The Soul Chaser

chapter one: the soul chasers

Chapter One: The Soul Chasers

"Welcome to Hell's Headquarters, where misery is our top priority!"

I breathed in the scent of stress and helplessness as I stepped out of the elevator, the same perky voice as everyday announcing my welcome through the speakers above my head.

I sighed happily, watching the bustling workers of the third floor move to and fro with stressful intent. I stared as one fellow co-worker opened a portal in the middle of the floor, the blue green sparks flaring up in a circle, and disappearing again in a second after he had stepped through, vanishing to God knows where on Earth. Others bustled around with stacks of papers and folders, looking bereaved and underworked as they shuffled around delivering them under the fluorescent lights of the office.

I smiled. It was a great day to be in Hell.

I was about to step into the bustle of Headquarters when a familiar voice stopped me in my tracks. I turned to look at Erik, who was giving me one of his common looks, his eyebrow quirked in question, his arms wrapped around his chest.

"Don't you look happy to be in Hell, Ava," he said cheekily, moving toward me.

We both stepped into the middle of the throng of people, moving toward our cubicles at the other end of the floor. "I am happy." I stated, taking a sip of the coffee I had stolen from a Starbucks the day before. I liked stealing coffees even though I couldn't technically taste them.  "In a few weeks I'm free. And you will be too, in a few months."

Erik rolled his eyes. "Oh, please," he said, stepping past a dark-haired girl who was sprinting to the opposite end of the floor with a huge stack of papers, narrowly avoiding an accident. "We both know I'll be freed before you. Ever since you were put on the Devil's blacklist, you haven't gotten nearly the same cases as me. You'll have to visit me in Heaven for a while."

"In your dreams, darling," I said, reaching my cubicle and setting myself down in my chair. I watched as Erik went to the cubicle in front of me, falling into his seat like I had.

When I had been assigned here 100 years prior, I had had both the fortune and misfortune of having him in the cubicle in front of me. Erik had been there for about a few decades before me, and promptly made himself both a new friend and a new enemy the second I had walked through those doors. I knew that one day our competitiveness would get us banished to the actual Hell, where coffee wasn't allowed, but so far, we had only gotten in trouble a few times for breaking a few minor rules. The bigger rule breaks had gone largely unnoticed, except for one that had gotten me on the blacklist. Oops.

"I don't care," I said, eyeing the very small pile of folders that had been deposited on my desk earlier that morning. I flipped through the first one nonchalantly, trying to repress the urge to check how big Erik's pile was. "I won't have to put up with the Devil soon, and I can always steal more assignments from the Paper People over there." I pointed at the other end of the office, where a few workers were sat, bended over, shifting through mountains of paperwork and putting everything into folders that we ended up getting every morning.

Erik eyed me from atop the cubicle wall that we shared, narrowing his eyes. "You wouldn't."

"I would." I grinned, tossing the file back onto the pile, grabbing all of them, and stuffing them into my briefcase. "Right after I get these done before 11 A.M."

"That's impossible," he said flippantly, sitting back in his chair. "Each soul takes at least an hour, and it's already 9:30 AM."

From where I was standing, I could see that some new photos had been printed and added to his wall of oddities. A picture of an ice-cream, an electric scooter, and a cheeseburger.