When Julie opened her eyes and sat up to move, she did so as a spirit. She felt as if she had woken up from a nightmare. The world around her now felt more crisp and real than the material world she’d died in, but it was still a place of aether. In the spirit realm, there are more colors and more dimensions. Julie sat and stared at it all, drinking it in.

From some strange direction, a figure made of haze and mist moved towards her.

Julie held out her hand.

The figure gently took it, lifting her.

She laughed, and the sound of it danced in the air. “Reaper.”

The Reaper felt familiar to Julie, and his hand was warm. “Have we met before?”

Reaper eyed her from the hood of his black robes. “We have.” His voice was deep, soft, and gentle.

She grinned. “Then, I’m happy to see you again.”

Julie meant it.

Although everything around her was an unfathomable unknown, the Reaper had to be a friend. He radiated it.

They moved together, the Reaper leading. Bits of spiritual fluff and cloudy mist drifted around them.

Julie did not think about controlling the Reaper or using him. She did not think about kissing him or owning him.

Instead, serenity. Calm. Satisfaction. She bathed in it and closed her eyes. It was even better that way. She bobbed alongside the Reaper like a buoy in the ocean, tethered by her hand in his. She was light, floating in a sea of color and comfortable sensations. Julie had never felt ‘peace’ before. It was new.

The sound of water bubbled up from a distance. It was a beautiful sound. Julie opened her eyes, and all around her were long, thin boats on an enormous river. Spirits of all kinds milled about, murmuring. They did not look at her but focused their attention on the far side of the river.

The Reaper strode past them.

Julie looked into his dark hood, puzzled. “Reaper, am I not crossing the river?”

He sighed and shook his head. “How could you?”

Julie was, at first, confused by his question. Then, upon some reflection, she nodded. “I get it.”

The Reaper shook his hood in soft slow motion. The movement itself radiated fractals around them. “Do you?”

The question rumbled into waves of mist.

“I’m going to hell.” She sighed, disappointed. “That tracks.” She danced her feet over the soft spectral ground. It tickled the underside of her feet as she floated with the Reaper.

The Reaper frowned behind his hood. “You will be…,” he paused, “…returning to a sort of hell.” His deep slow voice enveloped her. “As you always do.”

Julie allowed his words to settle into her heart. The feelings of serenity remained. “Ha, Reaper. You must be drugging me. I don’t even feel scared.”

To this, the Reaper said nothing. Her soft hand in his, he continued coaxing her soul along on the predestined path.

The sound of water fell away, as did the low sound of the other spirits.

Ori woke up from her death in excruciating pain. It was all-encompassing, an ache and burn unlike anything physical.

Flames seemed to rip and bite her from every direction, and she howled from the bottom of her chest. It was a gruff sound that she had never made before. She felt torn to shreds, the edges of her soul waving in the aether like a tattered rag. She was a rotting spirit, but the rot was cosmic and forever. Stabbing loneliness punctured it all.

The hideous noises she made twitched outward into the air. The aether reacted, changing the landscape into uncomfortable shapes.

A Reaper came to her then and enveloped her in an embrace.

“Shhh,” said the Reaper in a kind, low voice. It was a woman, and she was holding Ori’s trembling, shrieking spirit with one robed arm.

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The other she used to gather smokey aether, as one would collect cotton candy. When her arm was thick with it, she flicked her wrist and twirled her arm. This wove the fluffy aether into a long blanket.

With the practice of thousands of years, the Reaper wrapped Ori in it in a matter of seconds. The result was a wrap carrier usually used for young babies. Ori’s tiny, screeching soul quieted and leaned against the Reaper's black robes. The pain subsided.

Now that the pain was gone, Ori could remember who she was, and what had happened. Was this death? This hellish pain, and strange hooded figure? There were too many thoughts to think. Why was every aspect of existence so horrid? What had she done that was so wrong? Ori began to cry again. This is why Julie had left her, Ori was sure of it.

The Reaper held Ori’s little body, bound by the wrap, and swayed back and forth. The sound of her soft shhhhh and the movement of her body swirled a bright aether around her. Ori cried and cried.

Julie heard sobbing before she saw the female Reaper and the baby. The sobs were loud and endless.

As Julie and her Reaper moved closer, Julie felt the baby’s presence blow through her like a cold humid wind.

Ori’s little soul glowed with so much pain that Julie squeezed her Reaper’s hand and pulled away. “What is that?” she whispered. “Is that really a baby?”

The male Reaper watched her reaction in silence.

Julie looked up into his hood for reassurance. When he did not move nor speak, she settled her feet onto the ground. She no longer floated.

The rocking of the female Reaper was hypnotic, but the crying of the baby was discomforting.

The male Reaper stopped moving. He stood next to Julie, impassive. His large hand held hers.

Julie had a strange thought. She glanced at her Reaper with a wry smile. “If I could cry like that, maybe you wouldn’t have to keep sending me to hell.”

Slowly, like the buildup of an earthquake, the male Reaper looked deep into Julie's spirit. He opened his mouth to speak. “You have always cried like this.”

The words shattered into Julie’s ears.

“There has never once been a time,” he wavered with emotion, “that you have not cried like this.”

His words boomed into existence like a slap in the face, and Julie felt them strike her. She flinched away. Unfamiliar feelings, like dread, and yearning, drenched her in a horrible cold.

Julie felt the impossibility of her existence: a ripped piece of paper where a full soul should have been. The implications of this made her feel nauseous and she dry heaved with overwhelm.

If her spirit was a body, then Julie was only a limb or a torso. The torn bits of her spirit materialized once she realized this truth. The edges of her immaterial body turned to mist.

What was she doing in this place? Where was the rest of her soul?

Julie no longer had lungs, but she couldn’t breathe. Even drowning in her own blood had not felt this way. She floundered. The reaper's firm grip on her spirit was the only sensation keeping her tethered to sanity.

The baby cried and cried and Julie felt the tears prick her deep in her heart.

Julie roared in defiance, and her mind snapped back in full. She dug her nails and teeth into this current presence of mind.

The male Reaper had brought her closer to the baby. He was holding Julie’s shoulders with firm hands as if to keep her from running away.

Julie looked down at the tattered little spirit of Ori.

Ori, too, looked up at the hazy spirit of Julie.

The two spirits met eyes, and the aether exploded in light. Julie’s long black hair blew behind her, but she couldn’t close her eyes to the wind. She stared into Ori’s big blue eyes, stunned.

Ori’s eyes widened in recognition. The woven aether wrap fell away, and Ori, made of brilliant light, grew again into a young woman of twenty-three. “Julie,” she cried. “Julie! Julie!”

Ori reached her hands out, and Julie grasped them.

For the first time in many years, tears fell from Julie’s eyes. A rush of feeling fell into the black hole inside of her chest. She almost fell to her knees, dizzy with emotion. Instead, she nuzzled Ori’s cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she choked, “I’m sorry, baby Ori.”

In return, Ori cradled Julie’s face in her hands.

Their relationship had always been one of opposites. Still, the spirits of Julie and Ori together made one soul. They should have never parted.

A soul cut in half cannot exist for too long. This, all Reapers knew.

The female Reaper readjusted the hood of her black robes and caught the eye of the male Reaper.

He nodded.

She placed her hands with care on each spirit’s shoulders. “…have you remembered?”

Julie clutched Ori to her, sick with regret. It had been her fault: Ripping their soul into pieces so she could escape. Leaving baby Ori to fend for herself. Sneaking through the aether to reincarnate into her own body. It had all been Julie. All of it.

Now that Julie saw Ori, and could hold her in her arms, she realized how disgusting her decision to rip their soul in two had truly been.

Ori dug her wet face into the crook of Julie’s neck. “It was all my fault, Julie. I’m so weak. I’m so worthless.” She gripped Julie’s spirit with all her strength. “I didn’t deserve to have you protect me.”

Enraged, Julie made a wounded sound into Ori’s shoulder. “Shut up, baby Ori. None of that is true.”

“It is true!”

“No, it isn’t” Julie looked over at Ori’s Reaper. “Can you…glue us back together? So that we can be one person again?”

Ori could not contain her joy. With her head in Julie’s neck, she felt no pain and no fear. She felt forgiven. She wanted her other half back. She had missed her.

The female Reaper beamed, in secret, behind her hood. “Now that everyone is here, of course you can reunite as one.”

The male Reaper placed a large hand on the female Reaper’s shoulder. “Wait a moment.”

The male Reaper sighed, then wiped Julie’s tears away with a robed hand. He did the same for Ori, but his kindness made Ori cry harder. He placed both of his warm hands on the crown of their heads. “It has been a long time since the spirits of Julie and Ori were in one body, so at first, it will be confusing.”

“Okay.” Julie nodded, resolute.

The male Reaper frowned. “I told you before…that I will be returning you to hell.”

Julie nodded again, her eyes sharp. No matter what happened, nothing could be worse than being apart.

Ori fidgeted. “What does that mean? Going back to hell?”

—-

They opened their eyes. Baby Ori gasped in horror inside of their head. Julie, looking through the eyes of their body, glared at the ceiling above them.

There was a double knock on the door. “Lady Ori? Shall I come in?”

Inside of their mind, Ori screamed. “No!! This can’t―I can’t―!!”

They stood inside the body, although where they were was hard to put into words. It was a place where consciousness lives. Julie’s spirit stood just behind the body’s eyes. Ori’s spirit stood a bit behind her, to the left.

Julie’s spirit pulled baby Ori into a firm hug, squishing her big cheeks against her chest. “It’s okay, baby Ori.” Julie began to smirk, then to chuckle, and then to laugh.

Her laugh erupted out of their mind’s eye and escaped through their body. The body of Lady Ori was cackling so heartily and so loudly, that the maid outside of the door startled.

Julie told Ori, “I’m serious. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”

Julie gave Ori’s head a pat filled with affection, sat the body up, and looked at the door.

“Come in!” Lady Ori ordered.