Death stands on the other side with his hands in his pockets. We're in a long hallway and on each sides of the walls there are lamps, they're glowing with the same orange glow like the stone and the gate. They are formed as hexagons with spirals in the middle made out of shining crystals. I can't see the end of the corridor, it's covered in an imposing darkness, but it's not moving the same way as the it did behind the door. In first glance there's nothing odd with it.

I turn hastily around against the gate and I'm met with a stonewall. I didn't even hear it close. The footsteps of Death echoes out against walls. He walks past me and bends down where the gate once stood, on the ground lays the little, shining stone. He picks it up and puts it into his pocket.

"This way," he says as he walks past me.

Lamp after lamp lights up on each side of the walls as we walk down the corridor. I make a mistake and look up. I'm met with a layer of grey-black clouds, it covers the entire ceiling and reminds me of the those from a thunderstorm, if a little more smoke-like. Sometimes I can also see footprints, like someone is roaming above us.

Death walks in front of me, slowly – like he's waiting for me to catch up, but I don't dare to get too close. I keep a few meters between us. I don't know if I can trust him, I don't even know where he's taking me. The stone didn't work. I don't want to spend too much time thinking about what that means.

A loud sound echoes through the long corridor for every lamp that is lit, it lights up parts that are covered in darkness. Death seems uninterested in the lights and it's not until we reach the end of the corridor that he stops. Next to a gigantic gate stands something I never thought I would see. Death had shown himself as a human, so I hadn't expected to see something that seemed unreal and frankly almost childish. It feels like I stepped into a movie or fairytale.

It's dressed in what looks like beautiful and fancy noble-clothes from 1700s, they fit well – all too well considering the creature in front of us is made of bones. It has no skin nor flesh. The body is a skeleton of a human, but its head is a skull of an animal, a wolf. The eyes are not hollow and black, they are shining of the same orange glow as the stone and the lights.

The orange glow in its eyes blackens for a moment. Like it was closing its eyes.

"Good day, Clover," Wolf-skull says, and the lower jaw is moving while it speaks.

Clover? Death has a name and it's Clover? It's so inappropriate and out of place that it's almost laughable.

"Is that a new one?" It asks and points a finger at me.

How all the bones stay in place without falling apart is a wonder to me.

"Obviously," Death answers.

"It's been a while since you had a new one. If I remember correctly, you weren't really fond of it." It laughs. "You said it was annoying and too much work. Blomst said it was good for your... character?"

I swear I can see it smile even though it doesn't have muscles nor skin.

Death groans. The creature stands aside and points with its ivory-white hand at the large gate of black stone.

"They await," it says.

Death goes forward and knocks, a little hatch opens up and a card is pushed out. When Death gently pry out the paper the gate opens. The same black whirling darkness is hidden on the other side. He gives me the brown card and the only thing on it is a number – two thousand three hundred forty-five – as well as a flower, it's looks like a chamomile.

"Blomst," Death says.

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"Have fun," Wolf-skull calls out as we step into the gate.

On the other side of the darkness lays a gigantic hall with hundreds of chairs next to the walls, humans are sitting in them and waiting. At first glance they seem normal, but I soon realize they stand out. Some of them are dressed in clothes we had hundreds of years ago, like they don't necessarily fit in the present. Everything from noble-women's dresses to soldier uniforms from the early 1900s. Most of them seems to belong to my time, like they – just like I – are preparing to be reaped by Death. But that doesn't explain the people who don't belong to my time. Is this hall limbo? Will I be sitting here for hundreds of years before I can move on?

Some of the humans are sitting calmly at the chairs, while others are crying. They are talking and I can understand them. One man dressed in Native American tribal clothes are talking with someone in 1700's clothing, both of them are talking in perfect Swedish. It feels strange. I shouldn't understand them, they shouldn't be speaking my native language when they most likely never set foot in Sweden. How can I hear and understand them when I wasn't even allowed to hear my sister?

Death lays a hand against my back and pushes me gently forward. I didn't even notice that he was walking behind me, I had been so engrossed on the people that I stopped walking.

When we arrive at the chairs, two new ones grow from the floor. We sit down and don't talk to each other. I'm thankful for that. I don't know if I would be able to listen if he did say something, I'm too dazed to get my thoughts under control. I'm overthinking everything, trying to find a logical explanation for all this that can explain what's going on, but I only end up more confused.

I can't see the end of the room, only the edge of it and it's slightly rounded – like it's going round and round. The chairs are slowly moving along the wall and new people have sat down next to us. They don't talk with each other either.

It feels like hours. The chairs are slowly moving forward, sometimes we are suddenly in front of those who sat a few chairs ahead of us. I don't know how it works and I don't dare to ask. I think about what Emma is feeling. What mom will think when the police call her, how angry and hurt she'll be. Yet another person taken by death. How guilty they'll feel. I push the thoughts aside and try to focus on something else, but everything I can see in front of me is my own dead body. How heavy it was and how it had stained my fingers with its blood.

Death reaches out his arm in front of me. "Look."

Seven gates are on the other side of the wall – the part of the room I couldn't see before. Symbols are carved into the doors. A chamomile on the first one, the same flower that's on the paper Death gave me, and I know that's where we shall head when it's our turn. The others have numbers, a moon, a peace-symbol, and a skeleton of an animal. Another one has a dog with three heads and the last one has nothing carved into it, only a single red brush stroke. Above them they each have a sign made of stone with numbers carved into it, when the numbers change the sign goes blank and then the new number is carved. There are no rules when it comes to the numbers, it can go from eleven and jump to one hundred forty-three and then back to eighteen. Not that I thought that this place would suddenly have logical rules.

Death rises from his chair, the sign above the door with the chamomile has changed to our number.

I reluctantly get up. I'm scared, I can admit that. Scared of what kind of monsters hide behind the door. Scared of what kind of creature Death answers to. My legs feel heavy when we traverse the long hall to the first door.

This time he doesn't need to knock, the door opens by itself. We step inside of the whirling darkness, and I take a deep, desperate breath.

The first thing I notice is that there is no skeleton or monster in front of us. The woman sitting behind the desk is a completely normal human, at least she looks like it. The room is small compared to the rest of the rooms we've been in. The ceiling and floor are made of wood, and it looks like we're in the inside of a tree. There are flowers hanging from the ceiling and the walls, there are also some on the side of the room and on the desk the woman is sitting behind. It's like a jungle of flowers and plants.

She has a large, warm smile on her lips. Her hair is brown and done into two low hair buns, and she has three small upside down triangles drawn on her forehead, a scarf around her neck and she's proudly showing of the earrings that looks like chamomiles. This is Blomst.

"Oh, Clover," she says softly and get ups from her chair behind the desk. "Just when I was about to lose all hope."

Clover's body tenses up when she comes over and wrap her arms around him.

"We have waited," she says as she lets go of Clover who is showing a displeased grimace, "Or I have waited."

She walks back to her chair, sits down, and taps her hand against the desk. "Sit down, you don't need to stand."

Two chairs made by crooked branches grows out of the floor. Clover sits down but I hesitate. Blomst gives me a gentle smile. I doesn't help, I feel just as uncomfortable, but I do as she say and sit down on the other chair.

"Well then, now we can start."