The middle

Chapter 1: the count

Everyone knows when a person dies their deeds decide whether they go up or down, but what happens when someone is stuck in the middle?

A moment of silence followed by a bang. A blur of cries, sirens, and panic flooded the street, heads turned with alarm, an old lamppost tumbled over, and a car filled with blood and a lifeless body.

Lavender was what her friends called 'perfection'. When in reality she was far from this, in the eyes of the seventeen-year-old girls, she was everything they found 'cool'. Her long flowing lavender hair (perfectly matching her name) was well kept, not even a single strand of hair was ever out of place. With eyes reflecting the luscious green meadows, her peers were nothing less than envious of her. Her skin always glowing the perfect toffee shade; she was the embodiment of beauty. Despite her beautiful physical features, it took a lot of warming up to her to see her inner beauty. To most she was rude but when needed she could be the perfect sweetheart.

The news of her death spread like wildfire, leaving many questioning what would happen to her now, would her spurts of kindness and hard work, be enough to get her into the 'Up', or would her general ill-mannered behaviors drag her to the 'Down'.

Lavender's designated angel and devil quickly jumped off her shoulders, and immediately grew so they were of an equal height to Lavender. They opened their notebooks and began to count her deeds. "527 good deeds" Adore, her designated angel, stated.

"Did you say 527?", Eroda, her designated devil, responded with a puzzled expression crawling onto her face. Adore glanced her way and gave a quick nod.

"She can't possibly have 527 good deeds, that would make both her good and bad deeds equal. You must've counted wrong! There is no way that she could be equal!" Eroda exclaimed.

"I counted 5 times and every time I got 527, you must be the one who counted wrong." Adore hastily responded, offended by Eroda's accusation.

"I have not counted wrong! She has 527 bad deeds, I'm sure of it." Eroda said growing frustrated with the situation they were in.

"So, I guess she's equal. Does the handbook say anything about what to do with her?" Adore replied, disappointed over the fact that she had never heard of anything quite like this before.

Eroda opened the 'Newly Dead and What to Do with Them' handbook and began searching. After ten minutes she still couldn't find anything, and Adore began to grow impatient as she waited for Eroda to find a solution to the peculiar predicament they were in.

Adore was exactly what you would expect an angel to look like (minus halo that is). Her smooth complexion was a similar color to that of a chestnut, beautifully paired with chocolaty eyes that you could get lost in. Her smile contagious, the kind that by just catching a glance of you were instantly filled with the warmth of a loving heart. Her hair soft yet coiled up into the tightest of curls. Her hair glowed a rich brown and her body fragile and petite, she handled it all with great care. She often wore a loose flowing white sundress contrasting her brassy skin in the best ways possible. Every tiny aspect of her just screamed natural beauty.

Eroda was also stunning but in a very different way to Adore. Her ashy skin was complemented by a few small tattoos and a septum piercing. Her eyes a similar blue to the crystal-like Maldivian waters, were more often than not accented with some form of red and black eye makeup and a slit right at the edge of her left eyebrow. Her hair pin-straight, split right down the middle with a bright firetruck red on the left side and a crow's black on the other. She was often seen to be wearing some form of black graphic t-shirt layered on top of a black and white striped long-sleeved top, paired with a short black skirt and none of her outfits were ever complete without a plethora of jewelry, various chains all of her body and a pair of black combat boots. Although her beauty wasn't as natural as Adore's, she was still beautiful nonetheless.

Twenty minutes after vigorous searching through the handbook Eroda spotted something that stood out to her. "Rule number 4539: If soul is to have an equal ratio of good to bad deeds their designated angel will wake the soul. Once woken the soul will be taken to the Up and followed by a trip to the Down and once a tour of both has been completed the soul will have the choice of which location, they shall wish to spend their afterlife. As always, the decision they make is final and once they state where they would like to be, they must stay there for the rest of eternity, with no opportunity to switch later on." Eroda read. Adore's face immediately lit up as they had found the solution to the problem they faced, but this moment of excitement was short-lived as she realized that there was a chance that she may never be able to earn her halo.

When an angel or devil is created, they are assigned a soul to look after throughout their mortal life. Every angel is born without a halo and every devil is born without their horns. Once the body the soul occupied throughout its mortal life dies, the host's deeds will decide its destination and thus, the soul's postmortem destination decides its role. In the Up, an angel will earn its halo, and, in the Down, the devil will earn their horns.

Adore had already been through 4 souls all of which had gone to the Down and she had grown desperate, she wanted nothing more than to earn her halo and be able to finally relax in the Up. This is made it vital to her to persuade Lavender into choosing the Up as for once where the soul went was in her control. Eroda also wanted to earn her horns and spend eternity in the Down but she was nowhere near as desperate as Adore.

Adore quickly remembered that she needed to wake up the soul and completed the procedure she had completed many times before. It began with 3 taps on the right arm and if the soul was still sleeping, 3 taps on the left arm. Once she had done both of these, she waited a few minutes and, as the soul was still resting, she began to dance on the body's stomach. Lavender quickly awoke as the feeling of someone dancing on your stomach isn't the most comfortable thing to happen to a being.

"What's going on?" Lavender said, startled by the uncomfortable rise. As she looked around and took in the unfamiliar setting more questions arose in her mind and, without giving anyone a second to answer her first question, she blurted them out. "Where am I? Who are you? What on earth is going on here?" Lavender grew more and more panicked which caused her to be on the verge of tears by the time she was able to receive an answer. At the sight of her worry, Adore rushed to her side and began to comfort her. With Adore otherwise occupied it was up to Eroda to answer Lavender's questions. "Long story short, you got into a car accident, died, and are now here, on the Field of Lost Souls, the place where all souls rest till their awoken and taken to either the Up or Down. Oh, I'm Eroda, your designated devil, by the way, and her over there by your side is Adore, she's your designated angel. We have been watching you your whole mortal life and taking notes of your good and bad deeds. Normally right now you would be taken to either the Up or the Down, but you are well let's just say special."

"What Eroda means to say is that throughout your mortal life you have committed an equal amount of good and bad deeds leaving the location of your afterlife up to you to decide. First, we will take you to the Up and once we've given you a proper tour of the Up, we will take you to the Down. Once you've been to both, we'll take you back here where you will come to your final decision of where you want to spend the rest of eternity. Anyways we best be going, we don't really have any reason to stay here. Hold onto my hands and ill cast the spell to take us to the Up." Adore said cutting Eroda off. The girls all huddled together; their hands held tight and Adore muttered some words which to Lavender seemed like pure gibberish. The girls began to float and with a click of Adore's finger they had evaporated into thin air. Less than a minute later, they arrived in the land better known as the Up.