Page 13 of Grim

I straighten, my spine stiffening on instinct. Even in death, some names command obedience.

Katherine’s voice drifts in again, low and shuddering, somewhere between grief and self-pity. “I just … I wasn’t finished. I had more to give.”

“They always do,” I mutter under my breath.

Aloud, I say, “Ms. Sinclair, that was my boss—”

“Your boss from the underworldtextsyou?”

“It’s timeless technology,” I deadpan. “And it’s the OtherWorld, not the underworld. I mean, it is below us, but Corporate didn’t like the optics. Now, I really must attend to this urgent matter—”

“I justdied,” she snarls, voice rising. “I’d say that’s pretty fucking urgent too!”

“To you, yes,” I reply coolly. “It’s a personal crisis. But cosmically? It’s just another Tuesday. Now listen. Your window is closing. Your soul’s still soft enough to mold, but the clock is ticking, and I’m done begging.”

With a flick of my wrist, a smooth ivory card appears between my fingers. I hold it out like an afterthought.

“This is your intake information. Present it to the clerk in the AfterLife Processing Department. They’ll assign your file and start your transition paperwork. With this card, you’ll avoid the lines and get preferred treatment. I know how important that is to you.”

She stares at it, back at me, and crosses her arms, which are already beginning to grey at the edges. “No.”

My phone buzzes again.

Big D: Now. —Big D

“Fuck,” I mutter, the word coated in venom as I lower the card. “Ms. Sinclair, this is not a negotiation. If you don’t accept this cardright now, your essence will remain tethered to this floor for eternity, not in power, not in glory. You’ll be trapped. A pale echo. An office ghost.”

“I belong here,” she declares, smug and absolute. “This ismybuilding.”

“Was,” I correct coldly. “Itwasyour building.”

But the decision’s already been made. I watch as her figure begins to unravel, her arms fading into the air. Her feet lift an inch off the floor, and her final hues of living color fades to grey. She’s chosen the static. The slow fade. The purgatory of her own ego.

Another soul lost.

“Good luck with the rest of your afterlife, Ms. Sinclair,” I say, tucking the card back into my coat pocket. “Try not to knock too many staplers off the desks. Some people here still have real work to do.”

I shake my head in frustration. Big D won’t be pleased. Then again, neither am I.

Since my untimely and particularly theatrical exit from my waking life centuries ago, I’ve spent the afterlife punching the celestial clock for the grandest bureaucracy you’ve never heard of—Death’s Door, LLC.

Not sure why he would need to limit his liability. Not like anyone can sue him. Big D’s idea.“Branding,” he called it. It was supposed to make the business of dying sound modern, efficient, and palatable to recently crossed souls, who were choking on their own fragility. People get too many trophies nowadays.

I’m the Lead Reaper of the Natural Causes Division. Fancy title. No pension, no benefits—just an eternity of peeling souls out of failing meat sacks and sending them through to AfterLife Processing with a nod and a folder full of postmortem paperwork. Before this, I served in Atrocities, followed by Overkill. Both were less than favorable departments. No rules, no order. It was constant screams and chaos. I clawed my way out of those trenches to a brief stint in Accidents to where I am now.

The deaths I handle are mostly quiet. Bedside exits. Sleep-softened farewells. Gentle handovers at the end of a long line of mortal days. I get the occasional resistant soul, but, hey, fear of the unknown and all that. I get it.

I work alone. That’s not a policy; it’s a preference. No rookie reapers bumbling into mortal bedrooms with their blades still sharp and their consciences intact. No bright-eyed interns asking me how to “ease the client’s transition.” I’m not a fucking doula. It’s death. It’s supposed to be hard.

A few associate reapers report directly to me. Or they try to anyway. I’m what you would call a hands-off boss. I also generally don’t bother learning their names because most of them don’t last long.

My tenure has paved a path to crushing boredom and ceaseless ennui. The only thing I’ve learned in my centuries of unliving? Nothing matters.

Bleak but true, to paraphrase Big D’s favorite band, Metallica.

Musical taste aside, I don’t actually despise Big D. He’s always liked me. Took a shine to me the second he assisted in my crossing. I still remember the pints of blood spilling into the cracks of the wood of my home’s floor. He stood over me like a shadow wearing a crown. Told me I had moxie as I choked on my own pride.

He gave me the job before my body cooled. Didn’t even send me to ALP. Said he could “sense something” in me.