Author's Note: Second day, second chapter. Surprised? Yeah, I know. It's just that I had this written out already. I just had to type it up and upload it. Told you they'd be longer. The next one is going to be super super super long, 'cause I've got a bunch more written out right now, too. Not just this chapter. Also, I'm in French class, so I just felt like I had to include something French. As always, hope you enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Mark or Yami, or anything else that I may reference in this story.

Mark's eyes opened on darkness. The memory of what had just happened slapped him awake. Hurriedly, he stood up and looked around. A dense gray fog was all he could see of his surroundings. Vague thoughts wandered through his mind. Where am I? The crash... And where's Aaron?

"Worrying won't help anything." A quiet voice with a French lilt to it snapped him back to the present. A girl emerged from the mist obscuring their surroundings. She looked to be about twelve or thirteen. She wore a long-sleeved black shirt and matching pants, along with the same color of shoes. A pale blue strip of cloth was tied around her waist. Her brown hair was tied back in a bun, and her eyes shone with both wisdom and innocence. Her pale form seemed strangely blurry and smudged, as though Mark saw her through a window on a rainy day. She held a knife in her right hand.

Mark blinked with confusion. "Who are you?"

"Can't you tell?"

"No..." he replied, frowning.

"Hmm..." she frowned too. "Well, what do I look like?"

Thinking that this was a very odd little girl indeed, he gave a quick description of her features.

She nodded, as if he had confirmed something for her. "I see... not quite..."

"Not quite what?"

You're not quite dead."

"What?"

"Is that the only word you know?" she asked irritably. "Yes, you're almost dead, but not quite. Here, look..." She waved her knife rather like a magician would wave his wand, and the fog parted before them.

A queer sight greeted his eyes. He saw himself lying in the hospital, unconscious, with a heart monitor plugged in and IVs sticking out of his hand. "That's you. Your body, I mean. Your spirit, obviously..." she nodded to him.

"So... I'm not really here?" He asked, trying to wrap his head around this turn of events.

"Well, of course you are! Just not in your corporeal form." She sighed. "I suppose I'll take you to It. It might know what to do with you."

"What are you talking about?"

That should be a who, not a what. It is the lead Retriever-you might think to call It Death. It doesn't like that, though. Death is not a being, death is an event. A happening. A result. No one, living or dead, knows what It is or what it looks like. I suggest you don't ask." With that, she whirled around and started to walk away. Mark hurried to catch up, afraid of being left alone in this shapeless place.

"Hey, what is this place, anyway?"

"The place between life and afterlife. Limbo. The Between. Call it what you will. All spirits arrive here upon death- or near-death, in some cases. In life you may have wandered here at night, in your sleep."

"What's a Retriever?"

One who brings the souls of the deceased to the afterlife. It takes much studying and training to become one. Then again, some learn faster than others. And time... it doesn't work same way here as in the world of the living. It might seem like hours and be only seconds, or years may pass by in the span of a minute. It takes focus to maintain your sense of time, else you lose yourself and wander for eternity."

"Who are you?"

"Je m'appelle Nathalie. I lived in Vezelay. (A.N. I don't know how to accent letters with this computer, but the first e has an accent aigu above it.) I died in the French Revolution. As I think you can guess, I am a Retriever."

"I had a friend with me..." Mark glanced around, as if expecting him to suddenly emerge from the mist.

"Ah, yes. Aaron, was his name?" Mark nodded. She did not speak for a while. He was starting to think she simply would not answer. When she did, her words were careful, measured, as if she weighed every one. "I don't know what's happened to him, and I don't know where he is. And I must ask you not to go looking for him, for your own peace of mind. There are...things in this realm, things that none who yet live should see. I wouldn't want you to run into them by accident. You must tread carefully now, for while none can harm a spirit, the afterlife is still a very dangerous place."