A tall tower that stretched past the clouds and seeming to go forever into an endless void sat on rock as black as space.
There was no ground around it.
It was as if it was a black rock floating in space, yet it was motionless.
The land was dark but endless, no stars or planets anywhere.
It was a strange place that didn’t make much sense.
Inside the tower, it looked like a bleak and boring office.
Cubicles creating a large and symmetrical grid.
Every desk was empty except for an old computer monitor that was a garish white color, insulting to the eyes with how boring and plain it was.
The screens were all black with walls and walls of green tables, graphs, text, and all sorts of things crammed into the small squares.
The people reading over the screen were dressed in a wide variety of clothing. They were a wide variety of ages, races, religions, everything.
It was seemingly random.
At one wall was a row of elevator doors shut.
Across the wide office space was a single office that sat with black tinted windows and a large black door.
On the door was scratched in a name and a title.
Mr. Death. CEO.
The door suddenly came flying open, every single person their cubicles jumping in fear.
Standing in the now open doorway stood a black skeleton dressed in a black suit with a painfully bright green tie. The black skull had a strange haze around it, and the suit was looking like it was floating over the bones. The suit looked a few sizes too large, yet it hung like there was an invisible body filling it in.
The black skull looked around over the cubicles as its hands lifted up.
A single silver skull ring floated around the ring finger as if it was a normal finger.
Mr. Death began to walk very slowly down one of the walkways.
He looked forward at the wall with the elevators.
Sitting over them was a large digital clock counting hours, minutes, seconds, and even milliseconds.
It read 4:59:59:00.
As the milliseconds raced to the end, the time was supposed to change to 5:00:00…but it didn’t.
It went right back to the same time, the milliseconds the only things changing.
Mr. Death continued to walk as the workers all turned their attention to their computer monitors, shaking from nerves.
“How are we doing today?” Mr. Death asked, his voice changed into a new one with every word.
Nobody responded.
“I said…how are we doing today?” He asked louder, every word yet again a different voice.
The people all turned to look at him, fear obvious on their faces.
“Any new candidates? Come on. Anybody. I need somebody.”
Mr. Death was snapping his bone fingers together, creating a harsh and ugly sound as he pointed around to random workers.
His voice continued to change to a whole new one with every word, as if each word was spoken by a separate person.
By a separate soul.
One worker slowly raised their arm into the air, which shook violently and with sweat running down into their long sleeve.
“Thank you!” Mr. Death shouted as he quickly ran over.
He put his hand firmly on the worker’s shoulder and stared at the old computer monitor.
It contained a low quality, green and black picture of a person while all sorts of information was in a long wall of text directly next to it.
“Ooh…this is a good choice. Thank you Darlene.” Mr. Death said with a wide smile.
The worker was an elderly woman, shaking while wearing a suit too large for her, along with short white hair and thick glasses.
“Any…any…time…Mr. Death.” She sounded afraid.
Mr. Death put his hands on her shoulders while smiling widely.
“No need to be afraid Darlene. You know what this means right? You know what happens when you find somebody for me.” Mr. Death continued to smile.
The old woman hid her gaze, but his boney hand suddenly grabbed her chin and made her look into his empty eyes.
“I don’t like when people don’t answer me…”
The room began to slowly grow warmer and warmer.
The elderly woman began to look fearful and cried as Mr. Death pulled his hand away.
Her jawline was now covered in burns, exactly fitting where his hand was.
“I’ll be back. Everyone back to work!” He shouted loudly.
All of the workers turned and went back to typing on their computers.
Mr. Death fixed his suit as he let out an annoyed sigh.
He walked quickly between the cubicles, making it to the elevator while rubbing his head, like he was pushing his hair out of his face.
“If anybody slacks while I’m gone…you’re fired.” He said as the elevator dinged loudly.
Everyone turned to look at him as he stepped into the black and golden elevator. He pressed the one and only button inside the elevator, looking forward and starting into the room before the metal doors shut with a loud thud.
The office room was completely silent as the people worked, even their typing silent.

On a winding road that cut through multiple hills, a vintage car was driving rather quickly.
“Babe come on, we’re going to be late to the party! Hurry up!” A young woman whined, wearing a very revealing sparkly dress.
It was beginning to become night time, the sun barely visible due to the massive stretches of hills stretching up everywhere.
“Just calm down, I’m going as fast as I can.” The boy driver replied, wearing a letterman jacket with dress pants.
The girl leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms annoyed.
“Oh come on baby. Please don’t be upset.” He said, reaching with one hand to rest on her thigh.
“I don’t like being fashionably late. I told you how long it would take me to get ready so we could get there early. You’re the one who had to shower for twenty minutes.” She replied.
He sighed and rolled his eyes.
“I told you, I listen to music when I shower and I always shower for three songs. I don’t pick them ahead of time, so I didn’t know that The End by The Doors was going to come on.” He said as he quickly took a wide turn rather sharply, cutting into the other lane before racing forward back in the right lane.
“Well maybe you could just shower as long as you need to.” She replied, softly smiling.
He laughed softly, his hand softly squeezing her thigh.
“Alright fine. I’ll cut it back to two songs.” He joked as he turned to face her.
They both smiled as they locked eyes for a single second.
The single second of taking his eyes off the road caused the car to crash violently through the steel railing.
The car flung high into the air, the boy trying to pull her closer to him.
The front of the car went straight down, smashing into the steep hill of rock and dirt before flipping and rolling more.
Crashing through thick trees and rocks, sending pieces of broken and bent metal into the air that crashed down to the ground.
The doors flung off, the center console exploded and sent shrapnel every direction.
The windshield shattered and covered both of their bodies in broken glass.
The boy’s head hit the ceiling of the car, his neck bending slightly when the car landed upside down with such force that his neck shattered with a loud crack that seemed to echo around for miles.
The girl was knocked out, her body being whipped forward but the seatbelt held her and whipped her back into her seat. The air was knocked out of her lungs as her head went back and hit the head rest, knocking her out in an instant.
The world was silent for minutes.
The car sat alone, the headlights broken and shining with scattered light reflecting in multiple directions.
The car sat cold and quiet.
The boy softly groaned, holding his head as his body suddenly dropped to the roof.
He continued to hold his head and neck as he crawled through the broken windshield.
His neck was stuck at an awkward angle, leaving his head out and pointed down, unable to turn it in any direction.
“What the…what happened?” He asked as he rubbed his eyes.
“You drove off a cliff.” A voice came out from nowhere.
The boy jumped, trying to look around but being unable to turn his head to see the origin.
“Who’s there?” He asked loudly.
“Hold on, let me help you.”
A cold and boney hand reached out, grabbing him by his neck and suddenly twisting and pulling down into the shoulders.
The neck loudly snapped back as the boy groaned, turning and rolling his head around.
“Oh fuck. That feels so much better. Thanks for…”
As the boy turned, he spotted a black skeleton wearing a black suit standing in front of him.
He jumped back and fell to the ground with panicked eyes.
“What the fuck?” He screamed loudly.
“And that’s another one.”
Mr. Death made a clipboard and pen appear out of thin air.
On a piece of paper were multiple phrases.
“Who are you? Where am I? The hell? Are you Death?”
He ran his finger over every phrase, next to each of them hundreds of tally marks.
“Ah, here we go. What the fuck?”
He added another tally mark next to the phrase.
“Congratulations on dying.” Mr. Death said.
The boy just stared with fear in his eyes, frozen and unsure of what to say.
“And silence. Man, you are like the most cliche death I’ve ever dealt with. Alright, let’s keep this going easy and you just come with me.”
Mr. Death held his hand out and kept his other on his suit jacket.
“I…but…what’s going on here? Where’s my girlfriend?” He asked as he looked around, but he started to panic.
“Wait…I don’t remember her name. What is her name?” He grabbed his head and nearly broke down crying.
“Why don’t I remember her name?” He asked.
“Weird…how did you die?” Mr. Death asked.
“Car crash I guess.” He replied.
Mr. Death looked at the car.
“Oh I know what happened. You broke your neck and probably suffered a serious concussion. Your brain is already dying, might be close to fully dead in a few seconds.”
“No…I…I want…I need…please don’t take me.” He got up to his feet, but almost fell over right away.
“I got you.” Mr. Death said as he put the boy’s arm over his shoulders.
“I need…please…let me…”
The boy broke free of Mr. Death’s grasp. He ran to the car, reaching out and staring at his unconscious girlfriend.
He had a loving smile as he kept staring.
“I wouldn’t touch her if I were you.”
Mr. Death said when a pitch black cigar appeared from thin air, already being lit.
“I can save her. Let me…”
The boy reached up to unbuckle her. The seat disintegrated into nothing as her body fell to the ground. He reached out and touched her arm.
Her body suddenly burst into flames.
The car burst just as quickly before exploding, sending him flying back and landing at Mr. Death’s feet.
“Told you.” Mr. Death replied in a dry tone as he smoked the entire cigar at once.
“I…she…”
“You’re a Dead Soul. Don’t touch anything living, or else it’ll die. Watch.”
Mr. Death reached out and touched a nearby tree, which immediately burst into flames before turning into ash within seconds.
“I’m…dead?” The boy asked as he looked down at his hands.
“Holy shit you are really bad at paying attention.” Mr. Death said as he put his fingers against his eye holes, rubbing them as if he was stressed.
“I…what now? Is there a Heaven and Hell?” The boy asked.
Mr. Death just broke out in laughter.
“Oh of course there is. But ever since God was killed everything went to shit. All the Angels turned Heaven into a massive party world full of orgies, drugs, and alcohol. Meanwhile, all the Demons escaped to Earth and have been running around for thousands of years. Hell is basically an empty void of nothing.” Mr. Death said.
“So…where am I going?” The boy asked.
“To my office. Death Inc. We specialize in Dead Souls who can’t get into Heaven or Hell. You lived a life full of…”
Mr. Death stopped, looking and sounding disgusted with what he was about to say.
“Good deeds…”
He sighed and shook his skull.
“As well as some more fun sinful things. Your life was so mixed of good and bad that you aren’t eligible for either place. So now you’re going to come with me and work for me. What do you say?” Mr. Death held out a contract that appeared out of thin air.
Black paper with black ink.
“How am I supposed to read this?” The boy asked.
“Don’t have to. Just sign it.” Mr. Death said.
“What happens if I don’t?” He asked.
“All Dead Souls who don’t make it into Heaven or Hell just wander around the world forever, unable to be seen or heard. You can’t do anything but watch people live their lives. Awful secrets that you never wanted to hear and can’t tell others about. You can witness horrible things and not be able to stop them from happening. You are nothing but an invisible watcher, unable to act at all.” Mr. Death said.
The boy slowly got to his feet, looking down at his body.
His torn and bloody letterman jacket.
His ruined dress pants.
“I…but…”
“Oh my Death just sign it. It’ll make things so simple and I really don’t like answering questions.” Mr. Death said.
The boy was hesitant, but took the pen made of bone with a skull shaped end.
He took it and looked down at the black paper.
“Okay…”
He signed his name, the paper disappearing in a quick burst of flame.
“Good to have you. Now, let’s go.”
An elevator suddenly shot up from the ground, making the boy jump.
The doors opened and Mr. Death stepped inside, the boy slowly following.
The box went straight down into the ground, leaving the burning car alone in the world.

Mr. Death and the boy stepped out into the full office of cubicles and workers.
“So…what do you…”
Mr. Death lifted his hand, making the boy stop talking.
He walked a few steps forward before crouching down, picking up a pen off the floor.
“Whose pen is this?” Mr. Death asked quietly but tensely.
Nobody responded as he slowly stood up.
The room began to heat up like a massive oven, growing hotter and hotter very quickly.
“I said…”
Mr. Death was shaking.
“Whose pen is this?” He screamed, his entire skeleton bursting into violent flames of red fire.
The new boy jumped back as Darlene slowly lifted her hand up.
Mr. Death turned to face her, the flames suddenly disappearing as he walked over, rubbing his skeleton hand over his skull.
“Darlene…” He said softly.
“Yes…Mr. Death?” She asked.
“I’m rather happy to say this, since you’ve been working with me for nearly three hundred and fourteen years…but you can finally retire.” Mr. Death said with a smile.
“I…really?” She asked, confused.
“Of course.”
Mr. Death helped her to her feet, and pulled her into a hug.
Darlene smiled, but within seconds her body burst into a quick burst of flames before a pile of ash landed on the floor.
Mr. Death sighed and wiped off her chair, looking back at the boy.
“Here is your desk.” Mr. Death said.
The boy very slowly walked over, shaking from fear.
He sat in the chair slowly, looking at the old computer monitor.
“Don’t disappoint me.” Mr. Death put his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“I…I won’t…sir…” The boy said nervously.
“Alright, now let’s get to it!”
Mr. Death went to his office, opening it to step inside before he shut it with all of his force.
Everyone jumped, the clock ticking away until 4:59:59, but then it suddenly snapped back to 9:00:00.
The office day ended and started one after the other.
The day was neverending.
Their jobs were neverending.

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