Find the soul, collect the soul, guide the soul. Every day is so repetitive. Sorry to disappoint you, but the life of a Soul Collector is far from being anything special.

What, were you expecting some sort of epic about the vicissitudes of the human life and the cruelty of nature? Pithy words of wisdom?

Wait, let me start again.

When I think about it, I guess all life is an epic. There is no way to know where the vicissitudes will take us. It seemed at times that I’ve been nothing but a leaf caught in a strong wind. At other times, I felt as though I was the wind agitating the leaves.

Collecting the soul of a dying human being is a delicate operation. Even though I have a list of souls I must collect, the list doesn’t include any specific information about the person who’s about to die, only clues that are written by the Seer. It is my responsibility to interpret these clues properly.

One day, one of the clues was particularly obscure. Beside a general idea of the place in which to search, all I had to go by was the phrase “a sense of familiarity.” Great. I cursed the Seer beneath my breath and entered an alleyway behind a decrepit building. Not clear how familiarity would come into play in such a place, but I hoped I would know when the moment came.

The building had probably fallen victim to a fire at some point in its dark past. I found a hole in the brick wall, concealed by an old drape. I pushed it aside and went inside. Had I been mortal, the pungent smell of mould might have bothered me.

A fire roared in a barrel in a corner. A small group of people were gathered around it. Probably asking for collective lung cancer. Luckily, there must have been enough holes in the building to air the place properly.

I noticed a silhouette sitting underneath a barricaded window, in retreat from the group. It was a girl who looked like she could be a teenager. She kept her head downcast as I approached, a few locks of hair cascading from her hood.

“Are you here for me?” she whispered without looking up as I crouched in front of her.

“That’s what I’m wondering.”

Despite my disguise, some people gained awareness of my true identity when the end drew near. She might be the one. She wasn’t too strong. Disease, addiction, getting into fights, the reasons were endless for someone to go so young. But where was the sense of familiarity?

She finally looked up and gasped when she saw me. I peered closer into her face, and it was my turn to gasp. At first, it looked like a strange play of light and shadow, but then I realised that she was missing her right eye. An ugly scar went from her brow down to the top of her cheek. I almost fell back on my bum and regained my bearings just in time. Being a Soul Collector required a certain poise.

She sighed and said, “Sorry, I thought we’d met before. You reminded me of someone.”

“Who?”

“A friend. You look a bit like him. He had ginger hair and he was grumpy all the time.”

Ginger? I guess she couldn’t see that my hair was actually some shade of dark blonde in the obscurity. I wouldn’t hold it against her.

In any case, I had found it. Familiarity. Let’s get started with the protocol, I thought.

“Would you like to talk to him now?” Dying humans were allowed one last request, which I could fulfill provided it was within my power to do so.

“No, it’s fine. I have the feeling I’ll see him again soon.”

“If you say so.”

As a Soul Collector, I had the ability to detach a soul from its body. When the individual is human, it is fairly easy to do so. However, the soul of an immortal, such as an angel or a demon, is so strongly attached to the body that it is almost impossible to detach it.

While I usually took human form to travel around the human world, to perform my work, I had to change into what I called my funeral form. In that form, I looked a bit like that guy Anubis, the Egyptian god of death, with the jackal head and all, except I’ve been told I’m not as sexy. Ah, well. Can’t please everyone.

I lifted my bony fingers to the girl’s face and grazed her skin with my long black nails. The soul left the body slowly, bit by bit, starting from the head and moving down to the feet. Once the separation process was over, the body became nothing but an empty shell and the soul, a separate entity that retained the characteristics of the human, only more ghostly… I guess.

The girl didn’t seem impressed by any of it. Some people are, some aren’t.

Then, our environment changed. We left the decrepit building and appeared on the deserted banks of an ocean.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“You see this city?” I pointed to an island in the distance. Colourful lights emanated from its skyscrapers. It looked kind of nice in some ways, but it was rotten in many other ways.

“This is the Capital of Shadows. All souls come back here to be cleaned from their past lives before being reincarnated.”

The girl looked at me like I was making up stuff. “I don’t want to be reborn…”

Souls who’d just had a harsh life usually said that. “You don’t have a choice. Don’t worry. Soon, you’ll forget everything about this life, so you won’t really care.”

A small boat approached and stopped by a wooden dock, close to were we stood. It was guided by the Ferryman, an old demon who’d been here forever. He was covered by a black cloak from head to toe, so no one knew what he looked like. According to the rumours, he was actually really handsome. I preferred keeping those mental images out of my mind.

“Hey, Mr. Soul Collector. Come aboard,” the Ferryman called.

I guided the soul on the dock and helped her board the boat. “Who are you?” she asked me as she sat down.

I figured she had already started forgetting. Pretty fast. “I’m the Soul Collector…”

“No, I mean, what’s your name?”

My name? “Names are meaningless here. Soon, you’ll forget your own.”

“I’m Alexandra. Who are you?”

I gave a quick glance at the Ferryman, but he didn’t seem to care about our exchange. I sighed. “My name is Luca.”

It was time to pay for the passage. In my funeral form, I had a bunch of coins tied to a string and looped around my neck. I tore off one coin and handed it to the Ferryman. He took it and said, “Aren’t you coming with us?”

“Not yet.”

“People say you’ve been avoiding the Underworld.”

“People are dumb.” But maybe a bit right.

Most souls don’t need me to find their way to the Capital of Shadows. In many cases, when death is expected, souls gradually detach themselves from the body and reach the banks of the Underworld on their own. It used to be a custom for humans to place coins in the mouth of the departed to pay the Ferryman. If the person dies with anything valuable on them, such as expensive shoes, this also works as payment.

However, in cases where the human died young, suffered a sudden death, or was completely destitute then, with the help of the Seer, I intervened to help them find their way back here.

Before I had time to return to the human world, a tall, broad-shouldered man with short black hair emerged from the darkness. He was the Messenger, which means he spent his days traveling around, delivering… messages, you know. He must have been waiting for me in ambush.

“Hey, Luca, I’m glad I found you!” he said. It seemed urgent. I gave him a sidelong glare when he used my name, but otherwise I kept my eyes on the Ferryman and the soul sliding quietly on the sea.

“What is it?”

The cheerfulness in his tone faltered at my coldness. “The Snow Raven asked for you.”

He must have detected some reticence from me, because he felt the need to add, “It’s important.”

I changed back into my favourite human form, the grumpy boy one. “She probably has some dirty work she needs me to do. I’d rather stay away.”

The Messenger caught my arm as I turned to leave. Getting insolent, weren’t we. “Let me go.”

“I promised that I would convince you to go see her.”

Stop making promises you can’t keep, then. “Fine, I’ll go.”

He sighed and I shook my arm free. He looked like he wanted to say something else, but gave up and instead said, “Let me know if I can do anything to help you.”