For each soul Clover reaped I haven't said anything. I've stepped aside and observed. The only time I spoke was when one of the souls shattered. It feels like if I speak to them then I'll really be here. It's a way to fight the fact that I am dead. It's something I'll be doing as long as I can. It's also so I don't have to feel responsible for the ones Clover reaped. Maybe it's selfish to put all the blame on Clover, but if he has noticed he hasn't mentioned it. Not that I think he'd care. The point of this is for me to see how everything works and ready myself for reaping on my own. That's when I have no choice. I'll have to speak to them.

Eclipse is not the same. She spoke to the souls from the first one we reaped. She consoled the sad and calmed the angry. In a way she reminds me of Clover. Yet this was no planned out strategy of hers, this was who she truly was. Eventually she's likely to meet one that won't let her take their soul, but the four souls from today's contract have trusted her. Clover had even stepped aside and let her control the reaping while he watched.

I hate to admit it but I'm jealous. I wish it had been that easy to accept everything when I first came here, or that I at least can accept it now. I don't understand how she does it.

I'll have to force away these thoughts earlier than I thought, because I'll have to talk to the souls - reap them - before my apprenticeship is over. "It will go faster," said Clover when he read the next contract out loud. He never read the names. All he needed to say was the cause of death for me to realize how many souls we'd reap. How many I'd have to reap.

We're still at the same place as the last contract. The grass is brown, and the sun lays high upon the sky. If we were alive, it would have been unbearably hot. We cannot feel heat nor cold, at least not the living kind. I haven't forgotten the wraith's hand pushed against my throat and I'm not sure I'll ever forget it.

Clover watches me as he opens the door. He's more worried how I'll handle the death that awaits us, even though Eclipse only was introduced to reaping today. I give him a glare that tells him to hurry up. He lets his eyes linger for just a few more seconds before he and Eclipse walk through the doorway. I prepare myself for what I'll witness, all the souls I'll have to reap and speak with. I take a deep breath and step through the door.

We find ourselves in the middle of the airplane. It has already crashed and is cut in half like it was made of ceramic. We're in the bottom part of the plane, the one that is mostly intact compared to the part that fell down the mountain. Oxygen masks hang down from the ceiling and sunlight enters through the large opening, where cables dangle in the wind like vines.

"Blomst gave you the gate-stone, right?" Clover asks as he looks out over our half of the plane.

I squeeze the stones in my pocket. "Yes."

"You can use the stone to find souls. I imagine they're spread out."

Which means I have to jump between gate to gate to look for the hundreds of souls we - I have to reap.

"Alright."

I squeeze the stones once again. I'm not ready, words I desperately want to say but cannot form. Eclipse watches me with a somber expression, she knows that I don't find this as easy as she does.

She tiptoes down the plane, towards the large opening with the cables. Sobs are heard from the direction she's heading and two small hands stick out behind a seat, hiding a child.

Eclipse crouches down and extends a hand towards the child's soul. I cannot see them behind the seats. Nor do I want to see it. I take out the orange stone, a gate folds itself out in the middle of the plane. While there are similarities between mine and Clover's gate, it still looks different. It has the same orange crystallized veins growing at its surface, and in the middle forms an Orchid. The door is white, it makes me think of the white orchids I gave my father on his funeral.

I sigh and move my fingers over the door. Eclipse says something to the child behind the seat. I shut it out, I don't want to hear it. I knock on the door like Clover has taught me, I think of the souls on this mountain. I beg to whatever controls the doors that the soul behind is no child.

Once I've repeated my pleas a couple of times, I open the door and step through it.

There's snow everywhere and my calves are deeply buried underneath it. I catch the gate-stone after the door folds itself back into a stone. While I don't feel the cold against my leggings, it's still hard to move.

In the distance there's a woman calling for help, for anyone to hear her. She falls down, burying her arm into the deep snow, slowly she gets up on unsteady legs. She doesn't have the blue shine that Emma had. This woman is not alive. The gate had led me straight to a poor human who's soul I have to reap.

I don't dare to say anything when she's so far away from me, so I keep traversing through the snow. If I could walk on top of the water on the Russian river, then I should be able to walk on top of the snow. But no matter how much I focus, my feet are still buried deep.

The woman calls out again, louder this time. She stumbles and tries to soften her fall with her hands, but they sink down into the snow. I tread quickly, now when she's closer I can almost grab her. She quickly turns around with widened eyes, it last just a few seconds before she smiles with relief.

"Oh, thank the Lord!" she gets up; there's no snow on her clothes, they're as dry as they were before the plane crash. "I thought I was the only one who survived."

She doesn't know she's dead.

I don't know where to even begin, all I can do is stare at her while I'm desperately trying to think of something appropriate to say. She looks towards the mountain chain and the eternal snow.

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"They have to know that the plane crashed, they must have sent someone..."

I cannot hold it in anymore and she must have seen the sorrow that covers my face.

"We'll survive this, God will save us both."

The woman lays a hand on my shoulder. I cannot feel it. Nor can she. She cannot feel the cold nor pain, yet she believes that she's alive. How can I tell her that she's dead? I wonder if I should do what Clover once did and say it outright. But that might not work on her. Maybe it will work if I pretend to be an angel. I'll tell her that I'm here to take her to heaven. The chance of failing is too big. I don't know enough about religion, nor which one she belongs to. No matter what I do I cannot solve this.

I put my hand over hers on my shoulder. With a deep breath I think of how I should phrase this. But nothing can be phrased correctly when you tell someone that they're dead.

"I'm sorry," I say and the woman frowns, "No one will come."

A cowardly and wrong way of saying it. I cannot say the word dead, it's like it's stuck on my tongue.

"You... You don't know that," she says and pulls back her hand.

Insecurity. I think that she deep down knows that she's dead already. But she ignores all signs of it, clinging onto the small hope that's left.

"It's too late," I say and try to force the words out.

You're dead. You're dead. You're dead. Tell her.

"It's never too late," she says and takes a step back.

"You're already dead."

It feels like a release when I finally get those words out. The woman takes another step back, frowning with widened eyes.

"No, that cannot be. I'm alive! I have a family! We would... Oh no, Molly... Michael."

There are tears in her eyes, she shakes her head and clutches the scarf hanging down her chest.

"Do you feel anything? Cold, pain, the clothes against your skin? You can still move, so you're not paralyzed."

I take a step closer; she takes another backwards.

"I cannot be dead... I've been good my whole life. I've gone to church each Sunday. You cannot claim I'm dead."

Clover had always been quick to calm them down. I saw what happened with Eclipse once her emotions controlled her. I have to be careful, if her emotions go rampant, she could become a wraith. I don't know if that means she'll be as dangerous as a shattered soul. One thing is clear - I have to avoid it at all costs.

"It's unfair. I know that so well," I say and stay at my spot.

If I can make her see that I agree with her, that I have gone through this and that I see how unfair death is, maybe then I can convince her.

"What are you?"

What. Not who. To her I'm not even human, and am I even that anymore? I have no body. No vessel and my soul have definitely changed.

"I'm a soul wanderer."

She takes another step, there's a few meters between us now. "What is that?"

"I'm here to gather souls."

I cannot use the word reap here; I have to be aware of each word that I choose.

"I didn't ask what you did here, I asked what you were," she snarls.

"A soul wanderer gathers souls."

"And you're here to gather mine?"

I nod. "And others."

Maybe I should have used save instead of gather.

She takes another step back and glances briefly at the cliff behind her, the next question will determine if she'll throw herself down from it.

Her body tenses up before she asks, "who do you work for?"

I know she awaits two answers. God or the Devil, none of them are the truth. I could lie and tell her God, and there might even be some truth to that, if the guardians are some sort of gods - but there's a chance she could see through it. To say the Devil wouldn't only be a lie but an idiotic one. I cannot say the truth either, I don't know if I can speak of the guardians with the souls I'm supposed to reap.

She glances at the cliff again, and I force out a half-truth before she decides to jump. "Death."

Fear flashes in her dark eyes. She quickly spins around and throws herself down the cliff. It was an idiotic answer for the question, I could have answered the Devil with the same effect.

The woman rolls down the steep cliff and the snow moves around her, but leaves little to no mark. I throw myself after her. The snow hits my face, but I cannot feel it, nor the cold. She hits a part of a jagged stone sticking out from the mountain and falls down at the bottom of the cliff on all fours. She quickly gets up and starts running. I hit my back against the snow, and I force myself to get up on my legs again.

Once I start running in the deep snow, I focus with all I can on the surface. I want to run above it without sinking down. I think of how it felt to walk over the water, how Clover had pushed his hand through the surface.

The woman runs as quickly as she can, and I plod through the snow until my feet finally reach the surface.

She falls again and gets halfway up; I've already reached her and I take a steady grip around her arm. She looks at me with widened eyes and a face grimaced of pure fear. In her eyes I'm nothing else but a demon.

"I will not force you to give me your soul," I say.

She tries to get out of my iron grip, but I'm stronger. My soul has gotten used to be without a vessel, while hers is still getting used to it. I still remember how it felt, I couldn't move anything. That she made the snow react, if only a little, shows that she's much stronger than I was.

She stops struggling and clasps her hands together and mumbles a prayer with eyes tightly shut.

"I can literally not force you," I say, an attempt to calm her, but she's so scared of me that it doesn't matter what I say.

I let go of her and she crawls away from me on all four. She doesn't get up again.

"I understand that you're scared."

She's not listening; I take a step closer. The widened eyes refuse to let go of me. She reminds me of a frightened and cornered animal. She'll attack me if I get any closer. Not that it would make any difference, as long as she doesn't turn into a wraith.

"Leave!" she snarls.

She slowly sits up and the dark brown hair lies elegantly over her shoulders and scarf, leaving no signs that she threw herself down a cliff.

"I want to help you." I don't dare to move closer to her. "But I cannot help you unless you let me."

"If you think I'll willingly give you my soul you're out of your mind!"

"If you don't, you'll be stuck here for eternity."

She laughs bitterly. "God will help me. And you," the last words are filled of a venomous loathing, "you can dig yourself back from where you came from."

No matter what I say she'll never listen. The moment I said I worked for death - or maybe earlier - she had already decided what I was. Anything I say will sound like a lie to convince her.

I take out the gate-stone from my pocket, it folds out the gate. Had it not been for the crystalized veins then the white door might have served as comfort, but I know the orange glow reminds her too much of fire.

She glares at me as she crawls back. I know once I open the door and the whirling darkness meets her brown eyes, she'll think that she has made the right choice.

"If I take your soul, you'll either be reborn or reach paradise," I try once more but the dark, hateful eyes say everything I need to know.

I knock and think of the rest of the souls that are still stuck on this mountain.

"If I had a choice," I begin and feel the angry eyes against my back, "I would have let them take my soul. To be stuck here for all eternity is not worth it."

I'm not sure if I'm saying it to myself or her. When she says nothing, I open the door and walk into darkness. At that sight she'll think she chose right to stay on this lonesome mountain for all eternity.

And I hope she'll continue to think so.