As Grim, Tim, and Morty left the holding area, Tim couldn’t help but glance back at the sea of confused souls. “What happens to them?”

Grim shrugged. “They’ll be fine. Once the system reboots, they’ll get sorted. Hopefully.”

Tim frowned. “Hopefully?”

Grim sighed. “Best not to think too much about it, Tim.”

They continued down another series of winding corridors, passing through various departments—each one more confusing and oddly specific than the last. Tim spotted signs for "Spontaneous Combustion Management," "Ghost Relations," and the particularly unsettling "Temporal Displacement and You."

“So how long have you been doing this job, Grim?” Tim asked after a while, hoping to distract himself from the overwhelming strangeness of the underworld.

Grim didn’t look at him as he answered. “Too long.”

“That’s not very specific,” Tim said.

Grim shrugged. “I stopped counting after the first millennium. It all starts to blend together after a few centuries.”

Tim nodded, trying to imagine what it must be like to have a job that never ends—literally. He had always thought eternity would be peaceful, maybe even relaxing, but from the looks of things, it seemed more like an eternal headache.

“You ever thought about... quitting?” Tim asked, half-joking.

Grim snorted. “You don’t quit being Death, Tim. Trust me, I’ve tried. It’s not like I asked for this job. It was... assigned to me.”

“Assigned?” Tim raised an eyebrow. “By who?”

Grim didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be lost in thought for a moment before he finally said, “Let’s just say the Big Guy upstairs has a sense of humor.”

Tim decided not to push further. The last thing he wanted to do was offend the guy responsible for his soul—wherever it was.

They reached the Archives at last, the massive iron doors looming before them like the entrance to some ancient crypt. Tim couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread as Grim pushed the doors open, revealing the vast, dark cavern inside.

“Stick close,” Grim said, stepping into the dimly lit space. “The Archives are tricky. It’s easy to get lost in here.”

Tim and Morty followed cautiously, their footsteps echoing eerily in the silence. The shelves stretched on for what seemed like miles, each one packed with dusty old records, ledgers, and scrolls. The air was thick with dust and the faint smell of decay, and Tim’s skin—or what was left of it—crawled with the unsettling feeling that they weren’t entirely alone.

“So... what exactly are we looking for?” Tim asked, his voice a little shaky.

“Your soul’s records,” Grim said, scanning the shelves with a practiced eye. “There’s a log for every soul ever reaped. If your soul is slipping through the cracks, there should be a clue here somewhere.”

Tim watched as Grim began pulling out various ledgers, flipping through them with surprising speed. Morty, meanwhile, stood nervously by, occasionally glancing over his shoulder as if expecting something to jump out at him.

“Shouldn’t there be, like, a computer system for this?” Tim asked. “I mean, we’re in the afterlife, right? You’d think things would be more... modern.”

Grim snorted. “We tried that. Didn’t work. The Archives are too old for digital systems. The files don’t translate well. Too much metaphysical interference.”

Tim sighed, rubbing his temples. “Of course.”

As Grim continued his search, Tim found himself wandering slightly away from the group, his curiosity getting the better of him. He glanced at some of the shelves, reading the names on the scrolls and ledgers. Most were too faded to make out, but every now and then, a name would stand out: "Caesar, Julius," "Tesla, Nikola," and—much to Tim’s surprise—"Presley, Elvis."

“Elvis?” Tim muttered to himself, glancing at the scroll. “Huh. I always thought he was still alive somewhere.”

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Before he could ponder the implications of that, there was a sudden rustling sound from one of the nearby shelves. Tim froze, his heart—or whatever was left of it—pounding in his chest.

“Uh, Grim?” he called out nervously. “Is there... something else in here with us?”

Grim didn’t look up from his search. “Probably. The Archives have a tendency to... attract things.”

Tim swallowed hard. “Things?”

“Yeah, things. Don’t worry about it.”

Tim didn’t find that particularly reassuring, but before he could ask more questions, there was a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. He turned sharply, only to come face to face with a... blob. A large, gelatinous blob, oozing its way across the floor with a low, gurgling sound.

“Grim!” Tim shouted, backing away from the thing. “There’s... there’s a blob!”

Grim glanced up, saw the blob, and groaned. “Oh, great. It’s one of the Archives’ custodians.”

“Custodians?!” Tim yelped, still backing away as the blob made a beeline for him. “That thing’s going to clean me up?”

Grim rolled his eyes. “It’s not going to hurt you, Tim. It just... cleans up lost souls and stray metaphysical residue.”

Tim didn’t feel any better as the blob gurgled again, its gelatinous form wobbling ominously. “I don’t want to know what ‘metaphysical residue’ is, do I?”

“Nope,” Grim said, returning to his search. “Now stop distracting me.”

Tim watched in horror as the blob slithered away, leaving behind a trail of goo, and made a mental note to stay far, far away from any future custodians.

After what felt like hours of searching, Grim finally pulled a dusty, leather-bound ledger from one of the shelves and flipped it open. “Here we go,” he muttered. “Henderson, Timothy.”

Tim rushed over, peering over Grim’s shoulder as he scanned the pages. “So... what does it say?”

Grim frowned, his finger tracing the faded text. “It says your soul was reaped... and then there was a glitch in the system. Looks like it got flagged as an unauthorized reap, but instead of being processed, it was sent to... huh.”

“Huh?” Tim repeated nervously. “What does ‘huh’ mean?”

Grim scratched his skull. “It means your soul got sent to the wrong department. It’s currently in... the Department of Lost Souls.”

Tim’s eyes widened. “Lost souls?! You’re telling me I’ve been misplaced in the afterlife?”

“Looks that way,” Grim said with a sigh, slamming the ledger shut. “We’ll have to go to Lost Souls and get this sorted out. But it’s not going to be easy. That department’s a mess.”

Tim threw his hands in the air. “Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?”

Grim nodded grimly. “Come on. We’ve got to get to Lost Souls before they decide to recycle you.”

Tim paled at the thought, but followed Grim as they left the Archives and headed for yet another chaotic department in the ever-expanding nightmare that was the underworld.

Tim wasn’t sure what was worse: being dead or finding out that his soul was lost somewhere in the most dysfunctional part of the afterlife. As he followed Grim and Morty through the labyrinthine halls of the Bureau of Souls, he began to realize that death wasn’t the peaceful eternal rest he had hoped for. If anything, it was just another form of paperwork hell—literally.

“Lost Souls, huh?” Tim muttered as they rounded another corner, passing a door labeled "Temporal Paradoxes—Authorized Personnel Only." “Sounds like a department I never wanted to be part of.”

Grim glanced at him. “Nobody does. Trust me, Tim, if there’s one place you don’t want to be, it’s in Lost Souls. That department’s a nightmare. Misfiled souls, paperwork that’s centuries old, and worst of all... the clerks.”

Tim frowned. “Clerks? You mean like, underworld bureaucrats?”

Grim shuddered. “Worse. They’re demonic bureaucrats. Souls that screwed up so badly in life that their punishment is eternal desk duty. They’re mean, they’re bored, and they love making things harder than they need to be.”

Morty nodded, his wide eyes filled with nervousness. “I had to go there once during my training. It was awful! They made me wait for three days before they even looked at my form!”

“Three days?” Tim asked, incredulous. “What did you do during all that time?”

Morty shuddered. “Mostly tried not to get eaten by the waiting room. There are... things in there. Big things.”

Tim’s stomach twisted into knots. “You’re kidding, right? You’re trying to mess with me?”

Grim shook his head. “Nope. He’s not. The Department of Lost Souls is basically where the universe dumps everything that doesn’t belong anywhere else. It’s a black hole of inefficiency and misery. We’re going to be lucky if we get in and out of there in one piece.”

Tim rubbed his forehead. “Great. I’m really starting to love this place.”

Grim chuckled darkly. “Yeah, you’ll get used to it. Or you won’t. Either way, we’ve got no choice but to go in.”

They finally arrived at a large, imposing set of double doors, flanked on either side by what looked like ancient gargoyles. Their eyes followed the trio as they approached, and Tim could have sworn one of the statues let out a low growl as they passed.

“Welcome to the Department of Lost Souls,” Grim said, his voice thick with sarcasm as he pushed open the heavy doors.

The room beyond was massive. Cavernous, really. Shelves upon shelves of disorganized files stretched up into the darkness, their contents spilling out like some kind of nightmarish filing system gone horribly wrong. Dust filled the air, illuminated by flickering lights that cast an eerie, sickly glow over everything. The place smelled faintly of mold, decay, and regret.