I remember the sun was out.
That big ball of fire, shining brightly over my head. Its uncomfortably hot, summer light searing at my burnt skin. I was like... a chicken. A roasted chicken over the fire, or rather- beneath it, burning below the immense and intense heat. my eyes gazing helplessly into the cloudless afternoon sky. A layer of coarse sand for the breading, a thick scent of rotting rat meat and metal... and a generous garnish of kosher salt.
All of this came in an instant, a condensed few moments when I woke up, when I came to consciousness. I didn't understand what caused my sleep to begin with, but none of it could ever explain what brought me to the middle of so many people around me. All of them sharing my condition... collapsed against the sand as well, their own bodies a crisp gold that made a dinner fit for a giant.
... and... and it dawned on me, in that moment, that I was the one who survived. The only one out of everybody that lived. None were awake, except me.
And because I didn't know this in time, because I didn't put two and two together quickly enough... that changed.
One second after, after I- after I foolishly sat up, I then... I just... I think I died in that moment, somehow. The feeling is unforgettable, yet so indiscernible. A fate unknown to my own mind, a fate that maybe a mortal could not understand, a fate that sends chills down my spine every time I think about it.
That...
That brings me to here, really... after...
"... after I... after- after I-" repeats and stutters a sand-covered ghost, stuttering in place. Hand holding the bicep of his arm, on the verge of tears after that. "I- I don't know how to word it, it's... I feel so... I'm- I'm sorry..."
"... it's perfectly okay... take your time. Not going anywhere yet..." Yvette passively says, her gothic notebook out as she's writing all of this down. Scribbling whatever part of this ghost's testimony she could with her feather pen.
The ghost gulps for a moment... eyes squinting, bits of sand crumbling from it as it looked around, as it tried desperately to... "N-No, it... it's too painful, I... it... I'm not ready to- to face it yet... I- I just can't. I'm really... sorry..."
"... it really is no rush..." Yvette responds, giving a gentle nod- a subtle one. "Take all the time you-"
"I-I don't think I had a family," the ghost speaks. "When I was a young lad..."
Yvette is now trying to resist the... urge... to sigh, as the ghost begins to ramble spontaneously. When I was a young lad, he says... going really far back, far past his death and stuff.
Look, okay.
Yvette knows her job is to listen to these ghosts, that it's- important to log it down and stuff. The Grim Reaper made that plenty clear, and she's- she's trying properly, now that he went on to have a whole temper tantrum at her about being unprofessional and stuff.
After talking to the first ghost, then talking to the Grim Reaper, and then cleaning up the mess with the broken mug of hot cocoa... Yvette leaves the cafe with the shards pocketed away, and she stands at a train station. The only one in her realm, the one that's placed right in front of the cafe across the street. Contently standing at this train station for some time, having JUST missed the train that first ghost got on.
See, the business she has with the train is to- well, head to the center of Nihil. There's this center building that every single realm in Nihil connects to: a large four story "town hall-esque" building that the newly arrived dead people spawn from. It's where the ghosts appear, where the train station diverges into an entire subway of trains going throughout all of Nihil, and it's where Yvette just feels like going for now.
It's the only place that Yvette can feed herself and do anything in, after all. Even though the Grim Reaper entrusted her with this realm, there's nothing to do in this city. There's just a cafe, a hotel where the ghosts stay, and NOTHING else.
After all, ghosts here don't need the comforts of modern life... they're dead. So these buildings just exist to make the whole thing look a bit nicer and stuff. Nothing exists in these empty buildings, and Yvette doesn't have the power to make a whole new restaurant with the snap of her fingers- so she's going to the center of Nihil in order to get a hot dog or whatever it is that they're going to make for her.
And this ghost, this second ghost, is another amnesiac ghost that had approached Yvette the moment she reached the station, standing alongside her and speaking to her about his death.
This isn't exactly unexpected. Everywhere she goes, Yvette runs the risk of having to log a newly arrived, very talkative Amnesiac in the journal- writing notes down, ascertaining all those facts of what his soul could gather overtime... yep. And it's her job to listen whenever they come up with anything about their deaths, as all that information could help with recovering from their spiritual loss of identity.
In this particular case, Yvette faced a sense of- obligation to listen to this guy, as well as some slight peer pressure because- well, right next to them, a large group of OTHER ghosts idly sitting aside on the train station benches, patiently listening to the entire tale. She couldn't just say no in front of a whole audience of people, or else the Grim Reaper would find out and totally kill her for unprofessionalism, so she listened to the whole thing.
The whole, whooooole thing.
And she seemed very exasperated- tired, exhausted, just overall fed up with this guy after all that time. The train was taking a long, loooong time to get to the cafe, and she's done nothing but listen.
It wasn't anything personal towards the guy. At least, Yvette hoped it wasn't.
It's just that this ghost went on and on about- roasted chicken, like- described his own death with a ton of food metaphors, and it's painfully hard to take it seriously when Yvette was on her way to eat dinner. Her appetite's just- gone the more this ghost talks about it. If she goes on to eat fried chicken or a chicken sandwich or whatever, Yvette is going to be forced to think of this guy and suddenly just- lose her desire to eat anything chicken related.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
In fact- before his death, a lot of it was him also going on and on about the sand. The sand he was lying on and stuff, described in vivid detail before he even described anything else about his death. Yvette listened to what kind of sand it was, what was in the sand- so on and so forth. An entire 20 minute conversation about sand before an approximate 2-3 minutes of actual death talk, as if this ghost's entire life was sand.
Ah, for all Yvette knew, this guy possibly thinks he's a person, when in actuality he's just a living pile of sand. Like, the sand was living, full on sentience and consciousness. It would make sense, given the fact his ghost body is deeply connected to the stuff- a floating man body constructed out of transparent, ghostly sand.
Guy just a bunch of "living" sand, for real for real.
And his generous sand descriptions do not, at all, give her anything to work with. No cause of death, no recollection of what happened moments before death... the guy didn't even remember if there was any water near where he died. Water, AKA: the ocean. The ocean being there is the basic difference between a guy being offed in a desert wasteland massacre and a guy just having a heart attack at the beach.
Rat meat doesn't narrow it down either. Rats are everywhere, they show up everywhere- and the metal scent doesn't indicate much either! Iron in the blood? A gunshot wound? Some sort of steel bar dropped on his head, or something really graphic with a chainsaw or buzzsaw? Could it be that some monster made of rusted nuts and bolts came to life and personally strangled this sandman?
Augh, no, no signs, no discernible signs to clarify what happened! So this whole thing is a bunch of nothing about sand and chicken... and Yvette made a ton of notes with question marks here and there.
This conversation doesn't achieve much, since the ghost pretty much already understand all of it... Yvette's the one left clueless on what to get from this talk.
"Would it... help if I laid out the shapes of the sand?" asks the ghost, tilting his head with an eyebrow raised. "I saw a ton of curves beneath the surrounding people, a... and-"
"No, no," Yvette interrupts, writing the last word and closing the book. Holstering the book and pocketing the pen. "To tell you the truth, your sand has been quite helpful already, I do not need any more details about the sand... thanks."
"N-No... thank you. It... I feel better. You're doing a lot for- ghosts like me..." the sandy ghost praises, smiling warmly. "I... I hope I wasn't too much of a bother? It- kind of feels like I was, and, uhm... uh... I- I don't know... it... uhm..."
"..."
And... and now Yvette feels bad.
The ghost is fidgeting his thumbs like a nervous, awkward little school child... and- well, Yvette had whatever semblance of a heart she possesses just- feel for the guy in that moment. He made himself vulnerable, and - even though Yvette is obligated to - she listened to him, helped progress his recovery, and made his day in general.
... ah, just play along, Yvette. Lie through your teeth...
"It's no bother, not a problem," Yvette responds, continuing to be as... professional as she could. Returning the smile with one of her own, ready to lie through her teeth to satisfy this guy. Secretly just hoping the train arrives soon, she keeps a smile up for the ghost's sake. "This was nice. Happy to lend an ear, do every little bit and all."
The sandy ghost's smile widens, as he feels really touched by Yvette's words...
Then, after that, a different ghost slowly walks up to Yvette from behind, covered head to toe in... salt and pepper, just immediately chiming in with his life story now. "Well, since he's done, miss, I'm next. See, I vividly remember the scent of lavender, and the image of a meatloaf on a plate..."
And then Yvette opens the book back up, internally sighing. Exasperatedly sighing her lungs out in her mind, just... yep. That's what she expected to happen. Now there goes her appetite for beef.
Ugh.
...
... Yvette thought to herself: the silver lining about this whole thing is that, for what the job contextually is, Yvette doesn't really have to do much.
Sure, it's tedious and mind numbing, and Yvette is bored out of her freaking mind as this third ghost just came up to her without warning RIGHT after the sand ghost- but it's just writing. Writing notes down about the souls she talks to. That's all, no manual labor- no traveling across the world to take souls, no boring bureaucratic work with processing the Death Journal and stuff... none of that.
All Yvette has to do is just has to write in the Death Journal, have it spontaneously disappear every time it's called by the Center of Nihil, and that's it. Makes her curious how they would have processed the tragic ballad of Gwimbly Schlimbly, but- yeah, that's all.
The more she thinks about it, in fact, her realm in Nihil is... actually pretty nice, out of all places she could be. The main thing that appeals to Yvette about Nihil is that she is in a city. Like, an urban city. One with rectangle buildings and stuff, running this whole city for herself. Yvette doesn't feel out of place here, compared to what this realm could have been.
Could've been a wasteland, a cave, a huge field of nothing- maybe a molten volcano or whatever. But no, the Grim Reaper assigned her a realm meant for a city. Probably considered the fact she's a human girl who also lived in a city and all.
Sure, the city has nothing, and the entirety of the city may be colorless shades of black, white and gray, but it's still astonishingly vibrant and grand on the outside. The dark gray buildings stand out with the light gray sidewalks and black streets, and the white lights shine through a bunch of the windows and junk.
And Yvette is quite literally one of the major hands of running this city- she can pretty much go anywhere she wants, do whatever she wants. No way is someone saying "no you can't come in" to the person who has a say in possibly destroying it. Nepotism is alive and well! There isn't anything else yet, but if there just happened to be some sort of... five star restaurant, like a full five stars dedicated to the most heavenly food that Nihil could ever offer to ghosts- then Yvette has free reign to enjoy the heck out of it.
That gives Yvette- a lot to look forward to, down the line. The possibility of being able to have a whole freaking gourmet restaurant in her ghost realm, to eat whatever she wanted and do whatever she wanted (outside of her job), and so on.
But for now... she's waiting for the train so that she can eat food... just- hoping the train comes soon, as the list of foods she can't eat anytime soon expands.
Listening to this ghost, the one that started describing lavender and steak- the list goes on, for some reason, as the ghost just lists a ton of food.
Bacon and eggs.
Marshmallow cereal.
A combination of celery, peanut butter, and raisins.
Grilled cheese sandwiches.
Jelly filled donuts.
No, she's not just hungry, these are things that were apparently involved with how this ghost, this salt and pepper covered ghost, ended up recalling. All of these foods out of nowhere...
...
... huh. "You know, that's... I hope you realize that you're listing off a ton of traditional children's foods...?"
The ghost narrows his eyes at Yvette, seeming- offended by what she said? For some reason. "Children's foods? What?" the ghost asks, crossing his arms. "I don't get it, what part of anything I said gives off that impression? These are just normal foods!"
"... okay, well, maybe the correlation is-" Yvette began to speak, ready to explain herself and her train of thought-
Suddenly, the sound of an incoming train is heard... as the train finally arrives.
"Ah, the train is here. But anyway, let's change the subject," the ghost tells Yvette, deciding to- move away from the children's food topic. "I remember, also, a bowl of macaroni and cheese alongside some saltine crackers..."
Yvette slowly nods to this ghost and just lets him continue speaking.
Welp. There goes her relaxing, peaceful train ride, she thought to herself...