Air forcefully shoved its way into Ash’s lungs as he shot upwards from laying on his back. His vision was blurry, but he could make out the shapes of his shaking hands in front of his face as he tried to get his breathing under control. His hands fell to his sides as the bare white walls of his apartment came into view, right underneath his lazily spinning ceiling fan.

  Without giving it another thought he jerked his head to his right, looking at nothing but empty space on his messy bedsheets. Then he quickly turned to the left, seeing his bed’s edge, and the little nightstand propping up his latest lethal purchase. His hand groped around the surface of the stand, shakily grabbing the revolver that he had few, but important memories of, and clutched it tightly.

  “A drea–,” was all he could get out of his lips before he suddenly heard a knock on his door. He nearly jumped out of his skin faster than he jumped out of bed as his heart rate spiked. He opened the drawer of his nightstand and shoved the little gun inside, right before he took the first few steps towards the door. Before he could even reach the connecting hallway, there was another knock, and another, and then another.

  “I’m coming, give me a second!” he shouted, just a couple feet away from the door. He looked through the peephole, still cautious, and was immediately met with another eye staring straight back at him. This was more than enough to make him jump a good foot back, clearly and audibly startled before he heard a laugh from the other side.

  “It’s your new supervisor here to collect you!” The voice was immediately familiar, even if the eyeball peering back at him through the hole wasn’t. With a click of the lock and a twist of the knob, he opened his front door to greet a smiling Gray. His black and bulky ensemble had presumably been left at home since this time he was wearing a dark red sweater. It still didn’t look appropriate for summer months, but its more form fitting shape gave him a much more lithe appearance than before. He still had the same black pants as when Ash saw him last, with his right hand stowed away in one of the pockets.

  “About time, I got you mixed up with the old guy in 316 at first.” Gray took his hand out of his pocket, fist balled out as he held it out in front of him. Ash stared at it for a second before he opened up his palm, letting Gray drop a sealed peppermint into his hand. “He gave me a few, so here’s your cut.” Without waiting for a proper invitation, Gray squeezed his way past Ash and walked through the little hallway into the barely furnished studio.

  Gray counted one, two, three pieces of furniture sitting on top of the glossy hardwood floor: a bed with white unmade sheets, a nightstand with a single drawer that was half open, and a plush beige armchair with a few rips around its loose looking seams. When it came to appliances, only two were visible: a small gray microwave that was currently lounging in the armchair, and a black minifridge that was shyly hiding around the corner of the bed.

  There was a door to the bathroom that was slightly ajar, the white tile floor providing a stark contrast, and presumably a closet next to the apartment’s lone window. From where Gray was standing he could already see that the window’s only view was the brick wall of the other apartment complex right next door.

  “Checks out,” Gray said more to himself than to anyone else in particular, his voice just quiet enough to not be heard.

  Ash closed the door behind his guest, twisting the lock back in place before he walked down the short hall to face him. “Guess that really wasn’t a dream then.”

  “Nope!” Gray slowly walked over to the armchair, giving the lounging microwave a little pat. “Hope you’re not sick of me yet, because I’ll be your supervisor for a little while”

  “Hope my apartment isn’t going into my performance review...” Ash moved his way past Gray harassing his microwave as he took a seat on his bed, facing the rest of the room.

  “I’ll leave that part blank.” Gray grabbed the underside of the relaxed microwave and hefted it up, “‘scuse me,” before setting it down on the floor beside the chair so he could steal the seat instead. He fell back into the chair, trusting it completely as he landed with a soft thud before crossing one black cloaked leg over the other. “As your supervisor I’m here to give you a little primer and give you directions to the office.”

  “Office? I didn’t sign up for a desk job, did I?” Ash couldn’t control the disappointment in his voice. “You two kind of gave me the impression it was something supernatural, or at least less,” he tried to search for the right word, “clerical.”

  “Relax, you’re not going to get stuck tweaking spreadsheets. We’re dead, not working dead end jobs.” Gray took another cursory glance around the room from his comfortable vantage point. “Guessing you don’t need to bring anything with you, but oh, don’t forget your gun since it’s bonded to you.”

  “It’s what?” Ash asked while opening up his nightstand again, feeling a little nervous about having his revolver out in the open again. His hand gripped the frame one more time as he pulled it free from its less than secure cage.

  “It’ll be easier to show you than explain. Point it at me real quick.” Gray pointed a single finger towards himself as reclined a little further in the chair.

  “I’m pretty sure it still has at least five bullets in it,” he paused for a moment, recounting, “four if that really wasn’t a dream.”

  “It doesn’t matter how many bullets it has in it, just point it this way already!” Grey pointed at himself with his thumb, a smile still clear as day on his face.

  “Alright,” Ash felt like the gun weighed a little less than it did before as he held it in his hand, “if you insist.” With a quick flick of his arm, he pointed the revolver’s little barrel directly in Gray’s direction, aiming for center mass, but without his finger touching the trigger. He suddenly felt a twitch in his palm right before the gun burst into a red ball of flame right in his hand. What little weight the gun had was immediately gone and Ash started frantically waving his hand around as the flame clung to him.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Gray watched with the same smile, hands relaxed in his lap as he watched and waited. Ash wanted to yell out for help or in pain, but after a second passed he realized the fire wasn’t actually hurting him. He watched the flame dance around his skin with nothing but curiosity now that the fear had faded.

  The blaze slowly reduced, becoming concentrated, more controlled as his hand burned with an almost comforting heat. As he turned his hand back and forth he watched the fire dance and wave in front of him before it shrunk into a small circle on the back of his hand. With one last burst of hot energy, the flame disappeared, and a red, nine pointed star took its place. In the amount of time it took to blink, the red mark quickly faded away like a temporary tattoo.

  “What the fuck was that?” Ash rubbed the back of his right hand with the fingers on his left, trying to see if the mark would reappear.

  “I’m glad something finally got a reaction out of you!” Gray rocked back in the armchair, using the momentum to let him jump forward onto the ground. He quickly closed the distance between them, and showed Ash the back of his own hand, revealing the same mark he saw earlier. “You’re a Diver now, and this is kind of like your badge, and a holster for your gun.”

  Ash flexed his fingers, swearing he could still feel a little residual heat from the flames, but he couldn’t get the mark to reappear. “You’ll be able to get it to show back up when your body gets a little more used to being dead.” Gray told him. “I got the hang of mine in record time, by the way.” His smile shifted into more of a grin as he stuffed his hands back into his pockets. “Apparently some Divers can take weeks before they get used to it, maybe even months.”

  “So is my gun,” he paused as he waved his hand around a little bit, “inside of me or something?”

  “Close!” Gray spun around and took a seat on Ash’s bed, taking a quick seat next to him. “It’s in your soul, since your soul bonded with it during death.” Gray pointed a finger towards Ash’s chest. “Every Diver has an object, element, or a concept that they bond with, becoming your soulbond.” He quickly sat up from the bed again, almost as if he remembered there was somewhere he needed to be. “That gun is yours, you’re kind of lucky that you got something tangible to work with.”

  “So I was right, it is a ghost gun.” He flexed his fingers again, staring at the back of his hand.

  “There’s no real telling what it’ll do though until you pull the trigger. Soulbonds aren’t always straightforward, even if they appear to be.” Gray walked over to the lone window in the apartment, confirming for himself that even at this angle, all you could see was the building next door. “But we can worry about all that after I get you to the office, it’s actually only a few blocks away.”

  Gray already started walking for the door as Ash voiced a concern. “Wait can’t I get changed? I had a pretty rough night and slept in my suit…” He gently raised one of his arms and took as nonchalant a sniff as possible, but didn’t smell anything too off.

  “You can worry about that later, you’re bonded to that outfit anyway.” Gray waved a hand behind him without turning around, still heading for the door. Ash didn’t argue as he tried to quickly get his shoes on, but the sentence he heard registered as soon as his feet were safe and secure. “I’m what?”

  “The easy way to explain it is whatever you’re wearing when you die gets bonded to your soul, just like that gun of yours. The next time you dive into the soul sea you’ll look as close to when you died as possible.” Gray clicked the lock that he saw Ash flip earlier, unlocking the door. “You lucked out that you didn’t die naked, I’ve seen it happen a few times already.” Ash thought to himself that it made a little more sense that Gray’s jacket had disappeared now.

  “Wouldn’t it make more sense to get changed then if I’d go back to this when on the job?” He took a few steps after Gray as he patted his pockets to make sure everything was with him.

  “It’ll be better to introduce you to the rest of the team like that, gives them a chance to get used to your uniform.” Gray opened the door and took a step through out into the hallway, his shoes digging into a particularly crunchy spot of the carpet he wished he could avoid. “Like I said, you could be a lot worse off. Besides,” he turned around after taking a few more steps, giving Ash a confident smile, “it’s a good look on you.”

  Ash followed after him, closing the door behind him and locking it up tight. “Think it helped me land the job?” He picked at one of the buttons at the bottom of his vest, making sure it wasn’t lopsided.

  “Vandal is a little old fashioned, so probably,” a grin came over him as he remembered something. “Next time you see him, you should ask about some of the last people he’s hired. Ask him about the carwash on the south side of 16th street if you want a laugh.”

  As Ash and Gray walked down the hall and headed for the stairs, Ash couldn’t help but think about the wall that barred their way in his soul stream. They passed into the stairwell without any issues, and this time Ash resisted the urge to grab the railing as he took each step carefully.

  “You never told me what your soulbond is, like your object or whatever” Ash spoke up as they passed through where the concrete room that blocked their way was last time.

  “Can’t help but be a little curious, right?” His tone was slightly cheery as he practically floated down the steps.

  “Maybe a little.” Ash admitted. “It has to be a little more interesting than a gun with less than six shots.” He was starting to regret that such an unimpressive purchase was his soulbond, but at the time he thought he was only going to use it once.

  “Guess I can’t blame you when you put it that way, but don’t count your gun out yet.” The two of them hit the ground floor without any trouble, passing by the mail lockers addressed to each tenant that lined the walls. “Tell you what though,” Gray turned his head to face the lockers, scanning over them until he saw ‘306’, “you buy me a better beer than that crap you had on the roof, and I’ll give you a demonstration.”

  “I’d need a paycheck first, my wallet has been running empty for weeks.” Ash thought back to his soul stream, wondering briefly if food or water inside the soul stream counted as actually eating or drinking something.

  “Then the sooner we get to the office the sooner you can get to earning me a beer.” Gray waltzed out the front door, holding it open behind him just long enough for Ash to catch it as he made his way over. Ash put a hand up in front of his face to shield his eyes from the blazing Broolhaven sun beating down on him, but his eyes quickly adjusted to usual dreary sights of the city he unfortunately called home.

  He didn't see any dangerous shadows this time, just ordinary people walking from point A to point B to continue their ordinary lives. He looked up to the sky, littered with numerous clouds that occasionally blocked the overbearing sun, still as blue as it was when he went to sleep, albeit a little brighter.

  “Alright then,” Ash looked back at Gray, ready to start his first few steps towards the first day of his new death, “lead the way.”