“Please, take a seat.”
Albert was able to gain focus more quickly upon entering the arbitration room this time. Both he and the nurse were standing. Everything else in the ‘room’ looked the same as the last time he had been there. Assuming it was the same space, of course. Albert had no clue what the arbitration room actually was, just that it was a nice contained space where he wouldn’t be interrupted.
“What did you do to me? That girl that knocked me over stuck me with something. Was that ketamine? Where am I?” The nurse's demeanor had changed drastically from the brief aimless trudge Albert had seen her doing before Amy had forced her into the arbitration room.
“Take a seat and we can discuss your situation.” Albert tried to be relaxed, but the woman’s attitude was making him nervous.
Even as he sat down, the woman continued to berate him with questions.
“I’m not doing anything until you tell me why you abducted me. Is this some sort of prank? Are you one of those idiot kids on the internet that gets their rocks off pranking random people? So help me, I will…” the woman took a deep breath, visibly attempting to calm herself down. “How do I get out of here?”
Albert let her take in the room around her for a moment, careful to keep focused on her and not let his mind wander. She seemed to both calm down and panic in a different way as she took in the seemingly impossible space.
“Unfortunately, there is no way for you to leave this space without working with me. I haven’t kidnapped you, and this is not a prank.” Albert took a deep breath. “I take no pleasure in being the one to inform you of this, but you have died.”
The woman glared at him but didn’t say anything. She didn’t sit down either. It was difficult to read her, and Albert wasn’t exactly sure where to go from there without any input from her side of things.
“I’m sure you’ve thought about what comes next, given your previous line of work. This is it. I work for Death, and I’ve come to collect your soul on his behalf.”
“No.” The woman’s response was abrupt, but at least it was something to go off of.
“I understand that this can be a lot to take in, so I will give you some time to ponder on your options. But I would like to be clear that you have a very limited amount of time before you waste the time you have left to influence the living world.”
“What options? Dead’s pretty absolute from my experience. Not to mention I’m not dead.”
“That is the hardest part to accept, isn’t it. You look pretty worn out. Exhaustion can kill, you should know that. Maybe a few too many caffeine pills, maybe something stronger… doesn’t take much to harm the body. Over a long period of time that can stack up.” Albert was guessing based on what he'd seen on TV dramas, but he seemed to be getting something right based on her expression. “You’re dead. But I’m not. I can arrange a few different things for you before you go. I can arrange for you to leave a message for loved ones, pay off some debts, arrange for your death to serve a greater purpose through organ donation or medical discovery, or I can erase your life if that is something more to your liking…”
“What if I just want to die.” The woman’s expression had turned darker.
“I have a contract for that as well, but I’ll need you to sign it in order for you to leave here on your own terms.” Albert was being very careful with how he was phrasing the exchange. He had learned from the last arbitration that the idea of selling your own soul was probably never a good idea.
“Why do I have to sign? Why the time limit?”
“Well, you can sign and have your soul be useful in its passing, or you can wait around for it to dissipate into more of the toxic spiritual mist that’s infected the hospital. I wager it only makes the depressing and nauseating feeling you get when you walk in all the worse. But that’s a guess on my part, I’ve never been in a place so overpowered by the taint of death and abandoned spirits.”
The woman paused before taking a seat. Her movements were slow, which made Albert nervous. She might have been closer to dissipating than he thought. Albert quickly rifled through his folder and retrieved the contract labeled ‘no condition.’ He pushed the paper over to the woman along with the ink pot and handed her the pen.
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“Sign here and you’ll be dead.Your soul counted and collected. No nonsense.” Albert tapped the bottom of the paper where there was a line for a signature.
The woman dipped the pen into the ink well, scraped the edge against the paper, forming the first two letters of her name, then stopped. Her face contorted in pain. And then, in a slightly more horrific display than Albert had yet to see, a fountain of blue mist cascaded from the woman’s mouth before her form burst into a cloud of mist.
Suddenly Albert was back in the custodial closet with Amy and the things that had been left on the table in the arbitration room were scattered on the ground.
“No!” Albert slammed his fist against an empty space on the closest shelf.
“I take it things didn’t go well?”
“She dissipated while signing.” Albert growled. “Or something else happened. She vomited mist out and then went poof.”
“Huh.” Amy sounded more surprised than upset. “That’s a new one for me. Not the mid signature thing, that happens. The vomiting mist part is new.”
A gentle beep sounded in the closet, directing Amy to lift her wrist and check her watch.
“And like that, we’re out of time.” Amy pressed a button and the watch went silent.
Albert crouched down to gather the scattered papers back into the folder and the now half empty ink well. There was a puddle of spilled ink on the floor, but Albert didn’t care. He had gotten so closed to being done with his contract, the mess seemed like such a stupid thing to worry about.
“Let’s go.” Albert huffed as he pushed the materials back into Amy’s hands. He was met with an unconcerned shrug and the two made their way back out of the maze of hallways.
Right at the elevator on the floor they were leaving, there was an older man fumbling along the hall. He had a violet tint to him, something Albert hadn’t really seen before. And as he passed the man, he didn’t smell anything either. Rather than carry on and ignore the spirit, Albert turned and caught the man around the throat with his arm. Without exerting much pressure at all, the spirit popped into a small purple cloud of mist.
The outburst caused Amy to raise an eyebrow, but she didn’t say anything. She just pressed the button to call the elevator and stepped inside when the doors opened. Albert felt bad immediately. He didn’t know what came over him, but he was so angry. He couldn’t think of a time in his life when something, even something important, had made him feel this upset. Rage was not a familiar feeling for Albert, but this was definitely rage. He slumped against the side of the elevator and dropped his face into his hands and took deep breaths until they were back on the ground level.
The walk back to the car was equally silent and awkward. It wasn’t until the engine was running and they were both buckled in that Amy actually spoke up.
“It never helps.”
“What do you mean?”
“Violence. It never helps get the feelings out. It just makes you feel worse. You need to talk about it, or it’s going to sit in you until something else makes it worse and you have to talk about that.”
Albert was stunned by the advice. Not because it was shocking or new to him, he had had similar talks with his mother and school councilors about dealing with other emotional struggles. But it was shocking because it came from Amy. Amy who seemed impervious to feeling, who lied like it was the truth, and who seemed tough as nails.
“You don’t have to talk now. But I don’t know who else you could talk to besides me… unless you wanted to talk to someone else that works for Death. But I wouldn’t advise that.”
“Thank you.” Albert could tell he was on the verge of zoning out as the car started moving. “When we get back, could you stick around? I don’t know if I even want to talk about this, but… you know. Just in case I do?”
“Yeah.” Amy was focusing on the road now, but her voice was gentle in a genuine way that it hadn’t been before. “I should leave before your mom gets back though.”
“I’m just going to… I’m going to zone out.”
Albert closed his eyes and let his mind wander. He tried to avoid thinking about the woman that had dissipated in from of him, or the older man he had forced into dissipation. But their faces lingered in his mind. Even if he hadn’t a made a point to remember them. And then Arnie came up in his train of thought and weighed his mind down further. By the time the car stopped and Amy gave him a shake on the arm, it was well after dark and he felt awful.
“I don’t suppose you’re hungry? Most people of halfway measures don’t eat much, for some reason. But that can change.”
Albert thought about it before shaking his head. He hadn’t really eaten all day. He’d chewed and swallowed bits of the food his mom had made for him, but it could hardly be considered eating. Given Amy’s comment, Albert figured he was one of those ones that didn’t eat.
“Do you eat?”
“No. I don’t eat. I mean, I can. But I don’t.”
Amy had gotten out of the car and come around to the other side of the car to, Albert thought, help him out on his side. But when he held out his hand, she sighed and pulled the glasses off his face. Maybe it was because she had offered to let him talk about his problems, but something had made him think she was going to open up for him. That was clearly not the case.
Albert followed Amy back up to his apartment, taking the stairs slowly to make up for the pain in his knees. When he finally reached the apartment door, he handed the key to Amy; as his hands were still shaking and she looked mildly impatient. Albert made a break for the couch immediately, and Amy took her normal spot on the floor leaning against the couch. It almost felt normal.