twice ; michaeng | goblin ✦

18 | the missing soul

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upon her return home, chaeyoung was greeted with jeongyeon screaming with frustration.

"you alright?" the goblin let out a chuckle, swinging off her coat as she plopped down into the living room.

there, her housemate was sitting on the floor; drowned in papers and scrolls and all sorts of unreadable material in such alike format. they all turned out to be what jeongyeon calls 'work stuff' — but in reality, an endless stack of historical death documents.

welcome to the life of a grim reaper, enter behind the scenes.

"what are you up to?" chaeyoung furrowed her eyebrows, trying to decipher the odd translation of the upside down books and modern phone lists.

the taller girl groaned, scratching her head as she pulled her hair out from her eyes, "i've been on this case for nine years, and still i can't find her."

"oh," the goddess faltered, "—that missing soul?"

jeongyeon nodded, "it's so frustrating, and it all began with you!" she almost laughed with the daggers in her gaze.

chuckling, chaeyoung avoided her stare, "well, how about you tell me all about it and maybe together we'll try to figure it out?"

"you're willing to help?"

"sure, it's not like i have anything better to do. besides, i did start it afterall," the shorter figure laughed awkwardly, taking a seat beside the other girl as they circled themselves with all the evidence they had.

the fireplace cracked a fire through the winter night, hovering over the two of them with a warmth of artificial heat. outside, seasonal winds knocked through windows, carrying the newly arrived snow in a gust of vicious layers.

"so as you know, my job as a grim reaper is to collect souls that have already died. i receive death cards with their names on them. then i bring the souls with me to the room of passing, where they get to choose whether they want to move on, or remain forgotten in this world. most of them of course decide to move onwards into their next life and with this, sacrifice their memories. but those who stay, become ghosts. if they don't find peace and move on by themselves, they tend to lose all sense of their humanity, and become evil spirits."

jeongyeon let out a tiring sigh before continuing onwards.

"nineteen years ago, there was a woman. i had a death card with her name on it, but also a nameless card too. i figured the second card belonged to her unborn child, her daughter who wasn't yet prescribed to a name. here, you know what happens. she was written to die from a car accident, then bleed to death. but you didn't let that happen. you granted her a life without another one in return to balance. so when i showed up, there was no soul to take."

chaeyoung wanted to interrupt and explain again that she was drunk and doesn't regret her decision but jeongyeon went onwards with the story.

"ten years later, that's nine years ago — i found them; that woman and her child. they were living in constant hiding, a quiet life without any ways for them to be detected. but they missed out a detail while running away. the mother's red scarf, was like a part of her, it held the thought of her. there was a link between that object and its owner, it happens very often when humans get attached to things. and as i remember, it was an oddly cold autumn. she wore the scarf without a second thought that it could give her away, and so when she was heading home from work — i caught her. and she wasn't surprised upon seeing me, which really shocked me. all she did was ask for a minute to say goodbye. and that's when i remembered her daughter, the soul who now had a name and couldn't be ordered to death unlike her mother. because the card from a decade ago, was nameless, and this nine year old girl — was living a missing life. it's why she's called a missing soul. because she's not supposed to be alive, she wasn't supposed to be born in the first place. her destiny, is a chaos of broken parts and no connections. her existence is like trying to slot the wrong jigsaw piece into the puzzle."

the fire died out slowly.

"i'm just trying to do what's best for her, you know? she's an orphan, all alone in this world without anyone to hold onto. she has no future written out, and she's constantly living on the edge between life and death, just at the age of nineteen. and this year, is my final chance to seek her out before i have to wait for another decade. since, you know well, nine in any shape or figure, is the number most closest to death, most closest to me."

chaeyoung shivered, goosebumps covering her skin as she wrapped herself deeper into her sweater.

she knew jeongyeon wasn't wrong, the grim reaper was simply doing her job. but then why did it make her so sick?

why was this story turning her guts upside down?

and why was she feeling so guilty?

"—hey, you okay?" jeongyeon shook her shoulders.

looking up, the goddess shrugged, "sorry," she whispered.

drawing a small smile, the blonde girl shook her head lightly, "it's fine, but i just want it to be over already."

nodding, the two dug around the papers, old addresses, work applications and bank accounts. they even scanned through codexes, but what caught chaeyoung's attention was a book defining all magic of the invisible world.

chaeyoung skimmed through its alphabet, landing on 'm' as she turned the pages over and over.

missing soul
/ˈmɪsɪŋ səʊl/
noun
— a soul which was not prescribed to a life by the codex but is alive.
current count: 1.

chaeyoung frowned, her head spinning as she flipped through the book.

grim reaper
/ɡrɪm ˈriːpə/
noun
— a creature sentenced to 400 years of work by the death codex to transfer souls from one time frame to another.
current count: 2,306.

"there's so many of you.." the short girl murmured, an odd sense of loneliness lacing through her voice.

"that's just in korea," jeongyeon looked over her shoulder, "and for death collectors, that's quite little. lots of people die every day, we barely make it through our cards in time."

humming, chaeyoung pondered over the magical dictionary.

goblin
/ˈɡɒblɪn/
noun
—a very unique mythical creature, a low ranking god and also a spirit cursed to an immortal life by the codex.
current count: 1.

chaeyoung sighed deeply and closed the book.

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written: october 31, 2017

: if you don't understand something, ask questions! i'm sorry if this is confusing

published: february 11, 2018