---
"Name?"
Elias Grey blinked.
His eyes flicked up from the clipboard that had materialized in his lap—printed with a looping watermark of a grinning skull in a tie—to the being in front of him.
A tall figure in a pinstripe suit leaned across a cracked obsidian desk. His face looked carved, not born—clean jaw, no pores, no wrinkles—yet every blink revealed an empty socket of swirling stardust where his eyes should have been.
Not creepy. Not exactly.
Just... corporate.
"I—uh…" Elias licked his lips. They felt dry, numb. "Elias Grey."
"Age at time of departure?"
"Twenty-one."
"Cause of death?"
"I… don't know?"
"Fair," the man—thing—sighed and made a note. "You fell into a sinkhole that opened beneath a bus stop. No foul play. Statistically rare. Quite cinematic, honestly."
Elias stared. "Sinkhole? I was just checking the time on my phone…"
The figure tapped its clipboard. "Time of death: 11:17:09 AM. Eastern Standard Time. Exact moment your ringtone went off: 'Eye of the Tiger.' Very motivational. Ironic."
"Hold on. Am I… am I dead?"
"Congratulations," the figure deadpanned. "Welcome to the Department of Afterlife Management. Please refrain from screaming. This office is shared."
And scream he nearly did. But his throat wouldn't obey. His body was sluggish, like moving through soup. There was no heart pounding. No sweat. No breath.
There was no breath.
"I'm not breathing," he croaked.
"You won't need to." The figure pushed a file folder toward him. It had a stamp on the front: SOUL: ELIAS GREY — INTERN ELIGIBLE.
"In fact," he continued, "your respiration was marked 'optional' upon intake."
Elias leaned back, trying not to panic. This wasn't heaven. It wasn't hell either. The lighting was fluorescent. The air smelled like lemon-scented cleaner and printer toner.
"Okay," Elias said slowly. "Assuming I am… dead… what's with the job application?"
"Ah." The figure stood and dusted off invisible lint. "Allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Division Head Mortalis-773. You may refer to me as Mr. Mort. I oversee new arrivals, temporary assignments, and intern placement."
He walked around the desk and extended a hand. Elias looked down at it.
The fingers were too long. The skin didn't ripple when the knuckles moved.
Fake. Or something better than fake. Synthetic?
Elias shook it.
No warmth. No texture. Just the sensation of pressure… and something like code whispering behind his eyes.
Mr. Mort smiled.
"You are lucky. Most souls are processed through Standard Evaluation, assigned karmic scores, then recycled via reincarnation protocols. But every so often," he paused dramatically, "we find someone… promising."
"I was a film student."
"Precisely," Mr. Mort said, voice crisp. "Which means you know how to edit."
They walked.
Or floated.
Elias wasn't sure.
One moment, he was in the obsidian office. The next, he was stepping into an endless hallway filled with identical glass cubicles. Inside, gray-tinted souls clicked keyboards and muttered into headsets, some with halos, others with horns. A paper-shredder groaned endlessly at the corner.
"Welcome to the Department," Mort said, hands behind his back. "Or 'D.A.M.,' as the interns like to call it. The joke was clever the first few thousand years."
"Wait, how many people work here?"
"Approximately 41 billion, not counting temporary manifestations."
Elias nearly tripped. "That's—"
"A fraction of what we need," Mort added. "The afterlife isn't what it used to be. Backlogs. Corruption. Bad algorithms. Which is why you're here."
"Me?"
"You're alive enough to handle the flow, but dead enough not to glitch. You're a perfect candidate."
"For what?"
Mort turned to him, eyes glimmering like black suns.
"To become an intern of death."
Elias sat at a floating desk surrounded by other confused-looking new arrivals. Some were see-through. Others looked half-glitched, like they were buffering.
A presentation played on a giant holographic screen: a smiling cartoon skull with a bowtie bounced cheerfully to theme music.
> "WELCOME TO D.A.M.!
WHERE YOUR AFTERLIFE MEETS PURPOSE!"
> "Here at the Department of Afterlife Management, we pride ourselves on balancing the eternal scales. We process over 120 million souls per Earth day! Our divisions include Reincarnation, Erasure, Judgment, Karmic Finance, and Field Reaping."
> "Interns are the backbone of the operation! You'll be sorting, tagging, and sometimes defending souls against anomalies and rogue fragments! :)"
> "Remember: One soul out of line can crash a timeline!"
> "Good luck, and welcome to D.A.M.! You're already dead, but your career is just beginning!"
Elias raised his hand.
A clipboard flew into it.
"You've been assigned to Temporary Processing Unit 1199-Beta," a robotic voice said. "Supervisor: Myra Veil."
--
First Day
Myra Veil was not what Elias expected.
She had the air of a tired office worker from a 1990s sitcom: oversized sweater, dark circles, and chewing what looked like spectral gum. Her desk had stickers that read:
"Don't Talk To Me I'm Dead"
"I Filed 900 Souls And All I Got Was This Lousy Sticker"
"Ask Me About Deletion Protocols"
"So, you're the new stiff," she said, not looking up.
"Technically, yes."
She tossed him a black tablet. It turned on the moment it touched his hand.
"That's your SoulSort™ tool. Don't lose it. If it melts, you're liable."
"M-Melts?"
"Don't ask. Just follow the templates." She pointed to a nearby wall of glowing orbs, each floating in a containment field. "Each orb is a newly deceased consciousness. You'll tag its karma, scan its life memory, and send it to either reincarnation, deletion, or holding."
"Hold on," Elias said. "I get to decide where they go?"
"No," Myra said flatly. "You get to fill out the forms. The system decides. And if you make a mistake?"
"What?"
"The soul may come back wrong."
Elias looked at the orbs. They pulsed. One flickered like it was sobbing.
This is insane.
But… it felt right.
Somewhere deep down, like an echo from before birth, something inside him whispered: You've done this before.
---
Elias stared at the tablet in his hand.
It pulsed with soft violet light, humming faintly like a living thing. The screen displayed a single blinking prompt:
> "Connect to soul orb?"
He turned to Myra. "How exactly do I connect to it?"
She was reclined in her office chair, legs up on a floating console, watching what appeared to be a rerun of Supernatural: The Bureaucratic Cut. She didn't even look up. "Just tap it. If it screams, drop it."
"Screams?!"
She waved lazily. "Kidding. Kind of."
Gulping, Elias approached one of the floating orbs. It was pale blue and pulsing faintly, like the heartbeat of a dying firefly. He held out the tablet and tapped it gently to the surface.
The orb responded instantly.
A crack of light arced between the orb and the tablet. Elias's body jolted—but not painfully. The tablet screen flickered, and then—
A life began to play out before his eyes.
Not a video. Not even a memory. It was deeper than that. It was as if he was feeling someone else's entire existence at once.
---
A woman's life.
Born to loving parents in rural India. Grew up tending to fields, then books, then hospital wards. She had no titles, no trophies, no grand destiny.
But she had moments.
The scent of jasmine in her mother's hair. The cool metal of her grandfather's ring. The sound of her husband's breath slowing as he drifted into his final sleep.
And the pain. The cancer. The quiet rage. The guilt of surviving too long or not long enough.
Elias gasped, staggering back as the link faded.
Myra raised an eyebrow. "Ah, first imprint. Rough, huh?"
"That was... real. Too real."
"They all are. Now do the tagging."
Elias stared at the SoulSort screen. It now displayed a dossier:
---
> SOUL REPORT: ID#0442-A
Total lifespan: 73.6 Earth years
Karma Score: +812 (High Positive)
Life Bias: Empathy-heavy
No major transgressions
Death Type: Natural, chronic illness
Suggested Pathway: Reincarnation Tier 2 – Human cycle
[Confirm?]
---
Elias hesitated.
It felt wrong to just… press a button.
But also right. Like closure. Like honor.
He tapped Confirm.
The orb shimmered, brightened—and vanished in a stream of golden mist, sucked into a glowing duct above the ceiling labeled "REINCARNATION PIPE A".
"That's it?" he said.
Myra nodded, still chewing. "That's it."
"…She's gone."
"Or rather, gone again," Myra said. "You'll get used to it."
He turned slowly. "How many do I have to process today?"
She pointed at the wall.
A new rack of 50 orbs had just floated in.
"Beginner quota," she said. "Fifty per shift.
Elias processed souls with trembling hands and a racing mind.
A boy who died at 8 in a flood. A soldier who regretted every bullet. A woman who scammed thousands but doted on stray cats. A monk who silently battled depression for decades.
Each one left a fingerprint on him.
He wept twice. Laughed once. He nearly passed out while tagging a soul marked "Trauma Grade: Omega." The interface warned him of psychic feedback.
Too late.
By the end of the shift, he slumped back into his desk chair—frozen, hollow, transformed.
Myra tossed him a cup of neon-blue liquid.
"What is this?" he mumbled.
"Post-shift buffer juice," she said. "Restores metaphysical clarity. Also tastes like grape."
He sipped. It did taste like grape. Somehow.
And for a moment… he felt human again.
---
💻 Welcome to the Department Chat
As Elias recovered, the tablet buzzed.
> 💬 New Notification: D.A.M. Department Chat – Interns Only
He tapped it open.
Dozens of messages flowed across the screen:
---
[SoulSurfer69]: just processed a politician soul, guy was cleaner than my browsing history. suspicious af.
[xXVoid_BoiXx]: u ever tag a soul so twisted u wanna delete urself?
[ObituaryFan]: new interns, heads up: don't link with black-glow orbs. unless you want a personal visit from IT.
[CupOfDeath]: anyone know if reapers get dental?
[O-BIT]: THIS IS A FRIENDLY REMINDER TO NOT FEED THE FORGOTTEN SOULS IN THE TRASH ZONE. THEY BITE. 😃
---
Elias blinked. "Who the hell is O-BIT?"
Myra glanced over. "Ah. That's the intern-assistance bot. Think Clippy, but with ethics violations."
As Elias tapped through the interface, he noticed something odd in the logs:
> Soul ID: #0000-VOID
Status: CLASS X — FORBIDDEN ACCESS
Tag: DELETED
Last Accessed By: Intern ID EL-G-219
He froze.
That was… his intern ID.
He hadn't touched that file. Had he?
He tapped it.
The tablet buzzed sharply and shut off.
A whisper echoed faintly in his skull:
"Do not look for what you are not ready to remember."
Elias stumbled back from his chair.
Myra looked up.
"You okay?"
He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Just… dizzy."
What the hell was that?
As the shift ended, the lights in the office dimmed. Souls were sorted. Files were backed up. Paperwork drifted off into glowing vacuum chutes.
Myra handed him a badge.
> Elias Grey – Intern Class 1
Access Level: Basic
Orientation: Completed
Mental Integrity Score: 83% (Acceptable)
"Report back tomorrow," she said. "Unless you dream of doorways. If you do, take the day off."
"Doorways?"
"You'll know."
She yawned and vanished in a blink of purple code.
Elias stood there alone, the badge still warm in his hand.
Somewhere far below, in a part of the Department he wasn't supposed to know existed…
A soul tagged #0000-VOID began to twitch.
---