Jane, Kay, and some of the other administrative souls all huddled around the projection that Death was emitting from their eye-sockets onto the break-room table. The illusion showed exactly what had happened when Death had reappeared before the Celestial Council with every soul in tow. It might’ve been the third or fourth time Jane had asked them to replay it. The sight of the Council's faces widening in shock as several dozen Sikh’s all clamored around each higher being demanding to become one with them, with the reincarnated and atheists close behind, had failed to stop being funny.
“Alright, that’s enough fun. Back to work everyone,” Death said, clapping their handbones together and terminating the vision.
“One…One more. Please.” Jane wiped the tears from her eyes. Kay, who’s face was reclaiming more of its features by the day, bit down his grin and hammered his fist against his chest as though it would solidify his form faster.
“No, no, we’ve had our break. It pains me to say it but we still have a mess to clean up. Please return to your tasks, everyone.”
A gentle, disappointed sigh rolled over the crowd, but they all left the break room chattering about the vision, glowing from the inside-out as souls tended to do when happy. Jane, Kay, and Death lingered behind while the former two refilled their coffee mugs.
“Bless those people in RepDiv,” Jane said after gulping down a mouthful of the warm brew. “I almost feel alive again.”
“I don’t think I ever tasted coffee when I was alive,” Kay said. “It’s tasty, but I don’t quite understand why you like it so much.”
“Kay, I would’ve died early without this drink. Do you know how many nights I spent working late, pouring over spreadsheets, logistical reports and revenue initiatives? I never would’ve lasted without a boost from this sludge.”
“She’s right,” Death said.
Jane frowned. “I’m being dramatic. I’m sure I would’ve been just fine.”
“I meant you would have died early.”
Jane felt her eyebrows shoot up on their own. Death tilted their head. “Would you like to know how many accidents you avoided while driving home late at night because you had consumed caffeine?”
Jane’s eyes widened. “Nope!”
“Why not? It isn’t as though it matters anymore.”
“Nope, nope, not talking about that. Let’s get back to work.” Tipping her cup back for another gulp, Jane led the way out of the breakroom. After a while Jane said, “I’m just going to ask. Is the Abrahamic God a man? I couldn’t really tell from the vision.”
“No,” Death replied.
“Then Ariana Grand…Grahn-day…whatever. She was right?”
“What?”
“God is a woman? You know, the song?”
“I’m unfamiliar with what you’re referencing. I haven’t had the time to listen to music.”
“Except when you went with Henry to listen to the Bardic Bastards?”
“Oh yes, that was delightful. I had no idea that some humans liked me that much.” Death puffed their chest out slightly. “They had my face on so many pieces of clothing. It was rather endearing—I always thought I scared people given how they react when they see me.”
Jane paused at that, reminded again of how hard it must’ve been for Death to carry on alone for so long. She shrugged. “I’m more of a Metallica girl myself, but I’m glad you had fun.”
“Thank you.”
“Are any of the Celestials men or women?” Kay asked.
“No. Sex is a mortal thing—though how our forms came to be used to be a subject of heavy debate amongst us. Were our forms chosen for us when we came into being by some unknown higher power? Did mortals create us? Did we adopt our forms instinctively to resemble the realms we govern upon our birth? Or do we look this way because of the realms we govern? Eventually we decided it didn’t matter and ceased to care.”
Jane reached the door to their office and grabbed the handle. “Its weird to think that even Death once wondered about their place in the—”
FWOOMP.
A loud bang accompanied by a flash of light emanated from just beyond the door, rattling the space the trio occupied. Kay widened his stance to keep his balance. Jane braced herself against the wall. Death kept upright without issue, but their eyes slowly began to adopt that ethereal blue glow whenever they got upset.
Kay said slowly, “What was that?”
“Open the door, Jane,” Death said quietly.
Jane stared at Death. The reaper merely stood there, impossibly still, giving no indication of their emotional state save for the glow in their eyes. Swallowing, Jane reflexively fixed her shirt and straightened her posture before entering the office.
It was not how they had last left it.
Jane prided herself in keeping things neat and orderly, believing that the state of one’s office helped convey a certain image to one’s subordinates. All of her efforts had disappeared beneath mountain after mountain of paper stacks that, having run out of desk-space, had been arranged neatly along the floor to dominate the periphery of the room.
And in the middle of it all, sitting primly on Death’s desk with crossed legs, was a bald, grey-skinned woman with entirely blue eyes, from the sclera to the pupils. She smiled as they entered. “Celenni Mortia Rex, I humbly beg your forgiveness for this intrusion.”
Death gently nudged their way past Jane to stand before the stranger. “Would you please stand up from my desk?
The woman’s smile widened but she did as she was asked, standing up with a respectful bow. “I ask for your forgiveness a second time.”
Death waved her apology away. “Have you a message?”
“Indeed.” She raised her head. “The Celestial Council hereby requests that all further reincarnated, ego-deaths, atheists, agnostics, and any associated potential re-existors stated or implied, undergo a series of trials and judgements before being given to the Council for reassignment. These trials are to be made separate and non-intersectional, allowing for untainted final judgement, and must encompass souls from all realms under Death’s purview. Any souls sent without proper documentation from trial administrators, judges, and the official seal of Celenni Mortia Rex will be either returned to the underworld or cast into the Void. End message.”
The woman closed her fingers and a golden letterhead appeared as though plucked from the air. She handed it to Death with a respectful bow of her head. Death took it, scanned it briefly, then nodded. “Message received. No further questions. You may leave.”
With another bow, the woman stepped back and vanished.
“What’s going on?” Jane asked.
Death turned to regard Jane, waving the letterhead gently. Their eye-lights had faded to nothing. “Petty revenge. But I believe the mortal term would be, ‘Mandatory Operational Restructuring.’”
Jane took the letterhead and began to read. Kay peered at it over her shoulder. “We’re to preside over judgement? Not the gods? We have enough on our plates with setting up each afterlife as it is, especially after their stunt with orientation! Are they insane?”
“No. Just immortal.” Death sat on their desk and placed their hands in their lap. “Time means nothing to us, and what exists now will always pass, for better or worse—a fact which I know better than anyone. As such, we are in no hurry, and more work means nothing to the Council. It will get done eventually.”
“We still have to do it,” Kay grumbled.
Death shrugged. “Eternity has a way of trivializing these things.”
“Aren’t you upset?” Jane asked. “You were furious over what they did. How can you be so calm now?”
“That was different. They meddled with my realm, Jane—just as we were getting it in order.” Death emphasized the point with a flash of their eyes. “While it isn’t unheard of for one of us to pull the occasional prank on another one of us, their latest one was entirely unwelcome, inconsiderate, and insulting.”
“How?”
“Because this time I have you.”
Jane and Kay stilled, staring at Death in surprise. Death turned to scan the papers around the room. “It’s one thing to play a joke on me. I have nothing but time, and it livens the monotony. However, watching how you and Kay have rallied the Underworld to our vision, only to have your efforts disregarded on a whim of the Council, was terrible. I haven’t felt anger like that since…I’m not sure, to be honest.
“So, in answer to your question, yes, I am a little annoyed at the mountain of work they’ve assigned us on top of the other mountains we still have to scale, but it came through proper channels. And at least this time I’ll have company.” Death picked up one of the papers besides them to read. “Additionally, you should feel flattered, Jane—with a response like this you’ve clearly made an impression.”
Jane gaped. “This is my fault?”
“Indeed. A mere mortal choosing not to lie down at the Council’s interference? How embarrassing for them.”
Death chuckled, clacking their teeth with satisfaction. Jane said nothing, unable to tear her eyes away from the reaper. There it was again—that quiet, concealed sense of solitude she sometimes got from the way her boss spoke. As before, she was struck by an intense feeling of emptiness at the thought of spending millennia performing the same task alone, with the only regular companionship being frightened, newly-dead souls.
Loneliness. Commitment. Scared underlings. Dealing with politics. Unrivaled precision at their task until it had become too much to do alone, and began to slip.
Jane knew how that felt.
“Where do we even start?” Kay said, kicking a loose paper with his foot.
Kneading her brow, Jane took a deep breath and walked over to their whiteboard, kicking any unlucky stacks in her path. She picked up a marker and made another ‘to-do’ list next to the others already there. “First we figure out our order of operations.”
Kay and Death looked over at her. She continued. “We’ve got one thing going for us—we’re not in production yet. It’s much easier to arrange these things at the start than when we already have our systems in place. First, we focus on sorting. We can utilize our new Reaper Corps to assist with this, rebranding them from reaper foot soldiers to reaper chaperones. We’ll have them specialize in different religions, assisting souls through the process of death and acting as walking repositories.
“We’ll have to find souls willing to volunteer as judges and trial proctors, then we’d have to train them, assuming there’s anyone we can even convince to do that. But that’s a problem for when the afterlives are finished being built. What was that thing about, ‘all realms under Death’s purview?’”
“There are multiple realms of death beyond yours that I oversee,” Death replied.
Jane paused in her writing. “Pardon?”
“Do you have vampires in your realm?”
"You've lost me."
Death waved their hand imploringly. Jane shook her head. “No, of course not."
“Of course,” Kay said at the same time.
Jane and Kay shot the same confused look at each other.
“Remember when we visited Henry for your training, Jane? How we spoke about vampire blood-moons?”
Jane gaped at Death. “I thought that man was crazy.”
“Not at all. Eccentric, maybe, but entirely sane. At the time we were in a different realm from yours. I’m surprised you missed this, it isn’t as though the souls of dragons and akel-kan are deliberately concealing themselves around here. Though I do suppose humans are the most populous across all realities.”
“Surprised? I’ve barely left this room!”
Death shrugged in a very what can you do sort of way.
"How have you possibly managed not just one, but multiple realms all this time?"
"Because I'm me." Death leveled a pointed stare at Jane. "And no, that isn't hubris. You should consider your presence here to be a true testament to the survival skills of your species—you've collectively out-birthed me, so to speak, across every reality."
Jane gritted her teeth. “You didn’t think to tell me about this at the start?”
“My goal was to take the systems we made for your world and replicate them for the others. I thought that I’d be able to do that on my own, so that you may finally enjoy your heaven when your labors here were done. Was that wrong of me?”
Jane groaned, turned, and banged her head against the whiteboard. She couldn’t feel the pain, but imagining it helped. So she did it again, and again. “Death. You’re sweet. You’re also an idiot.”
With a heavy hand, she slowly added scalability to the to-do list. “Systems we make for one realm might not translate to another. Different gods. Different cultures. Different ratios of religions. Different afterlives that I’m unfamiliar with. Christ, what would happen if we reincarnated people into the wrong realm?”
Death stilled.
Jane noticed, and locked eyes with them immediately. Death looked away. “You didn’t,” Jane said slowly.
“I…may have. Once.”
“Once?”
“Maybe twice… In your realm you called them ‘Nessie’ and ‘Bigfoot.’”
Jane placed her face in her hands and seriously considered taking back what she thought about Death’s precision. The fact that they had overseen not one, but multiple realms all this time, and things were only just now starting to fracture, wasn't just impressive, it was a freaking miracle. Given the newfound stress she found herself feeling, it might have been the only thing keeping her from raking the master of the underworld over the coals. “You. Actually. Isekai’d people?”
“Excuse me?”
Jane shook her head and forlornly added soul retrieval/damage control to the list. “Is there anything else I should know? When I leave this office am I going to be hit with the fact that I’m actually in hell and this is my punishment?”
Death tilted their head. “No, I do believe that’s it.”
“Greeeeeat.” Jane added a final bullet that said precision before placing the marker down and stepping back with arms crossed. “Kill me.”
Death chuckled. Kay asked, “What’s that one for?”
“You know what the most important thing I learned on the job was? How to cover my own ass, which you do by being perfect. No mistakes. Funnily enough, that leads to better company health, if sometimes not my own. But the point is that if any mistakes are made, they will be entirely on the Council’s side, and we will never let them forget it. That will be our revenge.” She turned her head. “Death?”
“Mm?”
“I want you to know that at the end of this, when all is said and done, you'll believe God is a woman.”
Death paused, then perked up. “Grande. Correct?”
Jane clicked her tongue, picked the marker back up, and made a new point at the top of the to-do list. “Introduce…Death…to…more…music.”
ns 15.158.61.42da2
