on anything, though. It was all just… gray.
“Well, come on, then. It’s best not to keep Kanzah waiting. I’m sure he’s expecting you.”
Now that I was on my way to saving my friend, I took the time to calm down and study my guide. She had long, red hair that was adorned with what must have been multiple pounds of jewelry. Large, golden rings hung from her ears; smaller rings latched onto the majority of her fingers. Her icy blue eyes gave me a look that told me she was enjoying how angry I was.
“Shall we?” she asked again.
“Lead the way,” I answered, my voice full of hostility.
She led me straight through a big set of gray doors, into a plain, gray room. A little kid in a gray business suit sat behind a thankfully brown desk, watching the door as we entered.
“He finally asked to see you,” the woman and said and walked over to the boy.
“I’ve been waiting for you, Machiel.”
I ignored them both and stormed over the desk, pounding my fists down hard enough to make everything on it jump. “You’ve got my friend here somewhere and I’m not leaving until I get him back.”
“He can’t come back,” the kid told me plainly. “Your friend is dead. His time had come.”
“Don’t give me that crap!” I yelled, wiping everything off his desk in one angry swipe. “He was only twenty-five, how could you say it was his time already? You have to bring him back! He had so much to live for! And now… I’ve got nothing. Why should I go on if you take him away? What am I supposed to live for?”
I ended my rant right next to the kid’s face, but his expression was the same as it had been before I had said anything.
The woman who had brought me in here, however, made no attempt to hide her laughter. “Cute. Is he your boyfriend or something?”
The kid and I both ignored her, staring at each other for a long time before he asked, “You have no reason to live without him?”
“N- No, I-”
“Would you do anything to save him?”
“Yes, of course!”
“Then work for me.”
I took a step backward and gave him a weird look. “What?”
“Stay here and guide souls for me and I will let your friend come back to life. You will be able to see him whenever you’re not on duty, and he’ll be free to live the rest of his life.”
I stopped to think, looking between the two as I did. He had the same expressions still; she had a wide smile that I didn’t trust at all. But still… it would save him.
“You’ve got a deal,” I told the kid and stretched my hand out. He took it, then smiled the tiniest bit.
“Of course, first you will have to die.”
A split second later, I felt the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. I looked down to see a gaping hole in my chest, and what looked like the kid eating my insides.
The next thing I knew, I was waking up on a gray bed with a throbbing headache and no idea what was going on.
It’s a strange feeling when one moment you’re being run over by a car and the next moment you’re staring up into the face of an overly-dressed, emotionless kid. And that’s really about all I know. I’ve got no memories between the two, and the memories I have before dying (yeah, I’m pretty sure I died?) are distant and far off, like they belong to a whole different person.
I didn’t get a good look at the car that hit me, much less the person driving it. It was probably some drunken teenage idiot.
It all goes black after that, and then the next thing I know I’m lying on the ground in what looks like some kind of all-gray office. There’s some creepy kid watching me, dressed like he owns the place. He’s got the demeanor for it, too. All straight-faced and no nonsense.
“You’re awake,” he says when he sees me try to pick myself up off the floor.
“Yeah. Who’re you?” I ask, eyeing him up.
“Abidan.”
“Abidan? Ain’t that kind of a weird name for a kid?”
In answer, he just points a finger at me and repeats the word.
“What? No, my name is Jordan. Not Abidan.”
“No. Your name is Abidan.”
“Look, kid: I don’t know what you’re trying to play at, but I know my own name. I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m getting out of here.”
I stand the rest of the way, trying not to fall over as I do, and make my way toward the doors that I can only hope are the way out of here. They don’t budge.
The kid ruffles through his pocket and holds out a key. “I’m your boss,” he says like it’s nothing.
I can’t help but crack a smile at that as I turn towards him. “Kid, I’m old enough to be your dad. You’re not my boss; I’ve already got a job and it’s not working for you.”
“What is it?” he asks.
I try to think of my job, and suddenly a sharp pain shoots through my head and I crumple to the floor.
“What’s your job?” he asks again, the same as the first time.
I glare at him and I can tell that this is all his fault, that he’s enjoying this. Lunging forward and grabbing him by the collar, I lift him off the ground with ease.
“Listen, you little punk. I have no clue what’s going on or where I am, but you’re going to tell me.” I add an, “Or else,” for good measure, though I honestly have no idea what I could possibly do to him.
He smiles for the first time and actually licks his lips. He dangles the key to the door in front of my face and I snatch it out of his hands. I fumble it into the keyhole and the doors finally give way. I run into the halls (they’re gray, too), but I have no idea where I’m going. For awhile I just run.
That’s when I see my first other sign of life in this weird gray place. It’s a girl, maybe about eighteen, with long white hair and slate gray eyes. She has the same blank face as the crazy kid, but somehow it’s… different.
“In here,” she says, and I realize she’s standing right next to a door.
I take a wary look in the direction I came from before ducking into the room she pointed out. The room is dark, but almost as soon as I come in, the lights turn on.
“Gyuh, who’s there?” I hear from somewhere near one of the walls.
I look towards the voice and my eyes match those of another person. He’s sitting up in a bed (with no shirt on) and watching me. He scratches his messy, brown hair and makes some tired noises. Slowly, it dons on him that there’s someone in what I can only assume is his bedroom.
“Dammit, I was sleeping!” he yells.
I try to shush him, but he only gets angrily out of his bed and glares at me.
“Don’t shush me! You just broke into my room!”
“I’m sorry!” I shout in a useless attempt at quieting him. “Someone told me to hide in here! Please, just let me stay until that kid is gone!”
He gives me a confused look and makes some sort of unintelligible noise. He pokes his head out of the door for a few seconds, then looks at me and says, “There’s nobody out there.”
“Wh- What?” I stammer. “That’s impossible! There was a girl! And she told me to come in here!”
“A girl, eh?” he laughs and gets the slightest bit of a grin on his face. It’s gone as soon as it came, though, and he asks, “So, what’s your name?”
“It’s Jordan,” I tell him.
“Jordan? What kind of a name is Jordan?”
“It’s a lot more normal than ‘Abidan,’” I point out.
He hardly seems to notice. “You’re that new kid I’ve been hearing about, then?”
“I- I guess? I just woke up here! Geeze, does everybody know what’s going on here except for me?” I whimper and almost buckle to the floor again.
“Yeah, sort of,” he offers. A moment later he seems to realize something, and confirms, “You don’t know what’s going on here? You don’t know where you are or anything?”
“No! I thought I died but now I’m here and I don’t know! Oh geeze,” I whine, “Am I in hell?!”
“No. Close, though,” the man laughs, then suddenly grabs hold of my shoulders and looks me straight in the eyes. “Don’t worry; I’ll help you get back home. Just go back to your life and forget any of this ever happened to you.”
I look up at him. The gravity in his voice reminds me just how scared I am, and I feel tears start to well up in my eyes.
“Dammit, don’t cry! You’re going to get through this.”
“But I can’t even remember my life! How am I supposed to live my life when I can’t remember it?”
“You’ve just got to trust me. Hold onto those memories.” He sighs, and I catch the faintest glimpse that this is just about as unnerving to him as it is to me. “Just… close your eyes; remember where you live.”
I obey and try to picture my apartment. There’s clutter all over the place because I’ve been promising myself I’ll clean it up on the weekend for the past month now. In the kitchen, both sinks are filled with dirty dishes because I never got around to buying soap. My bedroom is the only place that’s actually clean, and it’s insanely so. Whenever I was at home, I spent most of my time in my bedroom, so I forced myself to at least keep that room tidy.
“Are you thinking of it?” his voice cuts in. I nod. “Good.”
Suddenly everything goes cold. I open my eyes and my head starts to spin. It feels like I’m drowning, but there nothing around me. Nothing at all. It’s just black. I can see the room I was just in, but it’s blurry and far away. I try to call out to the man who was just next to me but my words get caught up in my throat.
And just like that, it’s all over. I’m lying on my bed, staring at a swirling pool of… black.
I’m home. I don’t know how or why or what happened, but I’m finally home.
Bit by bit, I let everything that just happened to me sink in. It’s hard to tell if it was all real or just some sort of bad dream or something in between, but at least I know it’s over.
Sighing, I fall back onto my bed and immediately fall asleep.
