IF: Life and Death

Chapter 9: How Hard Can It Be?

How Hard Can It Be?The agreement is very simple.

Eyrin and Leo will become substitute soul collectors for thirty days so Death and his supervisors can have the dream days off their jobs.

After that, Eyrin will be stripped off the curse she's been dealing with for nineteen years and Leo will get to cross over, without suffering the hell in the Afterlife he's currently in right now.

There's only one thing they have to keep in mind though.

In collecting souls, no one should mess up.

"I mean, how hard can it be right?" Leo said before they got out of the house that morning, acting so damn confident about his new job.

An hour later, instead of collecting their first soul, they're running as they're the ones being chased by it.

Eyrin no longer has even a single drop of pride left in her. As she's running along the foot bridge connecting Baclaran and Taft Station, people cannot keep themselves from looking inquisitively at her.

She perfectly understands though. Who in their right mind will have a sprint race under the heat of the sun, screaming their hearts out while brush passing people out of her way? No one except someone like Eyrin who's barely escaping the gnarled hands of that enraged soul they're suppose to collect. She's the only one who can see it so literally, no one can understand.

Soon as she gets off the bridge and down the busy roads of Taft Avenue, she got used to the awkward stares she's getting but blaming Leo, who's running ahead of her, that she'll never get tired of.

As she clutches the medallion tightly to her chest, she still tries her hardest to think about how it can work. If only the reaper they met earlier has had the chance to explain maybe they won't be running like mad people. If only Leo and his cockiness did not get in the way. She sighed. She remembers every detail of it.

- - -

"Good morning, sunshine." Eyrin groans as she shifts around her bed. As she runs her palms through the softness of the sheets, she knows she's fully awake. A smile curves on her lips but as she does not want to hurt her eyes, they remain closed. But eventually, she knows, she'll be back to sleep.

"Don't slack off, we have work to do." She feels a warm breath of air tickles her left ear. She giggles but as soon as realized it, her eyes shot open as though it's a Monday morning, when she forgets to set up her alarm on a Sunday night.

"Get off me!" She screams, cowering to the end of the bed, clutching the sheets to her chest.

Leo's just standing there, scratching the back of his neck. "I just didn't want to be loud so I thought I should just whisper it to you. I've been trying to wake you up for thirty minutes now."

Eyrin runs her hand around the place she feels the his breath touched. Another unusual thing she should take note of. "Why does your breath even feel so warm?" she asks but does not wait for him to answer. Instead, she gets up, grab the towel for the drawer and stays the preparation for their first day.

School comes first of course so they decided to start the internship by noon, after class. They had a not so pleasant visit last night from one of Death's supervisors. The name is Allen. They weren't sure about the gender of its current form because of the paper wrapped around its face and the oversized hat shading the exposed features, but from what they can see outside, starting with the strong arms, they knew it was in a form of a guy.

Allen will be their mentor for the week. He made it the task clearer for them last night and as Eyrin can remember, they will not take souls from dying ones, the reapers will, and after that, that's when their job takes place.

She could've sworn the sigh she heaved that time was the deepest one she had. "At least I'm not gonna have doubts," she tells herself quite confidently.

"Do you think you're ready for the task tomorrow?" Allen asked. The two of them just nodded. "See you then. Winston Hotel, 1pm sharp," he recapped before he turned to smoke and vanished in thin air.

"Isn't it weird that we don't feel weird about every thing that's happening?" Leo asks Eyrin as she steps out of the bathroom, already completely dressed. Even if it's her own room, she'll be living with someone in the next thirty days, not to mention it's a ghost and to no avail also happens to be a guy, she has to get used to the limitations she has to put up. Getting dressed in the shower is one of them.

"Wouldn't it bee weird if I just started feeling weird about seeing unorthodox things when in an obvious fact I've been struggling with them ever since?" she answers rather nonchalantly, not putting too much stress in making the situation clear.

There's nothing to fret for. Seeing supernatural things since she was a kid, she knows she'll get to meet Death itself one day. If there's one thing she'll be surprised for, that's when she never thought it'll happen this soon.

There first assignment is to collect the souls of Francisco Poblacion, 29, pedicab driver, corner street of EDSA, Cabrera, Pasay City. It's not really a long trip from school. All it took was a quick jeepney ride, that could've had been way quicker if it wasn't for the traffic.

"So how did he die?" Leo asks out of curiosity as they're eyeing the subject from every corner of the street: at the bus station, among the groups of taxi hailers, even inside Jollibee**** the soul is not there.

Eyrin reads the details on her notebook. " ...the spirit of the formidable booze he mixed with drugs to replace hunger with euphoria."

Leo sighs. "So he was an addict?" Eyrin nods. "I think I know where to look."

Leo doesn't need to be someone who lives around the area to know where Francisco can be. Keeping the stereotypes in mind, he soon leads Eyrin to a slightly dimmed alley beside the bus station.

There, they first witness a soul freshly reaped out from his mortal body. The essence is darker than night and gloomier than devil's hour. The scene is not a good sight as there soul continues to do the last thing he'd been doing while he's still alive, without knowing he's sitting beside his unconscious body.

"More, more. Give me more!" Francisco utters as he holds the bottle above his opened mouth, waiting for the last drop. When he realizes nothin's coming out of it, the essence grows as his breathing becomes harsh. "I want more!" Unsatisfied, he tosses the bottle away, its pieces scattering the moment it hits the concrete.

Eyrin steps back and from that, Leo knows they should hang in there a little more longer. "Now what do we do?" he asks while she's still composed.

"Call him by his full name twice," Eyrin tells him and without a second thought, Leo did it.

"Francisco Poblacion," he calls and the soul instantly responds with a glare while seething at them. His eyes are white and his skin's starting to turn charcoal black as it cracks dry at the same time. Before Leo can call him by his name again, the soul roars and that is a sound both of them never heard before.

As a fan of war movies, Leo knows that it is a war cry and as soon as he thinks about that, Francisco initiates and assaults, throwing his body towards them. Leo drags Eyrin by the arm and pulls her to his side, barely dodging the force. The soul, now in midair, spends yet another glance and roars again, and prepares to attack.

Eyrin's ready to run for her life but Leo raises an unusual idea. "Wait," he says o stop her form her tracks, "Didn't Death say the medallion will protect you? It won't let this bastard touch you!" he explains grinning at the idea.

"And how am I suppose to prove that?" she asks panic evident in her tone.

"That's simple!" Leo counters. "Just bring out the medallion, stand there and just wait or him to throw himself at you again. If the medallion works then you shouldn't get hurt*"

"WHAT IF IT DOESN'T?"

But Leo wasn't able to answer. The souls attacks them and before Eyrin can take a grasp of what's really happening, she sees Leo already leaps of tracks away from her.

She wants to scream at her but there's no time to complain. If she stops running who knows what will happen if that soul's force hit her. She's not ready to die yet which brings her to the question, "What are you even afraid of?"

"What if I die?"

"You're already dead!"

"What if I re:die!"

Eyrin cannot answer that. She's gathered so much attention already that even people walking ahead of her stop on their tracks just to look back and check who in the world is she running from or who is she even talking to.

It's their first day but it's already driving her crazy.

From Cabrera, they've already each Redemptorist church just by running nonstop. Stein feels her chest tightening but it doesn't seem like the soul will stop chasing them any moment now. She's gotta think of a plan. If they fail now, the chance for him to crossover and the chance for her to live a normal life will just be another far-fetched dream.

She pulls out the pendant hiding under her clothes all this time. The jade stone in the middle is greener than it's ever been. Death just told her that thing was going to protect her but he didn't mention,  not even his supervisor, how she was supposed to use that.

She examines the design again. Souls getting dragged to what seems to be a swirling air pressure. "How does this thing work?" She's getting desperate. The soul yanks the hem of her shirt but it's a good thing the grip isn't that tight so she managed to slip away.

"Leo!"

The gentleman finally decides to look back and realized that he's been running ahead of a more fragile being.

"Call him by his name!"

He doesn't need to be told twice. He turns around at the same time he uses his shoes to stop his momentum, the sound of the soles and concrete creating friction and his stance as if he's really going to stop  force by force make him cool the very moment.

"Francisco Poblacion," he's finally able to say the name twice. As if a forbidden spell has been chanted, the soul stopped midair again, roaring, but that time, he squirms while still afloat, seemingly bound by the air itself.

"Flip the pendant and say the words." Eyrin remembers Allen telling her those words last night.

The jade glows green and she extends her hand up to illuminate the soul that's still trying to get away.

And with those words the souls turns into a dark mist and the essence is sucked into the uncanny medallion that still freaks her out.

"Magna de Curant, Parva Neglegunt"

Eyrin's not sure if she said those words right but she doesn't think it matters. The soul is gone and their first task is complete of course, with her life put on risk.

Without any thinking, she sits on the curb, panting her lungs out. Leo sits beside her, the dimpled grin back on his face.

"Told you, right?" He ruffles her hair causing it to untie and cover her face. "How hard can it be?"  Eyrin just huffs in annoyance, blowing the strands of hair covering her eyes.