Grim Lies

Olivia looked around and took a deep breath, waiting for the doctor to come out and tell her if her mother had survived the car crash. She had only been adopted by the woman two years prior. So the sixteen year old was still getting used to someone caring about her and worrying about her.

Now it was her turn. She bit a nail, her hand to her lips and looked up at the broken clock, its hands stuck on three. The second hands ticked, despite being stuck.

She looked up as a doctor entered the room. Then back at the ground as the woman approached a couple and took them aside. She bit her lip, scared that would happen to her too.

It usually meant bad news. The patient was usually either dead or in critical condition.

"Is the family of Veronica Williams here?" A nurse in purple scrubs entered the waiting room.

Olivia stood up and walked over. "Um yeah, that would be me." She walked over to the nurse, who led her to a quieter hall.

"Your mother was hit head on. She sustained various injuries. Unfortunately, she did not make it."

Olivia shook her head. The teenager couldn't believe it! She fell to the ground, her legs giving out as the mental trauma of what she was being informed hit her.

"You go back in there and bring her back!" She screamed at the nurse, her voice echoing through the quiet hallway.

Without another word, the nurse turned around. She did not seem phased about being screamed at.

Then, everything went black and she heard the slam of a door. She was suddenly in a white room.

She heard the noise of footsteps and followed the sound, hoping she was dreaming. Since she wanted this to all be better.

Her heart ached with pain and agony. Heartbreak, she realized, was what this was.

"Ah, welcome to my humble abode." A teen with brown scruffy hair greeted her. He smiled and looked down at the clipboard in his tan hands. "You're not on my list. Who are you?"

She stared, unable to speak, confused and still in shock from the news she had just received. "I'm uh-im…" she stuttered. "Olivia."

"Well, Olivia, this is purgatory." He indicated the white room.

"No, it's a white room." She said pointedly. "Who are - oh. Am I dead?!"

"Not in the slightest. Nor are you due to perish anytime soon." He stated. He smiled, obviously attempting to reassure her and make her worries dissipate.

She furrowed her brows and shook her head. Not dead? Not dead? Then - how? She had to be dead if she were here!

"You fainted when the nurse told you about your adoptive mother's fate. When you fainted, your head hit the floor. You're in limbo right now."

"Limbo's just a made up thing for tv shows. It's not real!"

"Oh really? Then explain-" he stopped speaking as an alarm sounded throughout the room. Then swore, some swears she had never heard anyone utter before.

He ran out of the room and she could hear him talking to someone. Reaper - she named him in her head - sounded terrified and for someone who was in charge of people's life and death, she figured that meant something serious was happening.

She walked towards the sound of the voices and gasped. This room was different from the white one. It was filled with trophies and awards. All the accomplishments the dead had achieved.

Olivia stalked over to one with her biological mother's name. She had never known the woman, having been put in the system the day of her birth as the woman had been in prison but knew her name, Jennifer Leston.

She grasped the trophy with one hand and read it. Then heard someone behind her. "It's not nice to touch what belongs to others," Reaper informed her.

She jumped and the trophy shattered on the ground. A black wisp of smoke appeared from out of the trophy.

Reaper stared in shock. Then hurried after the living being. He seemed angry and shocked. "What have you done Olivia?" He hollered.

"I don't know! I'm sorry!" She yelled at the Reaper as the wisp vanished through the door she had arrived through earlier.

"You just risked the integrity of the whole existence of homo sapiens."

"Humans. I risked the possibility of humans surviving." She corrected him.

"Yeah that." He nodded.

"How?"

He scratched his head. "Well um, that wisp that you just freed …. It feeds on ….. happiness, daylight …. Anything joyful on Earth. You might want to go after it."

Olivia ran for the door but it slammed shut in front of her and another alarm started going off. Now screens showed her face. "Intruder! Intruder!" A robotic voice announced throughout the place.

She looked at Reaper. "What the hell?! I'm not an intruder! How can I stop this if I'm stuck here?!"

"You have to … find a way. But whatever you do, never enter the command center."

Liv wanted to ask why but shrugged. She did not want to anger him with pointless inquiries. Instead, she just stared at the locked entrance door.

"So I'm stuck here?"

"In a manner of speaking, yes." Reaper looked at his clipboard and the list of names. "Make that a definite confirmation. Your name just appeared on my list." He showed her.

Her name was glowing red and kept blinking. "It's blinking because you're stuck here but your body is still alive."

"Come to the viewing room. I need to show you guys something." A woman in a red dress appeared in the room.

The group hurried to a small office with blood red walls. "This is the viewing room." She pointed to a camera in the room. "Olivia, look through that and tell us what you can see. Please."

Olivia picked it up and glared through the lens. Her body lay on a gurney in the hospital. A woman she had never seen before stood beside it and spoke to a doctor. The woman's eyes were red. "She didn't suspect a thing?"

The doctor smirked and shook his head. Then grabbed a needle out of his pocket and put some sort of medication into her IV.

He wrote on her chart and stepped away. Then rolled his eyes. "She really is who the wisps want? The - the - what did you call her again?"

"Halfling. Half between this word, half between the next. If ya know what I mean."

She put down the camera. "What's a halfling?" It was an immediate question. She had meant to ask what the doctor meant by the wisps wanting her but she was more concerned about this.

"Like a mini reaper. You can travel on Earth and bring lost souls here. Whereas I am stuck in this dismal place." Reaper explained, picking up the camera. He watched for several moments as more events happened in Olivia's hospital room.

"Becca, the Debutantes found her." Reaper's voice shook as he looked over at his comrade.

"Debutantes? This isn't a ball!" Liv spoke up. She had never heard of Debutantes being something negative.

Reaper turned to Olivia. He laughed despite himself. Not to be rude but because he sometimes forgot not everyone knew what the Debutantes were or who their boss was.