The sound of children's laughter sent a wave of sadness through Aria. She wasn't sure why the noise had such an effect on her, and she wasn't sure why she still sat at the playground to watch the children run around happily when it made her feel that way. She should have chosen a mall or town square. Instead, she was using her free time to people-watch at a park. She liked to people-watch. Living souls were fascinating to her.

Aria watched the kids run around playing tag, swing on the swing set, and go down the slides. Little boys chased the girls, and the girls screamed and giggled trying to get away.

One boy started picking on a girl in the sandbox, and a woman, most likely his mother, immediately leapt off the bench. She grabbed him by the wrist and took him to the shade of an oak for what they called a "timeout". She watched as other parents stood under the scattered trees, talking to each other while they sipped bottles of water and fanned themselves, glancing away now and then to make sure their children were still accounted for.

A thick band of clouds moved in front of the sun, allowing the temperature to drop slightly and the breeze picked up, carrying with it the smell of barbeque from a house near by.

Aria bit the sandwich in her hands and checked her wrist. There was nothing there, but it was a gesture she'd seen humans make many times, and she seemed to have picked up the habit. She took another bite of the sandwich and crumbs fell onto her lap. The sandwich didn't taste like anything, and it didn't give her any sustenance, it didn't even really exist; it was just something she did from time to time when she watched the living. It made her feel more a part of the scene.

A girl, about six, who was on the monkey bars let out a shrill scream as she fell to the ground. Some of the parents gasped at the sound of a child in trouble and turned their heads; a couple had even set into motion. Aria watched. The girl wasn't going to be hurt, at least not severely. It was just one of those things she knew.

Just as Aria suspected. Tears flowed down the girls face, but she'd only sustained a few scrapes. Cover it up with one of those flesh colored stick-on things—or perhaps one with the little monsters on it—and she would be good to go again.

A burning sensation formed on the inside of Aria's right wrist, and she looked down to the crescent moon where the sting originated. It was the mark that told her when there was another soul she was supposed to help cross over. The body for this soul was already long dead, and she needed to go right away, it was just something the mark told her. Aria set the sandwich down on the bench, and it immediately vanished. She stood and brushed away the non-existent crumbs. She closed her eyes, leaving the physical world, and slipped into the spirit world, letting the power within the mark direct her and lead her to the place she needed to be.

When she arrived on the scene, a woman's body lay crumpled on the asphalt covered in blood. Her blonde hair stained red and her head turned to the side, wide, blue eyes staring at nothing. As if on cue with Aria's arrival, the woman's soul appeared beside her own body, staring down at her lifeless eyes.

The myriad of sounds blurred together, the sirens getting louder as they approached, the bystanders murmuring to one another. Aria heard things like "...car came out of nowhere..." and "...just sped away..."

Shops emptied and traffic was at a standstill. Vehicles further back honked at the sudden roadblock, oblivious to the reason no one was moving. Aria hoped she'd be able to get this spirit to cross quickly. Even though she didn't get headaches, the cacophonous blur of sounds always tried as hard as possible to give her one.

Silently, she held her hand out to the woman standing next to the body. Aria's hand would be the woman's passage beyond this world, but she was too busy looking down at the body that looked just like her. Well, that wasn't quite true; the body on the ground was bloody and broken with limbs bending in ways they shouldn't, while the woman standing with wide eyes was unscathed.

The woman next to the body appeared to be alive, but Aria knew a soul when she saw one. A soul always reflected the emotional state of a person throughout their life. If they'd suffered depression, then the soul would appear worn down. The slight pink tinge to her cheeks, and the glow the woman's soul gave off, emanating from her skin, showed she had been happy, excited even, but her expression now was one of shock. Yes, the soul still had the ability to be shocked. Aria had seen it a thousand times—so many times, she wasn't even affected anymore. Everyone died eventually, so why should a soul be shocked when confronted with its body's mortality?

Aria was trying to let the woman get her bearings so she'd remained silent, silent but impatient, but now the woman had finally looked to Aria's outstretched hand.

The paramedics had finally arrived on scene, somehow magically weaving through the traffic jam. Lights on the top of the truck swirled and more sirens shrieked. Cops appeared, pushing the bystanders back to clear the area as much as they could. No one paid any attention to Aria and the woman, but that was because no one could see them.

"What's going on? Is that me?" The woman asked.

They were questions similar to the ones Aria had heard countless times. People never believed it could be them, what they were "seeing" couldn't be right. She had this part down pat by now.

"Yes, that is you. You were in an accident. Hit and run."

"Does this mean I'm dead?"

Aria nodded, keeping her eyes level on the woman. Realization sunk in and she looked back down to Aria's hand.

"Why are you here? What are you doing? Are you dead too?" Once again, all questions she'd heard before.

It was slightly irritating how the souls felt the need to ask more questions. Aria was always on a time crunch, there were constantly more souls that needed her guidance; when there weren't any she liked to have time to herself, and she was always being watched and judged. The bosses didn't necessarily care about bedside manner, once we got them through the door we didn't have to deal with them anymore. They cared about the numbers, and Aria wanted to stay on their good side, especially now with a possible opening higher in the ranks.

"I bring the door for you to move on. I'm the bridge so to speak."

"I don't see any door, and I don't want to move on. I was getting married in two months; I'll be late for my final fitting. I was on my way there now; it's just across the street there." She pointed to the window of a shop. "I'd already picked out my dress, the dress."

The woman's voice shook, but there were no tears. Souls couldn't cry.

That was the part of the accident cases she always hated, hearing the sob story, the reason why she couldn't possibly take their soul away, there was still so much to do. Thinking maybe they could make her feel sympathy for them so she would let them return to their bodies, as if she were even the person who had taken them in the first place.

Every person had a life they had been living, and a lot of them were happy where they were. The accident cases didn't want to die and leave behind their loved ones, but that was just one of the facts of life—it eventually ended.

"So you're like the Grim Reaper? You're just a girl," the woman said, her voice catching at the end. Aria could tell the disbelief was starting to wear off, soon she would be seeing her true nature.

"Something of the sort." Aria smiled at the small joke that had formed over the years. She knew she looked young, but her looks were quite deceiving. Aria looked to be sixteen, but she'd been doing this job longer than she could remember.

"What happens if I don't take your hand?"

"Then you stay here on this street, unable to go anywhere or talk to anyone." Souls that refused to cross through their door were trapped. Those refusals were the worst, they resulted in a mark against her and a stack of papers to fill out the size of Mount Everest. Usually when a soul knew the consequence of staying though, they decided to go with her.

"But I don't want to leave my fiancé."

The woman started wringing her hands. Aria used to do the same when she approached the souls. As soon as she touched the woman's hand, Aria would know every last personal detail about her, from her name, when she was born, to what she had for breakfast. It had been overwhelming for her for the longest time, but she could barely remember that long ago.

The cops kept working to keep the crowd back as the people stood around, gawking with horror-stricken faces. It still amazed Aria the way humans would congregate to look at something that put that mixture of disgust, fear, and anxiety in the pit of their stomachs. They would refuse to take their eyes away from something that would never clear from their minds, something they would see every time they closed their eyes and would even be the source of nightmares in the nights to come.

The responder that was leaning over the body of the woman looked up to the others.

"She's gone," he said. "I would say she died on impact."

One of the woman's hands flew up to cover her mouth as she heard the words.

"But I'm right here; I'm not gone!" She shouted as if saying it louder would enable someone to hear her. Sorry, but that wasn't how it worked.

"My baby!" The shout came from behind them. Aria turned to see a clean and freshly pressed woman with a pile of blonde hair gathered at the top of her head that matched the mass of red soaked blonde haphazardly splayed on the ground.

"Mama," the woman choked out. "She was coming to meet me here for the fitting."

Loved ones were always another bump in the road, one that slowed down the process, but that wasn't time that Aria had anymore. She needed to be doing these quickly. She should have already had the woman through and to her door by now. It wasn't too often that the person agreed to leave before a friend or relative showed up though. She wasn't sure how long it would take for the woman to go with her now that her mother was there. She could only hope that it would be before the fiancé came along. If he got there she would never get the woman to leave.

Aria scratched her wrist where she knew the burning sensation would soon be, telling her there was another soul to assist. She didn't have much of a choice now. She had used up too much time. Aria needed to get to that door. As the woman watched her mother sobbing on the shoulder of an officer, Aria grabbed her hand. Everything faded away as if it had only been a dream, and blackness surrounded them.

"No! What did you do? You can't do that! Take me back!" The woman shouted as she jerked her hand away. Irene, that was her name.

Aria tired to avoid grabbing a soul, it just ended in more resistance once they'd left the physical world, and she liked to have a calm soul when it was time to coax them through their door. It was hard convincing someone to step through a door when no one knew what was on the other side.

"There isn't any going back. It was time to move on," Aria said.

"Who do you think you are to decide when I move on?"

"I am Death," Aria said sternly. That wasn't entirely true, but it may as well be. She never communicated with Death, she only ever got the assignments to pick up the souls after Death had done its job, but she was the one that actually interacted with the dead.

A door had appeared to Aria's left, one that was specifically designed for Irene. Every doorway looked different just as every person was different. Irene's was a pristine white, one that reminded Aria of Irene's mother who'd shown up. There were faint gold etchings along the frame that swirled around in a flowery pattern.

"Now, this is your door and it's time for you to find out what happens after you die." She knew she shouldn't be so sharp, but sometimes Aria lost her patience, and she'd been with Irene much longer than she would have liked.

Irene marched over to Aria, her eyes narrowed with a glare that could set a wildfire. "You will take me back to my mother and my fiancé right this instant," she said through gritted teeth in her best 'I'm older than you so you must listen to me' tone.

Aria put her hands on her hips in defiance. As if a soul could tell Death's worker what to do. "I already told you, there isn't a way for you to go back. You can kick and scream, you can shout and curse all you want, but this is the end of the line for you. Now, it's time for you to go through your door."

"You're a monster!" Irene spat.

Aria supposed to others who didn't know the burden of her existence that would seem true. The way she went around taking the newly freed souls from their bodies and to their door that contained no one knew what. The only way to find out would be to step through herself.

The whole thing took a while; screaming matches and temper tantrums—on Irene's part, but finally the woman stepped through her door. Aria thought she would have to push the madwoman through.

At last Irene disappeared leaving Aria standing in the darkness alone. She let out a deep breath, or what would have been a breath if she needed to breathe. She pinched the bridge of her nose and stood a moment longer in the darkness.

It was good that she didn't need to sleep, because job was never over; Aria always had to help more people cross over. Most didn't want to see her. It had been that way since the beginning. She couldn't count the number of souls she'd helped across, or remember anything from before that, if there even had been anything before it. She'd been new to it at some point though. She remembered the face, or at least fuzzy glimpses, that had set down the rules that she was supposed to follow; yet she remembered them as clear as if she'd just been told that day.

Go to those who are dying or dead and make sure the souls cross over. Don't listen to the sob stories, don't touch the bodies, and don't make any exceptions; just get them to cross.

Aria tried to follow the rules, and for the most part she did. It was hard when they started their justification as to why they couldn't possibly be dead, like they thought they were above Death's touch. Having a family, people who cared about you, a good job, or even a pet waiting for you to get home didn't make you untouchable. There was nothing anyone could do to avoid Death, and Aria was only there to help those who were no longer welcome in their bodies to pass on to whatever waited for them.

The nagging feeling within Aria had been growing lately. It demanded that she listen up. There were times when she thought she saw flashes behind her closed lids. A pair of eyes that seemed familiar, a smile that made her want to smile in response. None of it made sense, but it was constantly there, irritating, like an itch she just couldn't scratch.

She wondered if that feeling could hold the answers to who she really was. She wasn't even sure if Aria was her name. She just knew that it had felt familiar on her lips and so she'd claimed it as hers.

There was still a little time yet, she wasn't being called anywhere at the moment, so she took herself back into the physical world. This time she was standing on a busy sidewalk.

Cars buzzed by and life continued on. Many people walked with their heads down, numerous business clad men and women rushed by with their cellphones glued to their ears. Aria turned to the glass bus stop beside her. She looked at the glass and the slight reflection of people bustling about and reached her hand out, touching the surface.

Normally, Aria wouldn't have a reflection, but with her hand on the glass it faintly brought it out. She looked at the glass, seeing the pale green of her eyes and the raven dark hair that went just below her shoulders. She'd looked just the same as long as she could remember, her hair never grew, none of her features ever changed.

Aria wasn't one to care much about looks, after all, the only people she met were dead, but she didn't want to look like a complete disaster. With her fingers still touching the glass, she used her free hand to tame her hair. Yes, even though she wasn't living, and even though the physical world didn't interact with her, her hair could still turn into a disaster.

When she got every last strand under control, Aria took her hand away and saw through the glass a young woman bend down to help an old man who'd dropped the contents he'd been carrying. She scooped them up and ordered them before handing them back to him, a bright smile on her face. Aria smiled slightly at the woman's gesture and watched as the two parted ways. Across the street, a man leaving a shop bumped into a woman. He apologized profusely and Aria could see the shift in both of them, there was an attraction forming already. She'd had plenty of time to notice the subtle shift in the way people interacted when they were interested in the other person.

She turned away and watched the others around her again. Even amongst those who were busy, she could see people who were helping one another. That was what she loved to see when she people-watched, not just the people as they carried on with their own lives, but when they took the time to help one another. Aria wished she could do something for someone else, but she only ever encountered souls that had left their bodies. She thought back to rule number three that she lived by: no exceptions.

A burning sensation flared up again from the moon shaped scar and she knew it was time to be moving on, she looked around her one last time, taking in everything around her. She could tell that this one was much bigger, it was one of those things that came to her with each new tickling burn on the inside of her wrist. There was more than just one person and that was when her job got complicated, convincing numerous people to cross over and go through their door in a timely manner.

Aria gave into the feeling and let it take her to where she needed to go, leaving these mortals to their normal lives.

**********

And this is the first chapter, and we have met our leading lady. What do you all think? 

Leave your comments below, and if you liked the chapter and would be so kind, could you please press that little star above? I would be ever so grateful. 

Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy Bridge of Souls.

Red Assassin