She moves her white fingers over the papers.

"Can we get this over with?" mutters Clover.

Blomst leans back at her chair and puts a hand under her chin, there's something playful in the light blue eyes. I can't let go of the thought of what is actually in front of me, the hundreds of souls that waited for her or something else. I saw seven gates in the hall. There are seven creatures behind each gate. Would they look and seem as human as the woman in front of us, or would they look like the skeleton I saw in the corridor? It feels like I can't trust anything, I questions everything I see. While this woman looks human, there's something about her that makes me doubt that what I see is real. A little warning tells me to not trust it, that it's more complicated than this. Even Clover hade told me to not judge everything on appearance only, it could have been a warning.

"You see, Clover here has never liked apprentices."

I frown. Apprentices?

"Every time he complains. Now it's been such a long time that I wondered if he convinced all the apprentices to stay and become specters instead."

She moves the light blue eyes towards Clover, the friendliness is replaced by a coldness that creeps into my skin. I shiver, it's hard to shut it out. I was always good at feeling other people's emotions, but this is a whole other level.

"You know I haven't done that," he says and lowers his eyebrows.

The cold disappears as quickly as it came. "Apparently not, because your new apprentice is sitting right in front of us. You can't blame me, Clover. When one of my soul wanderers hates every second of handling the apprenticeship and it's been more than forty years since they had one... then you start to wonder."

"Soul wanderer?" I dare to ask.

Blomst's eyes are unusually dark when they were light a few seconds ago.

"Haven't you told her?" She speaks calmly, but the room feels stuffy in the same way as when a thunderstorm is on its way.

He looks at her with an ice-cold calmness. I would have believed it if I hadn't seen him clench his fist under the desk. The hair on the back of my neck stands up as she leans forward. It's difficult to breath and the air feels heavy and foul.

"Clover?" she asks with a smile; the heavy air leaves the room, and the eyes lightens up again.

"I haven't said anything," he answers.

Blomst snorts and shakes her head. "No wonder you haven't had an apprentice in forty years if you don't tell the poor souls anything." She gives me a half, sympathetic smile. "A soul wanderer – or a harvester soul if you prefer that term – is a human soul that harvest souls."

"A reaper with other words?" I ask.

She smiles. "We don't call it reaper. You see, a soul wanderer can be both men and women. Children, teenagers, adults and elders. And of course, you won't need to reap anyone with a scythe, the way humans have depicted you. You don't even need to call it reaping or harvesting if you associate it too much with reapers. That's why we mostly use soul wanderers today, harvester souls are too often associated with reapers. Anyway, you can call it whatever you want. Collect souls, save souls, retrieve souls. It is what it is."

She said you. Why did take this long for me to figure it out? Why I'm here, why there were so many souls in the waiting hall. The only ones who had cried were the ones that looked like they belonged to my time, the other ones that have been here for hundreds of years sat calmly and waited. Just like Clover had done.

I force myself to ask, but a lump in my throat makes it sound unnatural. "You said you... as in I?"

Blomst glares at Clover. "See, this is why you always explain before you take them through the corridor," she sighs and looks at me again. "I would have preferred if Clover was the one who explained everything, but yes. Clover took you here because the soul stone rejected you. Which can mean two things. Either you have chosen to stay, or you're a soul wanderer."

"I could have stayed?"

"Yes, I told you you could stay," he reminds me. "Believe me, it's better this way. If you would have stayed there, there wouldn't be a lot of you left. As an apprentice–"

"Apprentice?" I interrupt. "Is that what I am?"

"Normally an apprentice gets to choose." Blomst glares at Clover for every word. "But since Clover took you through the corridor without asking, you never received that choice. I'm sorry. Once you step into the corridor there is no turning back. You're already part of this world, you're changed. A normal soul can't come into this world, at least not in the same form."

I don't dare to ask what she means with the same form, or what it means to not be a normal soul. One thing is clear, I'm stuck here. He could have told me, explained that I had a choice and what it meant to follow him. But he didn't and I can't understand why. What kind of answer is it's better this way? I couldn't even choose how my death will play out.

"I didn't even get a choice?"

"You would have had one if Clover had done his work correctly. But since he took you through the gate there is no other choice."

"And if the stone had done what it was supposed to do? If it had worked, what would have happened?"

"It didn't," Clover reminds me.

"I didn't ask what happened, I asked what would have happened if it worked."

He annoys me and if I can say anything about his expression, he feels the same way about me.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Then the stone takes your soul. You'll either be reborn or you'll move on."

Clover almost sounds bored, he doesn't want to spend his time explaining these things to me.

I don't if it would have been better if I didn't follow him. What would have been left of me? Would I have been just a soul that was desperately trying to make the world react? Had I died at home it would have been different. But I died alone on a lonely road between forests.

I take a deep breath and stare at my fingers in my lap. My clothes are whole, they're not bloody or torn and cut open like the ones my dead body wore. They are whole and clean like they had been in the guest room in front of the mirror.

"What does it mean to be an apprentice and a soul wanderer?"

They hadn't said anything, they let me take in all this information. Blomst pulls a finger over the papers, I doubt she needs them. Maybe it's to make her seem more human, so we're not guarded.

"An apprentice follows the soul wanderer that would have harvested their souls. Simply put, you'll just have to watch and feel how the job works. When I think you're ready you can start harvesting souls on your own. A special area will be chosen for you. Clovers special area is within accidents. There are many different areas like murder, old age, birth for the mother, an infant's death, sickness, and suicide."

It feels strange of how she speaks of it – like it would be some sort of internship at a job. It felt human and normal until she started talking about the different ways of dying. I want to remind her what she's talking about, that our death deserves respect.

"You won't have to worry that you'll end up with suicide as your area. Only those who take their own lives are handed that area. And you..." she looks through the papers on her desk, "died in a car accident."

It sounds morbid when she speaks of my death in a light-hearted tone.

"Jonna Bäck," she says, it sounds like she's tasting the name, testing it out. "Jonna. Bäck."

It feels strange when she pronounces my name, but it also makes me feel an inner peace. I glance at Clover, he has a slightly sad, absent gaze. I focus on my name one of the papers. It spelt with capital letters in a beautiful penmanship, everything is handwritten in black ink.

"I'm sorry," she says with a sympathetic smile.

Clover closes his eyes. He reminds me of Emma when she grieved dad at his funeral. Eyes closed, with her head leaned down and her hands clasped together as in a prayer. Clover is not doing any of that – the only thing they had in common was that both of them had their eyes closed – but something in the coal-stained face reminds me of the sorrow Emma carried that day.

Blomst's hand is reached out over the desk and papers. She slowly lowers it towards my name and pulls the fingers gently over it. Everything that's left is a blurry black stain.

It's only for a few seconds, but it feels like an eternity. First I forget my name, who I am and what I stand for, what my wishes and goals are. Then I forget everything else. My family, my friends. I don't remember the blonde woman, the one with the curls. But she's shining strongly in the empty darkness. I try to remember her name, who she was. Everything feels messy and confusing.

It comes back, a wave of memories and emotions strikes me, hard enough that I almost fall off the chair. I breathe in, desperate and hastily, I can't get enough of air. It feels like I'm suffocating. I lean forward over the desk and cough. My hand is pushing hard against my chest.

My name is Jonna Bäck. I'm twenty-two. I have a sister whose name is Emma; she has blonde curly hair and I have to remember her. I have to remember myself. I can't forget. Jonna. Jonna. Jonna. I repeat those thoughts over and over again.

A sad and pitiful noise comes out of my mouth, and I can't stop shaking.

"It's unpleasant, but it is demanded of you," says Blomst and holds up her hand, on one of her fingers there is something written. Orchid, my dad's favorite flower.

I can't answer, my whole body is shaking and my head feels messy, like someone took a large ladle and spun everything around.

She pushes her finger onto the paper and the word slowly finds its way to the black stain that was once my name. Eventually it disappears completely and all that is left is Orchid.

"Your name is Orchid," she says with a soft and welcoming voice and looks straight into my soul.

"I have a name," I get out and lower my hand from my chest. "My name is Jonna Bäck."

Jonna Bäck, repeat it, says a voice in my head. You cannot forget. For the first time since I died I feel nauseated and a headache pounding against my temples. It hurts but I finally feel something, even if it's just pain.

"Not anymore," says Blomst and shakes her head. "We all change our names."

"When she says we all, she means us soul wanderers." Blomst glares at Clover but he continues. "I don't think you've ever had to change your name even once, Blomst."

"Why do I have to change my name?" I ask.

Blomst moves her gaze to me.

"A soul wanderer has to let go of their former life. The name change is the first step in that direction."

"And what's the second step?"

Clover answers before Blomst can. "You forget yourself, your life before you died. Your family and the ones you loved. Everything that you have experienced in life. I don't remember my name or the exact circumstances of how I died, who my family was. All I know is that I'm Clover, a soul wanderer. The only clue we have is from the soul wanderers that held our apprenticeship, our mentors. And since we don't look like the exact moment we lost our lives, we can never know the circumstances of how we truly died – unless we took our own lives. Those scars stay," he looks at Blomst, "for some reason."

Blomst makes a hand gesture and gives me a sympathetic smile that doesn't reach the eyes.

"It's not as bad as he makes it sound like. Clover is an eternal pessimist regardless of whether memories of his living years remain or not. There's a world after death, those memories won't disappear. You can see this as a new life. When a soul is reborn it doesn't have any memories of its past life, but it can still live a good life, experience new or old things. It's not an end of your life, it's a new beginning," she says and strokes her fingers over my new name – Orchid.

Orchid. It sounds wrong. It doesn't fit.

"And one more thing," she says with a smile.

Blomst rolls over with her chair to a bookcase made of dark wood, branches covered in greenery have grown on the sides. There's a small light brown box in one of the shelves, she carefully picks it up and rolls back. She puts the box on the desk.

"You can open it, Orchid."

I grimace by the sound of that name. I open the square box and inside there's a thick coin about the size of my palm. It's shining of orange and blue, and I feel life, how it felt to live when I hold my hand over it.

"What is it?" I ask while holding back tears.

It feels warm, the glow from the coin is caressing my palm. I don't want to move.

"We call them Stormcoins," Blomst says with a smile. "Every soul wanderer gets one when they arrive, and it's charged once a year."

"What does it do?"

"It gives humans another chance," Clover says.

"You can use it when you rather have the human soul continuing living in their vessel. Then you don't have to harvest them." Blomst leans back. "You'll create a new destiny for them and a new death date. It could be fifty years from now and if you – and them – are unlucky, it can be just a few hours difference."

If Clover had such a coin, he could have saved me from a certain death. I wouldn't be sitting here, and I wouldn't have left Emma alone. I don't know how to ask it, how to not sound selfish and greedy.

"I've already used it," he admits and his eyes narrows. "But even if I hadn't, I wouldn't have used it on you. Don't take it personally, the only ones I use the Stormcoin on is children."

I can't hate him for that, definitely not after the last thing he said. Because it was right, a child that hadn't even had time to live yet deserved the coin much more than I did, even though I also didn't get very old.

Blomst closes the lid on the box, I wince and pull my hand back.

"Door eleven is the door to your new world, your new home," she says like I'm supposed to understand what that means. "I've told you most things, Orchid. The rest Clover will tell you."