CHAPTER 3

-Purity-

Most deaths are collected by my employed Reapers and delivered to my personal office in limbo. However, I show up personally to reap and resurrect Souls when there’s been a mass slaughter of some kind. For one, I’m always curious to find out the gossip. What happened? Who started it? But most importantly, a lot of Souls involved in these large casualties are Souls who haven’t completely fulfilled their lives. In other words, these Souls go past judgment and immediately get resurrected. So, I jump the gun and show up to do the dirty work myself.

When I arrived at the site of the train wreck, I could see the ripped remains of many beings, both human and animal alike. I haven’t quite figured out the art of transforming an animal’s Soul yet, so they just procreate as a means of population growth. The first animal I tried to transform went mind-blowingly wrong. I realized my mistake was handling the Soul like a human one. Needless to say, I created a beast—The Beast. I created Cerberus—Hades’ personal hell hound. I tried many times after that with different techniques to resurrect animals, and time and time again I failed, only growing Hades’ mass army of hell monsters. So, at this point, I just send their Souls directly to The Underworld. Don’t look at me that way. I’m NOT a bad person. I love animals! I really hope I can one day learn to rebirth their Souls. At least in Hell, Hades can’t transform them into a beast. Every time I try to help them they just turn into a bloody colossal!

As I walked around the train wreck, I began by releasing the Souls of the animals. I wanted to save the humans for last because they were the most fun! I actually got to transform their Souls and give them another chance at life. After I got through the last animal, the parrot, I started my journey around to the humans. First was Jim. I resurrected his Soul twice now and today will be the third. In his first life he raped a lot of women. Oddly enough, in his second life, he raped a lot of men—or rather young boys. As I transformed his Soul, I made sure to put in the temptations of rape for not only women, but men. He had to be given a fair chance! I moved on to two new Souls and one older Soul until I got to Nadine.

Immediately upon approaching Nadine, I felt something strong radiating off her body. Every Soul emits a power that I can feel when nearby, but this power felt stronger. Cautiously, I bent down and placed my hand on her chest. Before I could retract her Soul, I instantly jerked my hand away. Her chest was hot. Get your mind out the gutter–temperature hot. Scalding to be accurate. I’ve never been one to feel hot or cold before and always wondered what it felt like… now I knew—and wanted to forget.

With intense curiosity I bent down and placed my hand on her chest once more. Again—it was scorching. I resorted to my other method of receiving a Soul—through the backend. Her literal back… not backend. I flipped her on her side cautiously trying not to touch her chest. I hesitantly placed my hand in the middle of her back in between her shoulder blades. It was warm but tolerable. I slowly inserted my hand into her chest and retracted her Soul. I played ‘hot potato’ with it for a few seconds before my hands got used to its temperature. Souls have always been a neutral temperature to me. Sometimes when they become a lost Soul they almost feel cold—but in my many decades of being Death, a Soul has never been hot.

Once I got used to the temperature of the Soul, I started to flip through her memories. I was trying to find a memory that would explain her Soul’s immense power. Zilch. Nada. None. She was a normal kid. Her Soul also had no smell. A Soul normally emits a smell depicting the person’s characteristics—however, this Soul, was odorless. After about 30 minutes of me just staring into her Soul, I began to transform it—or rather, try to transform it. Every time I tried to manipulate its structure it would recoil back like a rubber band being released from tension. I tried for the next 10 minutes to alter it but it wouldn’t budge. Her Soul was…pure. I’ve never in my lifetime encountered a pure Soul. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve grasped the Soul of a good person. In fact, great people. But never a pure Soul. I didn’t even know a pure Soul existed till this day.

So I did something I’ve never done before. I placed the powerful Soul back into the body of Nadine. Immediately her body caught fire. Not regular orange fire, but a purple/blue fire. It was magnificent. Normally when I place a Soul back into its host body, it disappears with a white cloud and reappears elsewhere as a newborn ready to live life again. But this was different. She lifted into the air consumed by flame and then disappeared—leaving no trace of existence.

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My pager ‘dinged.’ My pager is linked to human life. It’s literally my real-time update to the births, resurrections, and deaths of the universe. Whenever I resurrect a Soul, I get a notification as to where and who the Soul as reappeared as. This time it was Nadine’s notification. However, instead of it notifying me of the Souls new human name, it merely just called her Nadine. Curious. Her new location was Europe. This was the first real excitement in my life in a long time. The last time I got nearly this excited was when Zeus gave his daughter, Persephone, to Hades. It was like real-time reality TV in my backyard! So much drama! The greatest soap opera of the decade…

I decided a short visit wouldn’t hurt. The only other plans I had left for that day was to catch up on the drama between ‘Seph and Hades as they fight over who gets to play ‘fetch the prisoner’ with Cerberus on the weekends.

I arrived in Europe at Nadine’s supposed new home and walked through the front door (I literally walked through the door. I’m Death. Remember) to see a woman and her husband bent over a crib silently ‘cooing’ at a squirming baby. As I walked closer to the crib, I could feel the same immense power radiating off the baby as it did Nadine. I realized this must be Nadine’s new form. As I got a closer look…I recognized that baby face from the Soul’s memories. It wasn’t just Nadine’s Soul that was in this baby, but it was Nadine…

As I moved closer I could see the same features she had in her previous life. Same eyes, nose, chin… “Oh hello. Yes. You’re so cute! Whose mammas pretty girl? Huh? Whose mammas pretty girl? Nadine is. Yes, Nadine is,” Nadine’s mom cooed at the smiling baby. She even had the same name.

Same Soul, same name, same body. This was the first time a Soul has ever resurrected as the same human. I could feel it. I could feel the balance start to shift. I wasn’t the only one who felt this change. A pure Soul resurrected with no deviations was bound to make a mark. A mark that was about to change everything.

Life After Death