Fantasy Death Inc.

[Jean Otus]

The human experience is a great parade of acts, as the players wear their masks, strut about in their roles and experience their victories and many, many tragedies. The many deities of the heavens judge their worthy souls and condemn the unworthy. Not every soul is deemed glorious or terrible enough for the various afterlives preached about. Some souls are trapped in the in-between for all eternity, an existence walking between life and death. Enter Death, the original reaper of souls, the ferryman to all afterlives, as he looked on the spirits with no place to go. Death felt sorry for these wayward beings and gave them a purpose. Now those caught in the in-between police the world of spirits and aid the reaper in ferrying the souls of the dead to their final destination.

At first, this agreement was feudal in nature. Death was the king, the souls were his vassals, and as time marched on their numbers swelled, as did the kingdoms of men on earth. With their increased number, the living courted death regularly. The kingdom of death continued to grow alongside the world, serving as the land between the realms of Heaven and Hell. As more modern spirits found their way into the service of Death, the agreement required an update. Slowly but surely the souls that understood the contract between king and vassal. Therefore, the Kingdom of Death required a considerable modernization and a drastic rebranding. The kingdom was transformed into a corporation, with all the souls being made into its well-dressed employees.

Now the reapers of Death Incorporated manage the many unfortunate ends that the people of Earth meet. This is where you come in, you poor, unfortunate soul, so very dead, but not righteous enough to be admitted to the heavens, and not villainous enough to be damned. You are the newest employee in our little company, and so long as you're still a rookie, I'll be your manager. It's a bit of a mess on Earth, as I'm sure you well know, and we're completely overbooked. I hope you're ready for a lot of overtime, rookie.

 

[Jean Otus]

Matthias ran his finger along the edge of the stack of papers in front of him, nobody had told him how nerve-wracking this part of the job would be. The stark white walls of the meeting room drew his attention to the collection of freshly deceased and collected spirits in front of him. Not too long ago they had all been members of the modern living world, all met their end within a day of each other. As a reaper, it was hard enough to see all these unfortunate souls die, now he had to guide them through their initiation to the company. He attempted to steel himself, after all, this was his first class of new reapers. If they adapted well to their new jobs and the unlife in the company, he would get the chance to move up in the company. After one last mental push just for focus, he cast his gaze on the employees in front of him.

The meeting room, normally dominated by a long table and luxurious black leather swivel chairs, had been stripped down for the purpose of welcoming in the new recruits. Matthias stood in front of a wall-mounted screen, with his papers stacked neatly on a stark white podium, resembling a cemetery monument, before him. The new reapers were seated on a row of white plastic chairs, all clearly reacting differently to the fact that they were in a strange place, and realizing that their final memory was almost certainly fatal. He cleared his throat and straightened his tie before addressing the room, as professionally and calmly as he could manage.

"Hello there everybody! You are dead." Nice, very subtle. "Now while I'm sure this comes as a shock to you all, I can assure you that you are certainly deceased because I am the Grim Reaper who took your souls from where you died." He attempted to pivot from that revelation to the corporate presentation. "None of you were worthy enough in life to merit entrance into heaven, nor were you terrible enough to be cast into hell. Instead, you have been welcomed into our company of Grim Reapers, the collectors of departed souls. I will be training you to do your jobs well." He cleared his throat and attempted to crack a smile. "I look forward to working with all of you. I expect you all must have some questions, so now I'll open things to you all to, umm... Figure things out."

Calcifus Angelofwishes7 The Suspicious Eye AceQueen011502 Gravitational Force Kipsy hostage hwayi

 

[Calcifus]

A serious tingling sensation all over, a jolt of sharp pain in his chest, everything swiftly going dark...
---------------------
...And suddenly...he's here? Where even was here? Souta should have woken up on the floor of his office or maybe even the hospital, not sitting in a plastic chair in what looked to be some meeting room! At least the pain was gone...for certain values of gone. Was he still feeling that tingling? Souta couldn't tell. The sharp jolt was almost a distant memory in terms of sensation, though, so it wasn't all bad.

Pushing it to the back of his mind, Souta attempted to get his bearings. Looking around, Souta could see he wasn't alone. In fact, there were several other people unfortunate enough to end up in this "meeting room". Speaking of said room, this one certainly didn't belong to his company's office building. After all, those meeting rooms had gray walls as opposed to this one's brilliant white. Everybody seemed to be in a similar state as him, wondering how they got here. More importantly, though, how had he gotten here? Souta mentally retraced his steps. He was walking towards the water cooler, stepped in a puddle, the pain, and...now he was here.

Wait a second. There was an old power strip in the puddle. The observation felt so minor, but the implications certainly weren't. If the power strip had been plugged in when he stepped in the puddle...

Then he shouldn't even be alive.

His morbid thoughts were interrupted when he heard a man clear his throat. As he spoke about all of them being dead, Souta's mind went through a rapid gamut of emotions. Disappointment, fear, denial, guilt, and grief, not necessarily in that order. Dead. If he was actually dead...did that mean those promises of reincarnation were false? Had he really wasted his only life living for other people?

As the man continued, Souta only barely noted the stuff about being neither good enough for heaven nor wicked enough for Hell. He hadn't been expecting either, anyway. The mention about jobs, however, piqued his interest, and not in a good way. Somehow, Souta found it in himself to speak.

"What...sort of company is this? I don't mean to offend, but...I'd rather not spend my afterlife working in an office."

 

[AceQueen011502]

All Eros could honestly remember at the time was the peaceful feeling of his body drifting off into unconsciousness and the sudden weight that had been lifted from his soul, which was the very last sensation he would ever have of being alive before the former priest’s eyes fluttered open to gaze upon the monotonous colored meeting room. Brows furrowed in confusion as he looked around, wondering why he was there instead of the fiery pits of Hell like he believed. A question he was thankfully given the answer to when the gentleman standing behind the podium at the front of the room had cleared his throat and grabbed Eros’ attention, listening rather intently to every word the man said out of respect.

Once the gentleman had finished talking, it became apparent that Eros didn’t seem to care much or, at all, about the fact that he was currently deceased, since it was his goal in the end. A rather morbid thought to have, but it was the undeniable truth and it was one he would never share amongst his peers or much about his past life for that matter.

When Eros came to that agreement, one of the new repears had spoken up about their new jobs as repairs in this odd company, something the former priest was questioning as well since he didn’t know too much about office jobs but he did have a good guess as to what kind of company they would be working for. Did this mean he knew what their individual jobs were? Of course not, but it was most certainly a guess and a good one at that, or Eros hoped it was anyways.

“I’m not entirely sure as to what our future jobs will be, but I do believe that this company is made to simply categorize which soul goes where. Whether it be Heaven, Hell, or...whatever this place may be, but I could always be incorrect. So, please do not take anything I said as fact, sir.”

 

[Angelofwishes7]

It seemed that as soon as Alora had closed her eyes she had again opened them to a new scene. The new surroundings and the noise from those who spoke up put her on edge as she trying to gain some much-needed confidence. As more voices spoke up, Alora felt herself trying to become small in the chair. He frail body shaking ever so slightly as she lifted her knees up to her chest and hugged herself.

For a moment Alora tried to focus on only the items in the room. Trying her best to ignore the voices she began silently counting how many chairs there were before moving on to scanning the wall and floor, looking for even the smallest crack or blemish to keep her mind busy. After a few moments, she finally locked her eyes on the wall mounted screen in the front of the room. Taking in what it was and trying to figure out how such a thing would work before even taking the smallest of glances at the male reaper in front of them.

The short moment of braveness was quickly lost when she caught sight of the male. Her body froze and she quickly looked away, only listening in silently to what was being said, though even with her high anxiety and fear a slight wave of relief went over her as she quickly realized that her father seemed to be nowhere in sight. Maybe this being dead stuff wasn't gonna be so bad?

Interactions: Open​

 

[Gravitational Force]

Ezra blinked as he realized he was standing in an office room. Wait, hadn't he been at the subway? He'd been shoved forward, heard the train screeching towards him...what? Okay, maybe he had spaced out and forgot coming in, at this point his life was basically automatic. He was at the office and on time, that was what mattered. These chairs were really uncomfortable too.

Now he just needed to get to his cubicle...this wasn't his office building. Crap. Why couldn't he remember how he had got here? And who were these people? He didn't recognize any of them. Another stranger (dressed for office work, thank goodness he'd finally get some answers) entered, moved to the front of the room and...

"Figure things out."

Ezra was stunned as others in the room spoke. This had to be a joke, right? He'd spent his life working and now he had to spend his afterlife working?

"(A long string of expletives) I did NOT spend 4 years outworking my coworkers to have to deal with this! WHY?! (slightly shorter string of expletives)."
Ezra manages to get himself back under control.
"Okay, okay, fine. I can deal with this. What exactly is the work we'll be doing? And what are the benefits?"

 

[hostage]

Her exhilaration was short lived. In a brief flash of adrenaline and fast-moving blurs, she was gone. She blinked once, opening her eyes to a whole new place. She was in a room, sitting alongside four or five others. Damnit. Daydreaming again, Renn? She berated herself mentally for drifting away in her thoughts of fast paced adventures, until the instructor in front of her spoke. It was clear that he was crazy.

“Un, hold on. Is this a prank?“ Renn chuckled, scanning the room. It was unfamiliar. “Did Mary put you up to this? Well, it’s not working.“ Her voice wavered only a bit, but she regained her composure. Her friends always played pranks on her, though this one seemed extensive. They kidnapped me and put me in here, payed some randos to act out a whole scene. That was what she told herself. But the reactions of the surrounding people gave her doubts. They seemed genuine, even the girl who curled up in her seat, glancing around frantically like a cornered dog. That was enough to convince her. Renn found herself thinking of her life. She had never feared death, not really. As long as she went out in a high paced manner she was fine. She then turned to study the room she was in.

The overall paleness of the room caught her off guard. It wasn’t heaven, that’s for sure. What kind of angelic resting place would be so bright? And come to think of it, uncomfortable. The plastic chair (also white) creaked annoyingly as she sat forward. “Um, hold on. You’re really the reaper? Or, wait, are there more?“ her voice echoed strangely off the walls, sounding tinny and annoying to her own ears. Yep, definitely not heaven.

She swiped a lock of hair behind her ears before squinting at the man standing im fromt of the screen. He was rather cute, in a mousy, stern way. He definitely seemed to know what he was doing. “So, you know what’s going on? Did anyone show up to my funeral?“ she asked. She rolled her eyes as she remembered the few friends she had made in her life. “What about Elise? Did she show up? Was she crying?“ her flow of questions went on unperturbed as she remembered the short form of her friend.