“Aliya, is it?” The creature boomed, her deep, gruff voice shaking the tiny soul in her grip to her very core. The tiny soul could do nothing but shudder, not from fear though, every moment she spent with this creature only served to fluster her more. However, she was still unsure of her intentions, so she decided to tread carefully.

“That depends, who’s asking?”

“Excuse me?” The being seemed genuinely surprised at this response, not expecting Aliya to speak back. Suddenly, Aliya could see her surroundings changing, as the being who used to be quite large before her, shrunk to a much smaller form, only about as tall as herself. She grabbed Aliya by the collar, pulling her near her face, her nose pressing firmly against her. “What did ya just say!?”

Aliya felt oddly powerful, it was evident she couldn’t be hurt by this creature, so why bother answering? It was kind of fun seeing her get all fussy.

“I was wondering who is asking,” Aliya stated, calmly. “It’s rude to ask a girl her name without even telling her yours first.”

The being seemed confused with that statement, letting Aliya go before her whole body seemed to wiggle angrily. She stopped for a moment, gathering her thoughts and sighing, holding a hand to her face. “My name’s Terry,” she rolled her eyes, “I’m the accountant for souls here, and you’re upsetting the balance of my count,” she said with a grunt. “There, I said it, now can you confirm this is you?” Terry handed Aliya a file, and it was indeed a description and picture of her. Aliya nodded, looking it over, before handing Terry the file back. “Alright, I guess I don’t have any reason not to trust you, yeah, that’s me.” She said calmly.

“Oh excellent, I was pretty sure but mix ups do happen from time to time,” Terry explained, pulling open her backside to reveal a storage area, and putting the file inside. A faint blush spread across Aliya’s cheeks, and she hid her face as she wasn’t sure if it would be rude to look.

“Alright then,” Terry piped. “You seem like a nice lady, I don’t doubt that you had any sinister intentions coming here but I have to get you to The Great Beyond.” Aliya cringed, suddenly starting to worry about what that meant. Terry grabbed her hand, “Y’see souls like you aren’t supposed to be here, ya must have gotten lost somehow on the escalator.” Terry shrugged, snapping her fingers, causing a portal to the area Aliya had first woken up in to appear next to her. “Just step on in, nothing to worry about!” Terry nudged Aliya towards the portal, pulling a smile that looked a bit fake.

Aliya scampered a bit, her legs doing their best to stay on the ground and away from the portal. Terry looked at her with a confused expression. “Er… what’s wrong? Don’t cha wanna go to The Great Beyond?” Aliya looked at Terry with genuine fear in her eyes as she was moments away from falling through the portal.
“I can’t, I’m scared.”

Something about the way Aliya said those four words shook Terry to her very core. She had never been as caring as the other beings like her, but at that moment those caregiving instincts which she had suppressed for so long started to go into overdrive.

“Wait!”

Terry stretched her arms out, grabbing Aliya from the portal and back onto the grass. She stumbled a bit from the weight of the soul and ended up rolling along the ground, grunting a bit. “This isn’t like me at all,” she thought. “Why did I just interfere with my mission?”

Before Terry could rethink her choices, she met Aliya’s gaze. Aliya seemed genuinely upset, she looked hurt, even. Tears ran down her face as she ran as far away from Terry as she could, leaving her alone and rather confused about what had just happened.

Terry growled at herself for being so foolish, how could she have just let a soul get away with that? She had certainly never let a soul go before. But yet, this time it felt...wrong somehow. Too muddled to think straight, Terry ruffled her own hair a bit in frustration. She couldn’t just keep the count off, what would her colleges think of her then? Well...come to think of it they never really cared that much.

Maybe she could make one exception for a soul...her mind started to wander before she quickly dismissed the idea of messing with the system. No, she couldn’t let a soul just run free in The Great Beyond, it would be like the last situation all over again, only this time it would be her fault! Although maybe if she kept watch of the soul...no, that’d just be silly.

Regardless of what she decided to do with Aliya, she did know one thing.

She just had to find her again.