Hellbound

"Who are you?"

Her words were barely a whisper, falling from her lips in defeat as she rose from the charred ground. Her hands were stained black- coated in the ashes of the fallen- and her eyes were a bright green, the only source of colour in the grey world she had wound up.

It was always the hardest part.

The part where the souls kicked and screamed, begged and bartered. It never got easier, but I grew more tired.

"Angel to some." My voice was low and soft, gliding along the back of the phantom wind, echoing around the barren land in which she found herself stranded. "Demon to others."

"This is a dream," she whispered, her lips quivering as a single tear fell from the hold of her red-rimmed eyes. Her arms wrapped around herself- thin, twig-like limbs- and her nails bit into the fabric of her long, black dress. "This can't be happening."

Like the hundreds and thousands before her, the words fell the same. Like those before her, acceptance wasn't a common trait among humankind.

I didn't smile. Didn't offer words of comfort.

They never helped.

At times, they only made things worse.

The air was harsh and bitter, a thick smog that burnt my lungs and clung to the fibres of the tailored black suit I wore. Ash built beneath the soles of my shoes, the glossy shine dulled by the remains of the deceased souls.

The world between was one of my least favourite places to be. It was eerie and unnatural, and the longer I stayed, the worse the symptoms.

But I had learnt- the hard way- that rushing them only made their panic swell, which in turn increased my stay.

"Will you help me?" She was little more than a girl, on the cusp of womanhood, but in that moment, she seemed as small and frail as a child. The lines of her face were built upon soft edges and gentle curves, rounding into defined cheeks and full lips.

If she had lived, I was sure she would have grown up to become a beautiful young woman.

But she hadn't.

She would never become who she had thought she would be.

"That's why I'm here." But our definitions of help were sure to differ. She wanted to return to a life that had become a closed door to her. She wanted to step back the way she had came and breathe as she once had, in a body that was once hers. "To help you, if you'll let me. "

"I want to go home," she said in a small voice; infused with an innocence that had been buried beneath years of hardened experience and maturity. The gravity of the situation seemed to be weighing down upon her, piece by piece, the realisation knitting together.

I held out my hand, the pale clash of my skin glowing among the sea of black beneath us. As far as the eye could see, just ash and char.

She stepped back at first.

Her eyes widened and I could see traces of my reflection in her eyes. Tall, dark and sinister, I was the man that most mothers would warn their daughters to avoid. There was no warmth to my face, the hard years had stolen it and my eyes, an eerie blue, seemed flat and lifeless. I towered over her, too. It was easy to see why she would be intimidated.

But I was a professional. I kept calm and still, using a soft tone that had a way of reassuring.

"I can't force you." Which made my job all that much harder. "But you can't stay here. Not forever." And if she tried, then she would quickly come to realise that there were worse things in life than death.

"I'm dead, aren't I?"

No reaction was ever identical. Some got angry. Some buried their head in the ground as they stood in a hall made of their own denial. None of them were easy.

"Yes," I said simply. At eighteen years old, Victoria Chase's life had come to an end.

And rather than bright lights and pearly gates, I was what waited for her on the other side.

Tears began to fall, slow and steady down the slope of her cheeks, hitting the ground below with a sharp hiss as they dissolved- small wisps of steam emitting from where they had landed. She nodded. Smiled a sad, broken smile, her eyes lost beneath the waves of her own emotion.

She took my hand. Small and delicate- it felt as brittle as glass as my fingers closed around it. "I'm scared."

Pulling her close- her body doll-like against my massive frame- my hold released and my hands reached up, cupping her face between them. She searched my face, her head tilted up to meet my eyes. The fear that ate away at her remained and I knew that she hadn't found the reassurance she was looking for.

"This isn't the end, Victoria Chase," I whispered, feeling her hold- her will- to remain crumble and implode. "Death isn't the end. It's just the beginning. Close your eyes. Your fate awaits. "

"Will it hurt?"

"No," I lied. "It will be just like falling asleep."

"Will I see my mom again?" Her voice broke, collapsing beneath the strain of her emotion. "My brother?"

"I hope so," I said softly. The truth was, I had no idea. What happened to them after I sent them across had little to do with me. Judging and deciding their fate was not in my job description. I was just a glorified postman, delivering the souls to the correct person after I reaped them. "Just close your eyes. Everything will be fine."

Her eyes closed. What little grasp she still held to life vanished as she came to accept her fate.

Her body stiffened, freezing upon her last breath before slowly dissolving. Her false form crumbled to the ground like loose sand, falling among the specks of a billion others.

Between my palms, a tiny golden light- smaller than a firefly-rested. Victoria Chase, her life, her past, folded away into a tiny slither of soul.

Reaching into the pocket of my suit jacket, my hands closed around the thin coil of red thread. A soft stretch of string that resembled knitting wool. Muttering a few soft-spoken words, a slice broke free, a bright flash of light forming between the two ends as they severed. I put away the extra, leaving myself with only the small segment that had been cut free.

I tied it around the soul, fingers moving with an ease that had become natural to me, before I closed my hands around it, a burst of power sending it to the world that was waiting beyond. Towards the judge of her fate.

The in-between held nothing to be desired. A dessert of the fallen. A grey lined sky. Air that burned and drove those who breathed it too long towards the edge of madness.

It was a place of the waiting.

A place where souls lingered.

And she had been the last one.

She filled my quota for the month- the last soul I needed before I could take what I thought of as a well deserved break.

Casting one last look at the world around me, grimacing at the bland scenery, I opened the gateway between worlds.

It had been a long week and I needed a drink.

With a heavy sigh, I stepped through.