Vanessa Cross believed in three things with unwavering certainty: first, that the world would end before her corporate manager stopped assigning pointless PowerPoint tasks. Second, that ghosts didn't exist, and third, that naps were sacred.
So naturally, it was during a sacred nap at exactly 1:07 PM, in the midst of a particularly dull Thursday lunch break, that Vanessa's soul was snatched from the Human World and plummeted—mid-snore—into the bureaucratic chaos of the Land of Death.
She woke up face-down on a cold marble floor.
"Oww," Vanessa groaned, blinking up into an oppressive gloom. The ceiling was an endless stretch of shifting mist, occasionally flickering with fluorescent light. The room.... No, the chamber looked like a Department of Motor Vehicles if it had been cursed by a goth interior designer and haunted by centuries of bureaucracy.
There were long, snaking queues filled with tired-looking souls, muttering ghosts, and a man in a Victorian suit arguing with a sentient clipboard.
Vanessa sat up. Her office ID badge still hung from her neck, her pencil skirt wrinkled from the nap, and her sensible heels were somehow scuffed.
"Where the hell—?"
"Ah! There she is!"
A young man with too-long sleeves and anxious energy practically bounced over to her, flanked by a clipboard that flapped its pages nervously.
"You're Vanessa Cross, right? Human world soul registry ID 9021-Delta-Kappa-041?"
Vanessa blinked. "Um, yes? Who are—"
"Nix! FCO Department. Fate Coordination Office," he said hurriedly, holding up a glowing badge that looked far too magical to be anything from HR. "You weren't supposed to be here here. There was a little uh...mistake. In the runes. Just a syllable off! But, um. Minor issue. Super fixable."
Vanessa stared wide eyed at him. "Did you just say runes?"
"Summoning runes. Very reliable. Mostly. 97.2% accuracy! Except, you know, when someone writes 'Vanessa Cross' instead of 'Vanessa Crosswell.'"
"Crosswell?!" Vanessa shrieked loudly. Scaring the other souls lined up at the side.
"Shh, calm down" Nix tried to calm her down while speaking in a lower voice, "She was supposed to die during a jellyfish encounter in Guam. Weird case. Anyway, you weren't supposed to be summoned but—ha-ha—here we are!"
"So I died because of a typo?" She stared hard at the incompetent reaper from the so-called FCO Department as he said.
"No, no! You didn't die. You were, um... misfiled. Temporarily extracted. Soul slippage, if you know. Your body is technically still at your desk. Asleep."
Vanessa blinked not believing a thing he said. "Is this a lucid dream? Did Mira slip me one of her weird energy drinks again?"
Before Nix could answer, a sharp voice interrupted.
"NIX!"
A woman with silver-rimmed glasses, black gloves, and the posture of a military general strode toward them. Her black coat trailed behind like a cape, and her ID badge read: Samone, Head of Department, FCO.
"Oh no," Nix whispered. "It's Samone."
Vanessa frowned and look at him with eyes filled with confusion "who?"
Even before Nix answer her, she already felt a certain presence arriving just a few steps away from her. Samone fixed her eyes on Vanessa with a look so piercing, she instinctively stood up straighter.
"Miss Cross, was it? You are currently standing in violation of Regulation 47-B: Unauthorized Soul Presence."
Vanessa was stunned. She opened her mouth to answer but Samone continued.
"This is a high-security realm. Mortal presence, even by accident can disrupt fate flow calibration and lead to butterfly effect-level anomalies. If the Council of Elders hears about this before we fix it, Nix, you are going to be processing ghost moans in CRSS for the next two centuries." She said flatly while looking at him with her dead eyes.
Nix winced at her words. "It was an honest mistake!" he shouted, anxious to explain this to his superior Samone a.k.a manager of the FCO Department.
"Then honestly fix it." Samone replied with her arms crossed in front of her chest.
---
There were many things Vanessa Cross could tolerate: early meetings, stale coffee, even corporate team-building exercises with Todd from accounting. But this? Waking up dead...well, technically not dead but mistakenly assumed dead was not on the list.
"I'm not dead! I literally had a tuna sandwich an hour ago!" Vanessa shrieked still couldn't believe the predicament she fall into.
She clutched her office ID like a holy talisman, holding it up like it would open a portal back to the land of the living. Her eyes darted wildly between the two Reapers—Samone and Nix who, after their dramatic welcome, now looked like interns who had accidentally deleted a CEO's presentation five minutes before a board meeting.
After registering what they said awhile ago, She slumped into a fetal position on the nearest haunted-looking filing cabinet, groaned as she asked them for confirmation, "So, you're saying I was reaped... by mistake?"
Samone and Nix exchanged awkward glances.
"Well, technically yes." Nix answered her while Samone just stared at him as though burning a hole in his head.
Vanessa buried her face into her palms, then let out the kind of guttural scream reserved for slow Wi-Fi and broken zippers during bathroom emergencies.
"I swear, this is exactly the kind of thing that would happen the moment I take a damn nap! I knew I shouldn't have trusted that peace and quiet. It's always the silence before the chaos!"
"I knew I shouldn't have eaten lunch in the office. I could've gone to the noodle shop like a normal person," she muttered.
She wasn't crying. No, she, Vanessa Cross didn't cry in front of strangers, even spectral ones but her voice shook with indignation and betrayal. She had things to do. Documents to avoid. Emails to half-read. And now, because some interdimensional filing error happened, she was… here.
"This can't be happening," she whispered to herself. "I'm twenty-seven. I haven't even gotten my revenge on Boss Lang yet! That man deserves at least two soul reaps a week."
Samone blinked. "Uh, who's Boss Lang?"
"My manager. Think crusty energy vampire in a coffee-stained tie. I've imagined his funeral like five times, and it was beautiful."
"Wow," Nix said with awe in her imagination. "Petty vengeance. Love that."
"You should meet his calendar system. It's basically a war crime."
Vanessa sniffled, then paused. "Wait. So… can you un-reap me? Like hit Ctrl-Z on my soul?" she asked them with eyes filled of hope.
Nix winced. "That's… not how the system works. See, once you've passed the death gate and cross into Land of Death, your physical vessel gets 'temporarily'… de-souled. You're in a state of suspended corporeal disassociation."
Vanessa stared speechlessly at him. "English, please."
"You're stuck. For now," Samone translated.
Vanessa's mouth dropped open. "Oh my God. I'm a bureaucratic ghost!" Screaming her lungs out.
Samone nodded sympathetically. "It happens more than you think."
"So what now? Do I just... float around? Haunt the water cooler in my office?" She threw her hands in the air. "This is so typical. I try to take one guilt-free nap at work, and I end up haunting HR. Unbelievable."
"We can't send her back yet," Nix muttered, pacing in sharp little circles. "Her physical form is still in the Reap Zone. That takes at least 72 hours to reverse without a soul-bonding technician, and those guys are always on vacation."
Vanessa narrowed her eyes. "So what do you expect me to do for 72 hours? I don't even have a Netflix subscription here."
Both of the reapers suddenly stunned speechless. They didn't know what to do with her soul since this is the first in history something like this happening. And it is absolutely not an option to inform the Council of Elders about this mistake.
The silence is haunting.
Vanessa crossed her arms. Looking at them still trying to reason with them "Okay, I don't know what this is. Some elaborate escape room? VR onboarding? Did Kenji build this? Because I swear if this is another company prank..."
"No prank," said a third voice, deep and echoing.
An elevator door opened silently, revealing a tall figure in a floor-length coat. His presence filled the room like winter air entering a greenhouse.
"Elder Velta," Samone said, bowing slightly.
He looked at Vanessa. His eyes were pure silver. "This is the one?"
"Yes, Director."
Vanessa stared. "Wait, director? What is this all about? Who are you?"
Elder Velta ignored her question. "Is her soul stable?"
Nix checked his clipboard, which squeaked in protest. "Mostly. Her tether to her body is still intact, though it's starting to fray."
"Then we'll need to act quickly. Miss Cross, come with us." Elder Velta said to Vanessa with a tone of command without looking at her.
Vanessa hesitated. "You expect me to just... follow a bunch of Death Cosplayers into a haunted HR office?"
Elder Velta arched an eyebrow. "Do you have a better option?"
She glanced around. Victorian Ghost Guy Nix was now crying into the clipboard, and a banshee in the third line was shrieking about customer service.
Vanessa sighed helplessly, resigned to her fate. "Fine. But someone better explain all of this before I wake up and send a very aggressive email to HR."