“You seem spacey again, Albert. Are you sure you’re okay?” His mom kept asking him if he was okay and it was getting a little frustrating.

“I literally just told you that I’m fine.”

“You told me you were fine two hours ago and have barely moved an inch since.”

Albert paused and adjusted his body on the couch. There was a much more dull pain at the movement, but the stretching feeling was still there. It didn’t feel as powerful as it had the night before, but it was still there. What bothered him most was how much time he was missing. He was somewhat aware of it, but it was blurry. It was like being distracted by something out of the corner of your eye, looking away to see what it was, and then looking back to realize it had been hours since you turned away. Albert was fairly certain that this was some new form of halfway measure between being alive and dead. He had been thinking about what that meant, and why the measures had shifted after having someone sign the same piece of paper that he did. And maybe he was just getting lost in thought about that, and he wasn’t actually missing hours of his life; maybe he was just getting lost in thought.

“Albert?” His mother’s voice interrupted his thinking once again, but he quickly realized why.

“Sorry. I’m okay. I feel a lot better actually. I think I’m just going a little crazy. I don’t usually stay in one spot so long… and I didn’t sleep great last night, so I guess I’m still tired?”

Albert had, in fact, not slept at all the last night. He had thought he might have fallen asleep when he closed his eyes and then opened them again to find that it had quickly become morning, but he had just gone out of focus. He didn't feel at all like he had slept and his body was stiff from lack of movement. It was nearly two in the afternoon and he still felt that stiffness when he went without stretching for more than an hour. And stretching was still painful, so he didn’t do it every hour. It was only when it became more uncomfortable to stay still that he moved more than a few inches.

“I’m worried about you, Al. You’ve never really gotten hurt like this before.”

“It was going to happen eventually. At least I didn’t break anything.”

Albert was unsure if he had actually not broken anything. The impact that killed him may have actually broken part of his skull or spine, but it was likely repaired or undone to allow him to be mostly alive so he could fulfill the contract he’d signed. He was just glad that if there was anything like that still impacting his body, his mother hadn’t noticed.

“I think I’m going to write to your uncle and see if he knows a good doctor that works with head injuries.” Albert’s mother stood up from her spot in the armchair and began to rifle through her pile of mail and papers on the side table by the TV.

“No, mom. I’m fine. Don’t bother uncle Cassius. It’s not like I won’t be fine by the time he gets a letter anyway. Besides, I don’t think he believes in doctors.”

Albert had never actually met his uncle Cassius, but they had been writing him letters his whole life. His mother said that the only way to get hold of him was by written letter, which he though was silly, but it had always been kind of fun to pull out his mother’s fancy stationary and write a letter. At least, it had been fun when he was a little kid. After a while, Albert had realized that his mother only wrote to his uncle when she was behind on rent or there was some other financial struggle. He didn’t really feel bad that they were taking advantage of his father’s brother, but it was uncomfortable that they needed to at all. His mother writing a letter to see if he knew a good doctor was basically a request to have him pay for a doctors visit. It was his mom’s way of dealing with the fact that they didn’t have health insurance.

“You’re probably right… it would take a while to get there by mail.” His mother’s voice was contemplative, but not exactly put out. “It would still be nice to make sure there isn’t any long term damage... Or a hairline fracture in your skull.”

“Mom. I’m fine. If I had brain damage, I think I’d know or it would be just a bit more obvious. You know? I’m just out of it.”

“Fine.” Her rifling stopped and she began to restack her mess of papers. “But if you keep spacing out, I’m going to write him a letter.”

“I will try my best, mom, but I don’t know if I can promise that it won’t happen again. Maybe I’ll just try and take a nap until whenever it is Amy gets here and we can go over classwork.”

His mother nodded, but her posture when she sat back down looked uncomfortable. She had her neck craned froward to get more of a side view of him sleeping. Albert had the passing thought that she was probably going to make sure he kept breathing. She could be paranoid like that, but she wasn’t usually this clingy. Then again, he was never really in positions like this where he had to have someone there to make sure he was okay.

Not wanting to cause more of a conflict between them, Albert closed his eyes and did his best to look like he was asleep. For a while, he was still very aware of his mother watching him; but, it didn’t take long for his thoughts to drift and for his mind to focus on other things. He was caught up in thoughts of how he could have handled his last arbitration better, different arguments he could have made, and different approaches he could use to different contracts. He was pretty sure the next arbitration would have the same limit to the basic contracts he could use. Using the rest of the ten thousand dollars could make the second arbitration pretty easy, but offering a large amount of money right off the bat would probably be a really bad idea. Part of what made him think the last offer had worked was because of how little he had actually offered. That more reserved offer had been realistic and sombre, it had been at about that point in the arbitration that Arnie had started to take things more seriously.

As soon as he let the man’s name cross his mind, he was overcome with a sense of seriousness. He had bought a man’s soul. He had bought Arnie’s soul. He wasn’t just some man, he had had a life and goals and motives and relationships. And when he had died, he had sold his soul to help the person he cared about most. And who knew if his girlfriend actually cared as much about him in return. Albert found himself on the verge of fighting back tears at the thought of the world he had stepped into and turned upside down for his own selfish purposes. He had to tell himself that he couldn’t have helped Arnie. But could he have? Could he have written out a deal like Death had given him? But then Arnie would have had to go through the same hoops that he was going through. And maybe the offer would have caused a daisy chain effect, maybe they both would have kept on offering a second chance at life in exchange for the collection of more souls. And no one would ever actually collect. They would all just live half lives, undying, feeling the side effects on their bodies. That would be chaos.

Somewhere in the middle of Albert’s scattered thoughts, he heard a knock on the door. He opened his eyes just in time to see his mother cross the room and answer it. Albert was already prepared to see Amy walk in, and when she did he let out a sigh of relief that he sincerely hoped his mother would not misinterpret.

“Don’t look too relieved to see me, Albert. I come baring homework.” Amy’s face scrunched up in mock disgust at the idea of homework, her fake normal voice and expression just as natural looking as it had been the day before.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“I’ll let you two have the living room for a bit.” Albert’s mom had closed the front door and made her way across the apartment towards her own bedroom. “But if I hear anything other than homework happening in here, I’m going to interrupt.” Her voice sounded more like a warning than a threat.

As soon as her door was closed, Amy sat down on the floor next to the couch and pulled out several notebooks to begin her fake homework review. To Albert’s surprise, she produced actual homework assignments with the names of his real teachers on them. And she had copies of the homework herself that she had started to go through.

“Is there a reason your mom is so concerned about you fooling around with me?” Amy’s voice was still in her fake mode, but her expression had once again become more alert and less girlish.

“No?”

Albert was taken aback by the question. On top of the real homework, the question seemed so out of character for Amy. It was a normal conversation in context, since his mom was probably listening in; but considering Amy was helping him collect souls for Death, he was mildly overwhelmed by the incongruity.

“I mean, according to mom, my dad got around a bit when they were younger. But I haven’t given her any reason to think I would do that sort of thing.”

“I was going to ask yesterday…” Amy paused, her tone perfect for the facade of asking what was going to be an awkward question. Albert was familiar with this one, so it didn’t bother him as much anymore, but it was still uncomfortable to answer when he was almost certain his mom was listening in. “Is your dad still around?”

“If you’re asking if he’s alive or not, I have no idea. I guess he’s kind of dead, considering no one’s heard from him in years, but mostly we just don’t talk about him. He left when I was too little to remember him and just never came back.”

“Oh. That’s. I’m sorry.” Amy’s tone seemed more genuine, or maybe it was her change in expression that made her apologetic tone more real. “My parents are divorced, so I was just curious what your situation was.”

“It’s okay. That’s a normal question to ask.”

Albert didn’t know what else to say, so he turned his attention to the binder full of notes and homework that had been dropped in his lap. The notes were in a clean and tight style that he guessed was Amy’s handwriting. As he went over them it became very clear that she had actually attended the classes that he had. How or why she actually did, Albert couldn’t tell. But she had. And the homework assignments seemed to go back a day as well. It occurred to him that maybe Amy was being optimistic and had actually gotten him the school materials so that he could get back into his normal life more quickly and easily.

“Are you doing okay? You look overwhelmed.”

“Yeah, I just. I’ve been a little spacey today. I don’t think I slept well last night.”

“I’m sorry. Was it because I stayed so late?” Amy’s voice said sorry, but her expression was indicating something else silently. She nodded as though indicating that she knew what he meant but couldn’t talk about it out loud.

“I don’t want to make you feel bad, but I think that might be part of it. I don’t blame you, and I’m really glad you came by yesterday. But it may have been a bit too much too soon, y’know?” Albert was trying his best to use words that answered both the question Amy had asked audibly and silently. The lie, that it was because he had stayed up too late; and the truth, that he was experiencing new side-effects from arbitration.

“Well, I’ll try not to stay that late again today. But if you don’t mind, I kind of want to hang out so I can give my dad some space.”

“Stay as long as you want. And please, don’t let my mom’s paranoia get in your head.”

Almost as if on cue, Albert’s mom made her way from her bedroom to the bathroom with a clean set of clothes and towel rolled up under her arm. She was probably satisfied that nothing was going to happen as long as she was there, and so it was safe to shower. Albert didn’t bother with trying to get in any real conversation while she showered. It wouldn’t be a big enough window to go over the questions that had been building up in his head, and for some reason he found himself driven to go over the notes from class. Something about reading was actually helping him focus, and as Albert continued he realized he wasn’t experiencing the reading fatigue he normally did from topics that didn’t particularly interest him. Reading notes and studying was always a chore, but it wasn’t that bad now for some reason. Stranger still, as Albert read, he realized that he wasn’t spacing out or losing any time. Something about reading was helping to keep his mind engaged with the outside world without having to interact with another person.

It was relatively quiet in the living room until Albert’s mother finally decided to leave. If she had left any later, she might have missed the bus that she always took to work. Albert knew she was still suspicious of Amy and him being alone together, but he was glad it was for a normal reason at least. Or, what seemed like a normal reason.

“I don’t know how many more times I’m going to get away with visiting here after school. You might need to convince her you’re well enough to go to school tomorrow, just in case we can’t find another soul tonight.” Amy’s voice was back to her normal businesslike tone.

“But we should be able to find another one tonight. Right?” Albert was nervous at the way she had phrased her statement.

“I have no clue. You’ve been insanely lucky so far. So I wouldn’t put it past you to be able to wrap your whole contract up in two days, but I don’t think that’s very realistic.”

“That’s fair, I guess.” Albert muttered with a sigh and closed the notebook. “How much longer do you think we should wait before heading out? I’m fine reading notes, but I really would much rather be trying to get this… soul-searching over with first.”

“Interesting use of the phrase.” Amy let a smile pass across her face, which felt strange to witness. But it was short lived. “That’s actually where the phrase originates. Though it was in… German? Maybe. Anyway, it comes from mystics that used to wander the empty fields and forests to seek out the souls of departed travelers or missing people and announce their deaths in whatever town they lived in. Or, well. Kind of. Mostly it was arbitrators, like you, looking for people living outside of civilization to prey on.”

“So, we’re literally going to go soul-searching.” Albert let out another sigh as he acknowledged the task.

It felt like he’d just been forced to hear a dad joke. But it felt like a fact that she had been present for, so Albert tucked away that piece of information. It was a piece of evidence that supported his theory that she was some sort of immortal being that had been around as long as Death had.

“Yeah. But, because of how paranoid your mom has been, I’d give it at least another half-hour.” Amy rolled her eyes at the delay as well, but she seemed to not be as bothered as Albert was by it. “In the meantime, tell me about this spaciness you mentioned. I don’t think you should be going into arbitration if you’re spacing out and losing track of time.”

“It’s not like that, exactly. It’s like.” Albert paused trying to put the right words together in his head. But the longer he took, the closer he felt he was to slipping into a spaced out episode. “It’s like whenever I stop to think, if I can’t focus on something that isn’t in my head, I just get lost until someone snaps me out of it.”

“That’s not that bad then. I don’t see that making arbitration any harder… unless the half-dead you need to sign just refuses to talk or move.” Amy put her hand to her chin and bit her lip in contemplation. Something told Albert that the silent treatment was probably more of a common response to someone being told they were dead than she wanted to admit. “Do you have any kind of indication when it’s about to happen?”

“Not really. I can guess pretty well. But apart from that, I could be in the middle of a sentence, be at a loss for words, and it could be an hour later.”

Albert didn’t really want to admit how bad it was, but it was better that Amy knew. Lying to her would be like lying to a doctor about taking any sort of drug and then getting a treatment that reacted badly to the drug you had taken. She was his lifeline and it would be better it she knew everything.

“But,” Albert sputtered out, remembering what it was like while he’d been reading notes, “reading doesn’t make me space out. That whole time I was reading notes, I was not spaced out at all. I think it happened a bit while I was watching TV earlier today too, but not as much.”

“That should make it a little safer then. I can get you a book to read in case you get a silent half-dead.”

The solution was unexpected. But, if it worked Albert wouldn’t complain. He didn’t do a lot of reading, but he certainly wasn’t opposed.

“I just hope you can stay focused while keeping an eye out. I really shouldn't have the glasses on or contacts in while I’m driving.”

“Yeah. You shouldn’t do that.”

Albert remembered the sensation of seeing the world around him move at different rates where the assistance of the glasses ended. Experiencing that while driving was sure to result in some sort of car accident. And now that he thought about it, if he was on the lookout in a moving car, it was very likely he'd get some kind of motion sickness if he wasn't careful.