1 Last night

"Are you freaking kidding me?" Aveline Celeste shouted in incredulity, her fresh grassy green color eyes swirled into altering vague with darkness as she glared at the man in the black zip-up jacket beside her.

"Is it written on my face that I'm stupid? You are saying that you are a grim reaper. But how can I see, no... actually, how the hell can I talk with a grim reaper if I'm alive? Have you taken me as a fool, David?" Snorted Ave, her voice mixed in the music beats of the club, murmuring along with the instruments.

"How do you know my name, Aveline?" David Morgan glanced upward, averting his gaze from the glass filled with juice that was placed on the table. His mouth pursed but slightly open and loose.

"I can not believe I'm talking with you." Ave voiced in frustration and her index finger blamed the name tag of David's cloak. The audible chorus was making her blood boil, depicting the rising frustration.

The next second, the sigh that escaped her dry lips was slow as if her brain needed the time to process what had happened. It was her best friend Ethy's bachelorette party. On the way to the club, she remembered her car getting crashed against a giant tree in the purple forest. But when she opened her eyes, David was driving it and starting from then something was ensuing to her. She was feeling weighted as if it was a foreign body and she was taking time to set herself in. Moreover, the twanging sensation inside her head was nearly killing.

Why? What? How? These questions were another piles of questions to her that crammed her cloudy mind with another cliffhanger.

David, in the most cold-blooded human-like form, gave her a sardonic smile whilst he tried to explain everything calmly. "Human dies when we, the Reaper sever the soul's last ties to life and grant the soul safe passage to the afterlife. We do not 'kill' mortals, but merely guides their spirits to the next realm. But in your case, I don't know what to do..." His words trailed off as a long sigh escaped his lips.

The more he analyzed it, the more his brain became a spinning top – always finding more questions than answers. "You were supposed to die. But when I found your body and tried to cut the ties of your body with the soul. I couldn't. Because of a different soul... in your body..."

What a Psychopath! Ave didn't complain but anger boiled deep in her system, as hot as lava that she felt her blood started rushing upward from her toe to top.

"Your brain cells were still active when the different soul retrieved in your body. And that's why it was able to memorize every single memory of yours. I mean the body's." Massaging his temple, he continued. "For your brain cells and body, you are Aveline. But for your soul, you're not Aveline. A missing and solely different soul has taken your body. That's why you're alive and talking with me. If it hadn't, you were already dead." David inhaled deeply, even he was trying to organize the complicated and confusing puzzles.

Regardless, everything he said made no sense to Ave. Soul, body? How could a soul be separated from a body? And retrieved in another body? Holy Crap!

"Actually... This is...NONSENSE!" She gritted her teeth and slammed her hands on the desk underneath.

David stamped his foot. A long sigh brought out all of his frustration. "You still don't believe me. Okay... you've called this yourself." With that, he reeled his gaze around and noticed a waiter plodding towards them, grunting as he carried a tray of a dozen glasses filled to the brim.

David waited patiently for the waiter to come alongside and when he finally did, David shot out his foot into the path. The waiter walked gradually, and unnoticed he tripped over David's leg. The tray in his hands dropped down, all the glasses on it broke into pieces.

Ave's attention mended on him whilst he tried to maintain his balance, holding onto the handle of David's chair. After a few erred attempts, he was successfully able to stand straight. He seemed so relieved until his gazes found Ave in front of him. The color left his face and his eyes widened in panic. "I'm sorry, It will never happen again, Princess." He bowed and apologized in rush. She was so beautiful and that made him scared the most. Beautiful women are scary.

"It's okay. Not your fault." Aveline's quick compassion curtailed his stress.

"I will get this cleaned up." Dared not to waste her further time, the waiter glanced down at the broken pieces of glasses and squatted down to swoop them up.

Ave nodded and turned to sneak a look at David who had been smiling mischievously all the time. "You little lunatic. Why.. did..." She was about to chastise David but stopped as she heard what the waiter had said just now.

"I'm becoming clumsy day by day. How could I tripped over nothing?" He kept growling to himself, picking up the broken pieces on the tray.

Ave watched him in disbelief. David's leg was still there, unmoved. Couldn't the waiter see that? He didn't trip over anything but his foot.

Shortly, the waiter started stretching his hand to pick up the piece beneath David's boot. If he wants to pick it up, his hand needs to touch David's foot. And just then, in another second, the waiter extended his hand, ran it through David's foot without any difficulty as if he was running his hand through thin air.

Colour drained from Ave's face, her skin turned as white as paper. Her mouth dropped wide open in collisions and the adrenaline that coursed through her system shut down her ability to think logically.

The spot where David's foot and the waiter's hand mingled together, it looked somewhat obscured like an opaque paint. However, both of their hand and foot were as visible as a transparent hue.

Aveline's body wished either to run fast from here or to scream or work to find weaponry, but instead, she stayed right where she was. Sometimes freezing is the best of the choices.

She stayed that way, frozen until the waiter stood up after picking up the glasses on the tray and David's voice knocked against her head hard.

"Wanna see the real me?" David just took time to inform before his appearance altered to an animated human skeleton, draped in pitch black robes and a scythe gripped firmly in his hand.

Ave's face turned paler, she realized she wasn't breathing at all. "P... please. Change yourself into human form... You look... scary." Her adrenaline surged so fast she almost vomited; she could taste the saliva thickening her mouth to a rancid paste.

The waiter who was passing by got confused. Wondering with whom she was talking!

David brought his human form back as easily as snapping his fingers, not scaring the fellow further. "So... Aveline. Do you believe that no one can see me? And I'm a grim reaper. Everything is clear, right?"

Ave who was aghast until now struggled to nod her head and swallowed her breath that was stuck in her throat.

Letting out a soft chuckle, David switched back to his professionalism again. "Taking out a living, breathing soul from a body isn't a piece of cake. But finding out the body is our main job. If we can find the body of the soul you have retrieved, we can make it leave your body as soon as possible."

Slowly the tangled mess of her brain started to loosen. She took time to relax and then decided to trust him since there was no other way left. "What am I supposed to do now?" She asked, frowning.

David who was floating in his thoughts came back to his senses. "When the body of this soul will be close to your body, you will feel something like a magnet pulling you towards it. All you have to do is to remember this and enjoy."

"Enjoy what?" Ave gave him a confused look.

David got himself up from the chair and smiled widely. "Such is the life of the crown Princess of Qidan."

Ave sighed. "Right. The unluckiest so-called Princess, Aveline Celeste." She mumbled to herself in great dismay.

David exhaled a soft breath and looked at her. "No matter what it is. You should enjoy the new chance to live. You will find your phone and keys in your pocket. Your car is in the parking lot. One more thing, don't let anyone understand your difference. Don't talk with anyone about these stuff. It will only makes things complicated for you. Now. I've told you everything. So I gotta go. I will see you soon. Goodbye."

Before Aveline could react or even realize what he said, he was disappeared; he was nowhere in the club just like vanishing in the air. "David?" Ave glanced around frantically but couldn't find him anymore.

How can he just leave like this? Her inner sense roared and she almost jumped when the phone in her pocket rang, announcing her best friend, Ethy Allen's ringtone. The bachelor party! Ave forgot all about it. She took it out and answered it right away. "Ethy? Where are you guys?"

"We are all dancing. But it should be me asking... where the hell are you bitch?" Ethy Allen, her best friend, sounded concerned.

"I will see you soon." A long sigh signaled her frustration.

After a long minute of silence, a lively smile was heard on the other end. "Come fast. Let's have fun. Bitch, it's my bachelorette party." Ethy nearly screamed, the music thrumming loudly through the phone speaker.

Ave tried to smile. "Yeah, bitch. I am coming." With that, she hung up and adjusting her clothes, she shifted her gaze at the dance floor.

There, among the drunken people, her friends were dancing on the northern lights; beneath the dry-ice smoke swirled an array of blues, acid greens, hot pinks, and gold. The music played over the floor as if it had intertwined with the bodies.

It was her best friend Ethy's bachelorette party. She was getting married soon, to her boyfriend. But everything was messed up.

"Heck you, David!" She cursed underneath her breath, assuming no one heard her, but apparently, it was loud enough to make the guys standing in the corner stop talking and turn to catch a glimpse of her.

Well, not all of them, the man dressed in black didn't bother to spare her a single glance as he continued drinking his wine while others stared at her with their mouths wide open.

"Woah...." She snorted at his misconduct; however, she couldn't miss his charm at all.

He was a man of any girl's dreams, having thick, tousled dark brown hair. His lips were so alluring that any girl on the earth would jump to taste them. He had a strong and defined face, features that looked like they were chiseled from granite with a moon tattoo just lower behind his ear, a few stars on a side of his neck.

Ave managed to snap out of the fascination when she noticed the girl beside him elbowing and whispering something. She threw a soft, mysterious smirk in Ave's direction.

Irritated, Ave didn't feel like wasting time, so she looked away, trying to find a place to sit and relax peacefully. Her friends would just have fun on the dance floor without her. Finding the mini bar, when she turned towards it, a wheezy, cackling voice rose from behind, stopping her pace. "Hey, there."

She took a long breath and turned to take in the direction from where the voice succeeded. Having the tattooed guy staring at her, her lips slowly parted. His savage and cunning pitch-black eyes that perched above his hawkish and hooked nose pinned Ave with his gaze.

"Yeah?" She questioned in the response.

He gave her a shivering smile as he pulled himself up and his long legs moved towards her, closing the distance between them in a flash.

She could smell the alcoholic scent of his breath when he leaned close to her. "Free tonight?" He queried in a whisper.

And... From here, it started.