Cinderella's life!

A body was a magical artefact. You can think of it as a magical cell phone, with my ghostly self being the sim card, or battery or something similar? The point is, it expends energy to work. Thankfully, the magically advanced technology here doesn't really need me to do anything at all. I just need to leave it in that glowing coffin for a few hours and... TADA. 

Yup... that's it. It's that simple. But I still failed to do it. 

The current dead body was the result of me sleeping-in inside the body instead of dutifully recharging, just as the shopkeeper had told me to. Hence, I have a situation where I cannot do anything but ask the help of the kiddy warden with a manly hot voice.

I floated through the door, through the lift's vent(?)[is that what it is called], and since I had no idea which floor I had to go, I even had to check all the floors. I discovered a striking characteristic on every floor as I combed through all of the floors. They had a certain kind of energy running through them. Like my eerily lonely floor was kinda cold, I encountered some which were icy, some kinda disturbingly electric or hot. No idea how they did that... but.... so cool!!! 

And of course, I didn't meet anyone else. Soon I was on the ground floor. The same expensive lobby I remembered was in front of me. I hurriedly went to find the kiddy warden without wasting time. I had a huge loan already if that body is damaged on the first day, I would be drowning in the misery of debt even after debt.

The kiddy warden was playing with some toy figurines when I discovered him. Looked like a dragon? and a knight? with 'tush! bam bam!' and other sound effects in the background. It was probably an epic battle for this poor kid. just look at that face. 

I waited on the side in the littered reception room as a child was playing with his toys. It was rude to interrupt I thought. After a few more minutes of the epic battle, the knight ate the dragon and died of a tummy ache. 

I thought this was enough and interrupted the playtime of the little boy warden. 

"Ahem~ excuse me! can you please help me out?" I asked politely. 

The boy seemed startled by the sudden voice out of nowhere ruining his playtime. 

"What? What are you doing here? Why're you shneaking around like this?" a young age-appropriate voice asked in anxious anger. And yes he said 'shneaking'.

"Ahem~ sorry about that but my body is out of charge and I was not able to get it inside the coffin. "I said hiding my embarrassment. 

The boy showed a confused expression and asked after pondering for a while, "Whats a coffin?"

"Oh... you know... the shiny... box.. thingy. which recharges the body?" I tried to explain in the best of my abilities. 

After a few hours of struggling.

"Geez~ how did you manage to get it out of charge so quickly? Don't you know that the newly brought ones don't have much charge?" The boy replied as he huffed and puffed. "Stupid!"

The body had to be put inside manually. That means if a seven or so years old boy wanted to put an adult woman's body inside a coffin, he had to drag.... a lot. All I could do was watch as the little frail boy toiled. 

After the embarrassing incident, I began to think about my next course of action. It has probably been about an eventful 24 hours (or so) after my death. Not that I had anything to really measure time with. There was a grandfather clock in the room which had been at 2.40 since god knows when. It was just a gut feeling, not that time really matters. But my modern mind couldn't really get used to the clockless environment. 

On earth, no matter rich or poor, you could always check the time. Be it a cell phone, wristwatch or an LCD display at public places. *Sigh* to think that I would start missing my home so soon. 

Anyways, time to clean up this pig pen of a dorm room. Back when I was alive, I hated cleaning. I would not clean my room for weeks if not for months. I did the bare minimum. Heck, I would even skip baths during winters. Now I don't need to bath for the rest of my ghostly life. I guess that's a good thing? 

I looked towards the dusty desk I was napping on earlier. Other than my drool mark, there was dust everywhere and books littered here and there. People here really like messy hoarding it seems. I took a random rag and started dusting the books one by one and glancing at the title of the book alongside. 

There were all kinds of books in the pile. Some on ghosts, some on elemental lifeforms, some travel journals and experiences of adventurers. I even saw some research books. Soon the table was cleared and I realised, it was pretty big. The rectangular table was at lead 6 x 3 m in size. Almost big enough to be considered a bed. 

I wiped the table clean like a cursed Cinderella and notice there were a few drawers at either side of the table. I wasn't able to see it before due to the pile of books and the almost a rag tablecloth. I opened the first drawer with a bit of hesitation, lest there is another disgusting corpse in there. 

The drawer was packed full of random papers. Some IOU's(?) with a hefty sum on the name of Mathew Hollander, some random receipts and other useless stuff. My nonexistent heart started to feel heavy. Was debt some kind of regular tradition that everyone has here? Just look at the total amount this guy owed. It would be a wonder if this guy could stay alive for long after accumulating so much debt. 

Once I got through all of the junk in the drawer, I discovered a thick book at the bottom. It was not as big as the other books on the table, but it was still thick enough. I picked it out only to find similar books stacked underneath. Only they looked much older and worn out. 

I opened the first one only to realise that these were journals. The name of the person in the first journal was Mathew Hollander. Same name on the IOU's. But the names on the older ones were different. Samantha Muller, Thomas, and a few other names. The names on the top of every journal were different. 

Were they possibly the previous occupants of this room? 

I decided to check out these thick journals for another time and got busy cleaning up again. The other drawers were filled to the brim with random junk and some nick-knacks which I had no After almost 4 hours of manual labor like a cursed Cinderella, I had only cleaned a table. 

"Seems like I will be cleaning for a while..." I mused to myself while living the dream life of every little girl on earth. Like Cinderella! Only, I had no little pesky rats to help me, or a fairy godmother to make me pretty, not that I want to be pretty.