Ugh. What kind of update did they make to fanfic? It's screwing up my computer. Anyone else having problems?

He was inside.

Personally, I like it when they are outside. I can look to the sky and find solace in the colors, and sometimes, I will lift the soul onto my shoulder and try to show them their name. I can always see their name in the sky. For some reason, most mortals cannot. But, at least with the ones who do not struggle as I loose their soul from the shell of a body, I keep trying. It's a kind of game I play, something to drown out the morbid monotony of my job.

It would make sense, though, that he would be inside when he died — he was diagnosed with lung cancer and for some inexplainable reason incapable of smell or taste. His skin was like old leather, except that it was leather of the unnatural white-gray variety that I have seen on women's accessories. His name was Timothy Javensen, and he was only sixty-five years old.

Many said (behind his back of course) that he looked decades older. He smoked too much for his own good.

He did not fight me. He was in one piece. His soul slid out of his still body like a drop of water from one of the many syringes they had used to administer his medicine. Compared to the screaming, thrashing souls of the death row convicts that I'd picked up a few hours earlier, he was easy work. I looked out the window and saw his name in the cerulean sky. I asked if he could too, and he shook his head. Nothing admirable, nothing amazing, nothing out of the ordinary.

No, it was a living one that caught my attention.

She threw open the door with an urgency that surprised even me, then stood frozen in the doorway as she stared — with a mixture of horror, surprise, sorrow, and disbelief in place of a single, simple emotion — at the body on the bed.

I had a feeling that I would want to watch this, so I sat down in the chair in the corner, Javensen's soul still in my arms.

The girl looked up and met my eyes.

Anger burned bright in her own.

* * * SOME FACTS TO CLEAR UP CONFUSION * * *

I cannot be seen while on the job.

The Mist takes care of that.

Even most clear-sighted mortals have trouble seeing me unless

I want to be seen.

Diane Javensen

was different.

Despite the fury in her sky blue eyes, her voice was emotionless.

"You took my grandfather," she said in a voice close to a whisper.

I studied her. She was no more than a girl, nine years old at the most, and rather small. Her hair was ringlets of gold. Though I felt no sense of pity or affection for her (I must admit that I sadly lack in the emotions department in most areas of my life), I have always been somewhat impartial towards blonds. Her aura was the color of sunset.

I replied, "I'm just doing my job."

* * * AN EXCUSE * * *

In all honesty, I hate my job.

Twenty-four-hour shifts, no vacations, whiny clients.

And not even a decent break room or a working coffee machine.

I simply do it because no one else is capable of doing so

and because

my salary is nothing to complain about.

The girl said nothing.

Then she looked at the chair I was sitting in. "Are you going to be using that?" She sounded like she was trying hard not to cry.

I stood up and moved towards the window. "No. You can have it."

She did not sit down. She kept staring at me, curiosity and sorrow and something akin to…that of the betrayed, perhaps, in those large blue orbs that seemed almost too big for her head. Then she knelt, bowed her head as if in prayer, and touched the back of her dead grandfather's hand.

As if in response, the soul in my arms reached out, as if to caress her curls for one last time.

I turned my back and melted into the shadows before he could.

I will try to update every other day. If not, every three days. If not, then whenever I feel like it.

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