Earth—Chicago, Present Day

Tim Henderson was having a very strange day.

One moment, he’d been sitting at his desk, minding his own business, finishing a completely mundane spreadsheet about quarterly sales figures. The next, he was... here. Wherever “here” was.

Tim blinked, looking around at his surroundings. He was standing in what appeared to be a massive, sterile white room with no windows, no doors, and no indication of how he got there. The only thing in the room, aside from him, was a single wooden bench in the center, and a flickering fluorescent light overhead that buzzed like a dying wasp.

“Hello?” Tim called out, his voice echoing in the emptiness. “Is anyone there?”

No response.

Tim frowned. The last thing he remembered was feeling a sharp pain in his chest, like someone had shoved an icicle through his heart, and then... nothing. He looked down at himself, surprised to see that he was still wearing his office clothes—a wrinkled button-up shirt, a pair of slacks that had seen better days, and his trusty old sneakers. No blood. No sign of injury. In fact, he felt completely fine.

“Okay, Tim,” he said to himself, running a hand through his thinning hair. “This is weird, but let’s not panic. Maybe you’re dreaming. Or maybe...”

Tim froze as a sudden, horrifying thought occurred to him.

“Oh, crap,” he whispered, his eyes widening. “Am I dead?”

Before he could fully process that terrifying possibility, there was a sudden sound—like a loud pop—and a figure appeared in the middle of the room.

Tim jumped back, startled. The figure was tall, skeletal, and wearing what could only be described as the most stereotypical Grim Reaper outfit imaginable: a black cloak, a hood that obscured his face, and, of course, a massive, gleaming scythe.

Tim stared at the Reaper for a long moment, then let out a breath of relief.

“Oh, thank God,” Tim said, clutching his chest. “For a second there, I thought I was really dead. But if you’re here, then this has to be some kind of joke, right?”

The Reaper sighed, his voice echoing with the weight of infinite exasperation. “I wish.”

Tim’s smile faltered. “Wait. What?”

The Reaper pointed at him with a bony finger. “Tim Henderson, right?”

“Uh... yeah?”

“Well,” the Reaper said with a resigned shrug, “I hate to break it to you, but... yeah. You’re dead.”

Tim stared at the Reaper in stunned silence, his mind racing to process what had just been said. Dead? Him? No. That couldn't be right. There had to be some kind of mistake.

He laughed awkwardly. "Okay, okay, I see what’s going on here. I must be on one of those hidden camera shows, right? You know, they prank people by making them think they’re dead, and then someone jumps out and tells me I’ve won a year’s supply of pizza or something? You’re not even a real Grim Reaper. This is, like, a Halloween costume, right?”

The Reaper didn’t move, except to let out another long, soul-deep sigh.

“No, Tim,” he said, his voice flat. “There are no cameras. No pizza. You are dead. And I—unfortunately—am the real Grim Reaper.”

Tim blinked, his nervous laugh fading into silence. His brain struggled to comprehend the absurdity of the situation. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.

“Dead?” he whispered, the word tasting foreign and strange in his mouth.

“Dead,” the Reaper confirmed. “As in, heart stopped, lights out, no more sales meetings for you. Congratulations.”

Tim stood there, his mouth opening and closing like a fish as he searched for the right words. “But... how? I was fine! I was at my desk, working on that stupid quarterly report. I didn’t feel sick or anything! One minute, I’m typing, and the next... I’m here. And now you’re telling me I’m dead?”

The Reaper crossed his arms, his bony fingers tapping against his skeletal forearm. “Yup. That’s usually how it goes. One minute you’re alive, the next minute you’re in a white room having an existential crisis.”

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Tim felt his knees wobble, and he collapsed onto the wooden bench, his head in his hands. This couldn’t be happening. This had to be some kind of mistake. There was no way he was just... dead. Not Tim Henderson. He was too ordinary for something like this to happen. He hadn’t done anything extraordinary, good or bad. He was just Tim—a guy who paid his taxes, tried not to be late to work, and lived for weekend takeout and Netflix.

“This can’t be happening,” Tim muttered to himself, gripping his hair. “I can’t be dead. I wasn’t ready for this.”

“Yeah, well,” the Reaper said, stepping closer. “Death doesn’t really care if you’re ready, Tim. It happens when it happens.”

Tim looked up at the Reaper, suddenly filled with a desperate need for answers. “But why? Why now? I mean, I’m only forty-two! I haven’t even had time to screw up my midlife crisis properly yet! What happened to me?”

The Reaper hesitated, his fingers tapping faster against his arm, as if weighing whether or not to tell Tim the truth.

“You, uh... you weren’t supposed to die, actually,” the Reaper said awkwardly. “You were kind of... reaped by mistake.”

Tim blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

The Reaper shuffled his feet, looking everywhere but at Tim. “Yeah, there was a bit of a mix-up. A newbie Reaper got the wrong file, and, well... you got reaped when you weren’t supposed to. You’ve still got, like, fifty years left, technically.”

Tim’s mouth fell open. “I was reaped by mistake? I still have fifty years left? You’re telling me I wasn’t supposed to die, but now I’m here because of some intern with a scythe?!”

The Reaper winced at Tim’s rising volume. “Uh... yeah. Pretty much.”

Tim stared at him in disbelief. Of all the ways he could have died—an accident, old age, a freak gardening incident—he was killed by a clerical error?

“This is... this is insane,” Tim said, standing up and pacing the small room. “I can’t be dead! I’ve got a job! I’ve got bills! I just renewed my gym membership for crying out loud!”

The Reaper watched him with a look of growing discomfort. “Yeah, I, uh, I get that this is a lot to take in, but trust me, freaking out won’t help. You’re dead, and we need to figure out how to get you... well, not dead again.”

Tim stopped pacing and stared at him, wide-eyed. “You can bring me back?”

The Reaper nodded. “I think so. I just need to find your soul and put it back in the right place. But, uh, there’s a bit of a catch.”

“Of course there is,” Tim said, throwing his hands in the air. “There’s always a catch.”

“Well, you see,” the Reaper said, scratching his hooded head, “your soul is... missing.”

Tim’s eye twitched. “Missing?”

“Yup. Slipped through the cracks. Not in the system anymore. Which means it could be anywhere, really. The afterlife, the mortal plane, limbo, maybe even a cat. We, uh, lose souls every now and then. Bureaucracy, you know?”

Tim’s face paled even further. “A cat?”

The Reaper waved a hand. “I’m sure it’s fine. Probably. But the point is, I need to find it before things get even more out of whack. If we don’t put your soul back where it belongs, well, time starts to unravel, reality destabilizes, and things generally go to Hell. Literally.”

Tim sat back down on the bench, burying his face in his hands. “This is a nightmare.”

The Reaper gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder, though the gesture was somewhat undercut by the fact that his hand was just a skeletal appendage. “Look, Tim. I’m really sorry about all this. I didn’t mean for you to get caught up in a paperwork snafu, but I’m going to fix it, okay? I promise.”

Tim looked up, glaring at the Reaper. “How do I know you’re not just some incompetent death admin who’s going to screw up my life—well, my afterlife—even more?”

The Reaper straightened, looking as dignified as one could with a job description that included “collect souls and fill out forms.” “Because I’m Grim,” he said, with as much gravitas as he could muster. “I’ve been doing this job for millennia. I may be stuck in a dead-end job, but I do it well.”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “You just admitted your system loses souls on a regular basis.”

Grim deflated a little. “Okay, yes, fine, the system sucks, but that’s not my fault. I didn’t design it. But I’m good at the part where I get the souls back to where they’re supposed to be. Usually. And I promise, I’ll get you back to the land of the living in no time.”

Tim crossed his arms, clearly not convinced. “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Just sit here and wait?”

Grim glanced around the room, as if noticing for the first time how mind-numbingly boring it was. “Actually... yeah. Pretty much.”

Tim stared at him, his face a mix of horror and disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

Grim shrugged. “Well, I could take you with me. But you’d probably just get in the way, and it’s not like you can do anything useful without a body. Plus, there’s the whole... existential horror of seeing the inner workings of the afterlife. That tends to break mortals pretty quickly.”

Tim stood up again, his frustration mounting. “I’m not just going to sit here in this weird limbo-room while you go gallivanting off to find my soul! I need answers! I need... closure! Or—or something! You can’t just expect me to be okay with this!”

Grim sighed, feeling the weight of Tim’s panic starting to seep into his own growing sense of responsibility. This was supposed to be a simple fix. Find the missing soul, put it back in the mortal plane, avoid Karen’s wrath. But now he had a panicked, misplaced human on his hands, and things were spiraling out of control faster than a soul through limbo.

“All right, all right,” Grim said, raising his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You can come with me. But if you slow me down or get us both caught in the Bureau of Souls and Time, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Tim hesitated for a moment, then nodded. “Fine. But you better not leave me behind, Grim.”

Grim cracked his bony knuckles and summoned a portal with a wave of his scythe. A swirling, shadowy vortex opened up in the middle of the room, crackling with dark energy. “Buckle up, Tim. We’re going to the underworld.”

Tim gulped, staring at the swirling portal of doom. “Do I need, like, a seatbelt or something?”

“Nope,” Grim said cheerfully, stepping through the portal. “Just try not to scream.”