It is part of the great big plan that humans have an equal amount of misfortune and happiness in their lifetime, ideally.
But there are those whom some of you might consider the favorites. Yes, Big G's chosen ones. And trust me, you never want to get on that list.
You see, being one of the chosen souls does not mean you get to live in a palace full of servants, eager to cater to your every beck and call, or be rewarded with a marvelous, struggle-free life where your soul is never tested for anything. Being a favorite means a life of hell on Earth.
You know the saying, "Sending to death those we profess to love." No? Never heard that one? Where I'm from, we call it tough love.
Oh yes, being chosen meant you would need to suffer. And I don't mean not getting a perfect score on your math test or having the boy of your dreams say no to you for the third time.
Take one Clark Parker, for example.
Her birth—for the thirteenth time—is a big deal in The Loft. All the top brass get involved in deciding who her parents will be, and they zero in on these two nice young people called Helen and Martin. Nothing screams normal more than those names. I mean, there's a rumor—someone said one of the old wigs suggested another Mary and Joseph pairing, and he was sent straight to suspension faster than you could say blasphemy.
Well, going back, everything else goes oh so smoothly in bringing these two together. It has to start well; they never really pull out the big guns this early in the game, no nasty in-laws, no devastating betrayals. They are the perfect couple and are about to become the perfect family when Clark finally comes into their lives.
And she's a beautiful—well, I should say, decent-looking—baby girl, a nice addition to their blossoming family life in a quaint home in the suburb called New Haven. The name itself should've already given them a clue that they're being watched from above, but they never catch on. Humans never do. They just think it's some real estate marketing gimmick to entice young families to live in this cheap, mid-range-looking neighborhood.
Clark, a young human, grows up to be kind, as expected from being raised by good people. For eight years, she has had a simple peaceful life until the memo from upstairs finally comes down; it is time to release the first set of the plagues—cancer.
Martin, our little girl's daddy, is dying of stage 3 lung cancer. There's almost nothing anyone can do now, except maybe call on his guardian angel and beg them to finally give a fu—you know what I mean.
Mommy Helen works two jobs, barely scraping enough together to afford the treatments. But even with all that effort, stage 3 lung cancer only buys you so much time.
And watching Clark say goodbye to her old man after three brutal years of fighting this thing? It's excruciating. I'm almost in tears.
She survives the first test and somehow one would say, this is the time for all of us to take a breather. But you know what they say, evil does not sleep, and neither do we.
Two months after her father's death, Clark's mother falls ill. With mommy not being able to work, Clark picks up a part time job to support them both. She keeps going to school, graduates with honors, even gets into two Ivy League universities. And who better to share the news with than her mother?
She rushes to the hospital, acceptance letters in hand. It's one of those moments you don't forget, that glimmer of hope in her eyes, the anticipation of sharing something good.
But her mother never hears the news.
By the time Clark arrives, they're already covering her with a white sheet. She stands there, fists clenched around those pristine letters, watching as they wheel her mother away.
Just heart wrenching. And you know what, if it is me in charge, I wouldn't be that kind of as—you know, a type of hole.
And yes, this is the part where she screams, "Why me?" to the heavens above and the bawling and the shrieking go on for a good thirty minutes and all she receives for her trouble is a resounding echo of...nothing.
It is of course not entirely nothing on our part. When names on the list hit a bottom low, an emergency conference with the board will be called. And the agenda, almost every time is: Has the soul been dealt with more than it can handle?
Of course, hours of discourse mean nothing when you compare it to the will of the great big plan.
She continues to suffer, year after year, only now, it's even worse. Because this time, it's working. You can see it now—her soul. It is almost glowing. Tempered not only by bitterness and misery, but also by the love and kindness of the people corporate likes to call "helpers."
She thinks those random acts of kindness, those streaks of luck, are just coincidences. But they're not. Help always comes, even if most humans don't recognize it. An intervention is always deployed.
Like how she keeps getting jobs, despite never finishing college. Oh yes, that's them. But don't thank them yet, because they didn't hand her a fancy corner office. Oh no.
They gave her part-time shifts as a librarian at the local community center, a spot as a waitress at a burger joint, and long hours as a dishwasher in a nearby Chinese restaurant. Clark holds more job titles than Daenerys Targaryen. And while she has no dragons and a chronic shortage of sleep, she survives it all.
People who know her often say, "What a waste," when they see her. Some don't even bother to hide it. And they're right, in a way, because she is a remarkably clever girl, someone who could've changed the world.
But that is not the great big plan.
And you know there comes a time when all suffering must end. Years of working without ever having a time for anything and finally, she is debt free. She does not know what to do with it, that sudden moment of when all burdens are lifted off her shoulders. A sense of dread quickly rises from the pit of her stomach and she starts to suspect this brief lack of tragedy in her life, because it is her, and she has always known nothing but bad luck and nothing this good ever really happens.
And dammit, she has never been so right.
I remember it, a normal afternoon, that day. She is almost skipping in her steps then stops at a crossing, waiting for the light to turn green.
It takes a while but she notices it. The lights are not changing. She looks around and sees an empty street, the people are gone and the cars stopped. Then she hears it. A shriek, from a woman just right down the block where she has been moments ago.
There is a crowd gathered, divided into people on their phone trying to call for help and the other half just stunned, petrified, looking at the woman holding a little boy.
"Honey, oh my God!" she cries. "You're okay!" The little boy wails, cradled in her arms.
And a few steps behind them, cars have bumped into each other.
It must be an accident, Clark thinks. She walks around until she reaches an opening, where another car has crashed into the lamp post nearby. Then, a strange sound behind her, like the sound of wings flapping down and landing. She turns to look and finds two men in black suits.
"Oh, the police came in quick," she blurts out, thinking they're cops. "But what they need right now is an ambulance, actually. I think someone's really hurt inside." She points the men to the crashed car.
"I don't think she knows, Sir," the younger one says to the other, who seems to be his superior.
"Clark Cornelia Parker," the superior one says, so casually, "born November 28, 1997. Death by car accident, 4:50 p.m. on January 5, 2025. I am here to escort your soul to The Veil."
There she is, standing with some random dudes in black, who seem to know her name, birthdate, and probably her social security number, spouting some weird nonsense about her dying in an...
That train of thought stops faster than her heartbeat—which, by the way, she can no longer feel in her chest. The usual thump, thump is gone.
"No," goes her most articulate response, as panic creeps from her head down to her lower extremities, making her fall to the solid asphalt.
"Ms. Parker," the superior suit says, reaching for her arm, but she swats it away and forces herself to crawl, desperate to put distance between them, not caring how the rough street scrapes her skin raw. She drags her body little by little until, finding some strength, she pushes herself up and heads to the car.
She finds the driver, head down on the steering wheel, blood pouring from a wound on his head, reeking of alcohol. In the passenger seat: broken glass, a magazine, and an empty bottle of vodka.
Slowly, she walks to the front, using the crashed body of the vehicle for support, and pauses abruptly when she steps into a pool of blood.
There's still smoke coming from the hood, blurring the scene in front of her. But after squinting, trying to make out the figure that lies before her, she realizes it's a person. A woman. Someone who looks eerily like her.
"You saved the boy from getting hit by the drunk driver. It was heroic," the older suit whispers behind her.
"It was stupid," she replies in a faint voice, full of despair. She never saw herself as a hero or someone with high moral ground. She doesn't even remember what happened.
"You are a saint!" beams the younger suit, enthusiastically, undermining her distress. "We don't get a lot of you anymo—Aw!"
The older suit elbows him sharply. "We no longer call them that. It's a new memo from RH. Corporate now calls them 'Nobles.'"
"Right, right. Sorry. I'm new," he apologizes.
"I... I need a moment." She takes a step back, then hurriedly walks away from the scene. And then she sprints.
"Miss Parker, wait!" shouts the older suit.
"Get away from me! You're crazy!" she shouts back, speeding away and turning left into an alley, only to skid to a halt as a man with a knife steps out, blocking her path.
"Well, lookie, lookie, what do we have here? A young, fresh one," he grins, flashing a row of grimy yellow teeth.
"I—I'm sorry... I was just—" she stammers, recoiling, but the man grabs her by the arm.
"You can see me?" he asks. "Ain't it my lucky day." His grip tightens around her wrist, and Clark tries to pull free, but the man's strength is beyond human. "Stay still," he growls, slamming her against the wall so hard the concrete cracks behind her.
"I remember you," he says, leaning in closer. His breath reeks of something foul, and Clark tilts her head away, but he clasps her chin and forces her to face him. "You were there, when I possessed that stupid loser and made him hit that little boy. You suddenly pushed him away."
"What?"
"Little boys... mmm," he licks his lips with a vile, black tongue. "Those are my favorite. But you... you just had to slither in and ruin my fun."
Clark is confused, this man just said he possessed someone, a sentence you don't hear unless you're in a horror movie. And how did he know that I saved that boy, wait...he said possessed?
"Are you a demon?" she blurts out.
The man lets out a coarse laugh. "Probably. I haven't had the honor of being promoted yet, but maybe if I offer you to them, I just might. Or..." He leans in and inhales deeply, shuddering in ecstasy. "Your soul smells so fragrant... maybe I'll just eat you."
"What? No—please, move away!" Clark struggles, kicking at him, but he doesn't flinch. "Help!" she cries.
"Help?" The man grins. "They can't hear you. You're dead."
It's the second time someone has told her that. This time, he doesn't mean it metaphorically. He means the real deal: dead. Finito.
"That's not true. You're lying!"
"Denial, first stage." he says, "Let me have a taste, never had someone as pure as—"
A sharp, wet sound cuts him off. Black blood splatters across Clark's face, and the alley falls silent.
She wipes the sticky goo from her eyes, and when she looks up, a blade juts clean through the man's forehead. He stares at her, wide-eyed, for two long seconds before collapsing to the ground.
And standing in his place, face-to-face with her, is yet another man in a black suit.
"You idiot, are you trying to get consumed?" he spats angrily, which by the way, is his usual response to anything that comes between him and his prey.
"Consumed?" Clark recalls how the now unconscious lunatic attempted to taste her, "He really was trying to eat me."
Two more suits burst onto the scene, the same duo who'd been chasing her earlier.
"Great work, Clarence. You found my saint," the older suit remarks.
"This is a saint?" The man, Clarence, eyes her with visible disdain.
"Sir, a 'noble'." The younger suit corrects him, "the memo, Sir, remember?"
"Right. New protocol," the older one mutters, glancing back at Clarence. "We don't call them that anymore." Then, turning more businesslike, he adds, "Since you're here, come with me and help collect her. Orders from upstairs—they wanted the best on this one."
He places a hand on Clarence's shoulder, which is instantly shrugged off.
"I don't deal with saints," Clarence says coldly. "Besides, I need to deliver this one before he wreaks any more havoc." He yanks the blade from the corpse's skull and drags the body away by its collar — and with that, both of them vanish.
"What the hell was that?" Clark asks baffled at what she has witnessed.
"A Type 2."
"Type 2?"
"Ghosts who have become vengeful spirits, they are becoming rampant these days. Once they reached the second stage, they can possess humans."
Her stomach twists. It's what the vile man has spoken. He has possessed the driver of the car that hit her.
"Miss Parker, I really need to collect you now," the older suit says, his voice softer this time.
"I'm really dead." The words leave her mouth with a strange, growing sense of acceptance.
"You are," he confirms gently. "I'm sorry."
"Then... where are you taking me?"
"To the Veil—the afterworld where souls go once they pass." He offers a faint smile. "I'm Matthew. Head Reaper, Soul Management Department. And this is Billy, second-year reaper."
Billy steps forward and shakes her hand.
"Oh, Miss Parker, sorry for the late introduction," he says, lowering his voice to a whisper. "You know, they don't usually send the Head Reaper to collect someone, but you're a noble. We haven't collected your kind in a long time. Such an honor."
"Sure. Likewise, I suppose."
"Miss Parker, if you please." Matthew offers his arm to her and Clark puts her hand on it. "No, I mean hold tight."
"How tight?"
Matthew pulls her arm, linking it to his the way a groom does to a bride, "Like a grudge."
Then there is the sound of wings and they are gone.
Clark Parker, after twenty-seven miserable years of being alive, is finally collected and with honor—a Saint.
I don't care what Reaper Resources say — noble, please. Saint rolls better off the tongue, doesn't it? And we don't just call them that for pomp. A pure, bright soul like hers? That kind comes with perks.
I hope she likes them.
That, we shall see.