The Girl That Died

Rigor Mortis

Yvette was freezing. It had been around three hours already since she left the house of her now dead friend and the two Shinigami more or less nicely escorted her to their main office building. That, however, was not part of the human world, as Alexandre explained, instead much more of some sort of "higher world". And in that place it was cold. Furthermore, speaking had gotten hard as she could hardly open her mouth. 

"That's just your body reacting to being dead, in a way, like a sort of rigor mortis. It will pass. If they don't call us in soon, you'll be stiff as a board by the time we're done waiting!"

Alexandre, who was sitting next to her on one of the chairs, said and smiled ever so slightly about his joke. He nudged her shoulder encouragingly:

"Don't worry, you have many options to choose from here. You can, for example, go to the branch for soul collection or work as my secretary, if you prefer that." 

He joked again and gave her a cheeky smirk. Yvette laughed, or rather blew a bit more air out of her nose than usual, and replied:

"Secretary? Isn't that usually a job for men?" 

The man shook his head energetically:

"Maybe for humans, but where would we be if split jobs into genders? Imagine we let an incapable man go and collect souls, while we let a woman who'd be capable just bring tea!"

Yvette nodded in agreement, she was aware that he was right and even if she would have preferred to be with her family at this moment, she had to admit that she quite liked the mindset of the Shinigami.

Many more long, silent, and most importantly cold minutes passed, which Yvette used to watch the people walking by and thinking about too many things at once. She wondered if she could go home before her husband awaited her back and how she should explain to him that she could only come back to her own house for short visits. Multiple times she corrected the glasses she wasn't used to until at last, the door opened:

"Monsieur Segal, Madame. Come in, please." 

Both stood up and Yvette was urged into the room with gentle force. It was empty, except for a few shelves and a desk. The stranger closed the door and offered the woman his hand:

"Good evening. My name is Guilbert Couture, I am the highest-ranking leader of this organization. Obviously, I know about your situation and we are truly and honestly sorry for that mistake. However, I have to inform you that it was not directly our fault and we cannot fix it on our own."

"Um, Monsieur, I don't mean to interrupt however you should probably cut this short. Madame Moreau will freeze to death on me and rigor mortis is working away on her as well, so I should bring her to a room as soon as possible so she can rest."

Alexander cut in, gaining a rather unappreciative look from his superior:

"Mr. Segal, I understand your concern, but there are a few things that need to be explained and settled. First of all, I'd like to know your full name."

"My name is Yvette Moreau, sir."

She answered and hoped that she wouldn't have to spend unnecessarily much time answering questions. 

"Good. And your age? Date of birth? Cause of death?"

Couture continued while writing down her name.

"27 years, December 25th, 1830, I was poisoned. Pardon, but why is that important?"

She asked, more confused than genuinely curious, and tried to warm her hands by rubbing them together. The man shrugged barely noticeably:

"To complete your file. But now that I think about it, I might just give you the form to fill out elsewhen, otherwise, it will really take too long. But tell me which job you would like to take here? Do you have any talents? Are you multilingual, perhaps?"

"Oh!"

Yvette noticed happily:

"I speak fluent German. And of course, French, but you may have noticed that."

"Mhm, interesting. Yes, that could be of use. How about English?"

Couture followed up.

"Only fragments."

She gave back honestly.

"Well then. We can explain the rest tomorrow. The only problem now is, that we still don't have enough space. Haha, imagine we told this to our colleagues in the English Branche. William Spears would be jealous, given how understaffed they are. Well, the advantage is that there isn't much overtime required here."

The bossy rambled and turned to Alexandre:

"Could you please check if one of the other women would let Madame Moreau share a room with her for a while?"

"Of course. Goodbye, Monsieur."

Alexandre nodded and finally led Yvette outside.

After closing the door behind themselves, they started walking through the plain, long hallways, in which Yvette could only rarely catch tiny glimpses of what happened behind the many doors.

"These are just the offices of the higher Shinigami here. The dorms aren't far from here and if you want you can stay in my room for a while. I am working the night shift anyway. If you are uncomfortable with that you of course don't have to, but I doubt that you could be alone in any of the other rooms.

The woman agreed, she was too tired to care in which stranger's room she would sleep and there was too much she had to think about. She let her aching neck crack loudly; it startled her a bit.

A few minutes later Alexandre stopped in front of a door, embroidered with the silver number "127". He took a key from his pocket and unlocked it. 

"Come on in, Madame." 

He said and dramatically gestured towards the inside, making her smile:

"Ts, thank you kindly, Monsieur."

She stepped inside and looked around; the room was unexpectedly big, with a closet, a big, fancy-looking desk and a bed. The table was covered in papers, a few fountain pens, and inkpots. Furthermore, the room included a bookshelf, filled to such an extent that it probably could not hold even a single book more.

"I know it may not be to your standard or particularly ladylike, but there are Pyjamas in the highest drawer. They are warmer and far more comfortable than the dress."

He offered, pointing in the direction of the closet:

"Feel free to take any of the books, you will most likely wake up before I get back. Oh, and please leave the things on my desk as they are. It may look messy, but at least I find everything like this. Well then, here is the key, you can lock the door once I'm gone, so you won't be bothered by unwanted visitors."

She nodded, thankful, and took it from his hand.

"See you tomorrow. Rest well."

Alexandre went outside and left her alone. She sighed heavily, locked the door, and put on one of the oversized pajamas. Softly, she smiled about the mess on the desk, wondering why a person might need so many fountain pens. After another short look around she climbed on the bed carefully, relieved to finally be able to warm up, and sank into a deep sleep much faster than expected.