Two figures stood in the elevator as it descended. Inside, the mirrors reflected them from every angle. One was dressed in a clean, crisp, white suit. A black tie stood out sharply, only interrupted by the small green wind chime pin below the triangle knot. His long black hair was pulled into a loose ponytail that reached down his back and stopped at the curve that indicated his tailbone. His shoes were a polished black, the laces double knotted. He surveyed his company through playful grey eyes.

"So tell me, how did it happen to you?" He spoke cheerfully in a young voice.

The other person in the elevator, a young girl, ignored him. She looked so raggedy standing next to the tall man. Why was he even bothering to talk to her? Her simple black dress was tattered at the edges, tickling her knees. At the top, loose threads stuck out where a decoration must have been torn off. She was bruised and dirty, and she didn't feel like talking to anyone about anything. She lowered her head slightly, letting her short, white hair hide her indigo eyes.

The man grinned nervously, trying to take the girl's rejection with grace even though there was no one to laugh at him. He was never good at making conversation in the elevator. That was not his job.

A quiet ping alerted the two that they had reached their destination. As the mirrored doors slid open, the girl noticed something. Her eyes widened for a moment, but she quickly lowered her gaze again. Only the floor of the elevator was not a mirrored surface.

"Follow me, please." The man spoke gently as he walked in front of her. She followed him silently.

They stepped into a carpeted hallway; the girl was thankful. Her bare feet had grown cold from their ride in the elevator. It was dimly lit, casting shadows on white walls and white carpet. The doors that lined the hallway were also white, their doorknobs and keyholes a polished black. Everything about this institution was black and white. The only other color she had seen was grey.

The man paused in front of a door and took a key out from his inner jacket pocket. He unlocked the door and held it open for the girl to pass first. She gave him a slight look of dislike, but stepped forward anyway.

The room inside was pitch black. She stepped blindly, noting that the floor was no longer made of carpet. An audible click sounded behind her. When she turned to look, she couldn't tell if the man had followed her in or not. She couldn't see anything besides the thin white stripe of light that escaped from the bottom of the door. Her eyes darted around the darkness, her heart rate accelerating. It wasn't the darkness that drove her insane; it was the inability to tell whether or not she was alone.

She opened her mouth to speak when a bright light flooded the room before her, illuminating three figures seated behind a towering ebony bench, one that vaguely reminded her of a courtroom. They sat in high backed wooden chairs painted white inlayed with black cushions. The seats on the ends of the bench were empty. She shielded her eyes from the light and stepped into it. She was in the middle of the room, standing on a checkerboard patterned, black and white tiled floor.

"Step closer, my dear." The figure in the middle said. He was a handsome man with a sharp nose and piercing grey eyes. His hair was also black, but it was cut short around his ears. He wore a black suit with a white tie. A red maple leaf pin sat below the knot. The girl obeyed, heartbeat still racing as she stepped into the light.

"My name is Maple." He said, a kind smile on his face. "This is Snow," He indicated the woman to his immediate left, "and Lullaby," the man sitting to his right. "We are… a sort of welcoming committee." They nodded at her in turn, with hard gazes that made her uneasy. Maple turned to look at something behind him.

"Chime, if you would."

The man who had escorted her earlier stepped from behind the bench carrying a glass vase. He smiled at her, but she only frowned. What was going on?

"My dear, as you no doubt realize, you are dead." The girl flinched from the word. It sounded so official, so harsh. "Our customs here dictate that you can no longer use your earthly name as you did in your past life. That name was given to you. You must now choose your own name." The girl looked curiously at the vase and began to ask a question, but Maple raised a hand. "Before you ask anything, you must choose your new name. Please, look at the vase Chime is holding. What do you see inside it?"

The girl looked at him incredulously, but turned to gaze at the vase anyway. At first she couldn't see anything inside the glass, only the buttons of the jacket Chime was wearing. She squinted. The air inside seemed to ripple. A small flower appeared. She blinked. She knew what that flower was called. But suddenly, it vanished in a leap of flame. Once the bright glow of the fire disappeared, the flower was gone.

"Ash." She said in surprise.

"Very good." Maple said. She was about to protest, but Maple didn't seem to notice. "That settles things. You shall now be called Ash." He pulled a piece of paper and pen from thin air. He scribbled the name down and the paper and pen disappeared when he was finished. Chime had disappeared.

"Now, we must reconcile your accounts." Snow said. Ash turned to look at her. Her curly black hair was pinned up in neat rings, leaving not even strands to fall into her pale face. She had painted her lips a stark red color, a new color for Ash to see, as Snow's eyes were still as grey as everyone else's. She had a stern look to her, not softened at all by her ruffled white collar. She wore a black vest and tie as well. A snowflake pin rested below the triangle knot. "It seems that you have not lived a very good life." A thick book was set before her. She opened it and flipped to a page. "Your mother died when you were six-years-old, your father went mad shortly after. You had a younger brother to take care of, which you ignored. You became friends with gangs and drug dealers. You partied almost every night. You slept with anyone who would have you. Money slipped through your hands and into the outlets that would lead

nowhere. You never attended more than three consecutive days of school." Snow stopped and raised her grey eyes to face Ash's violet ones. "Do you deny any of this?"

At first, Ash did not want to answer, but the hard look in Snow's eyes erased that possibility. "No, I do not deny it." She said softly.

"Your death," Lullaby said as Snow passed the book to him, "resulted from these choices you made." His voice caused her to look up sharply. Lullaby was as young as she was, no more than fourteen. His wavy black hair reached his chin, pinned back from his face by two white clips shaped like musical notes. He was also wearing a black suit with a white shirt. The tie was absent. Again, grey eyes stared at her. He gave her a small smile, as if to calm her. "You died at the age of fourteen and eleven months. You were almost fifteen. You went out to a party at a night club with your gang and a gang war broke out. You fled the club with your boyfriend. He left you behind. The other gang caught you." Ash felt anger well at the memory, her eyes burning holes into the floor before her. "But as you have no doubt guessed, this is not heaven." She looked up at him, her fear renewed.

"Don't look so scared, Ash. This isn't hell, either." Chime reappeared standing at the edge of the bench. She glared at him. He seemed too easygoing, too calm, so at ease with the fact that her life had just ended. "Like Maple said, this is a welcoming committee, but it is also a place for judgment." Her gaze wandered to Maple, thinking that he was the judge. He smiled at her again, but there was no kindness this time. "If you please, Windmill." Chime said, drawing Ash's attention back to the annoying man. He turned to face someone behind the bench.

A small boy stepped forward. He also had white hair like Ash, but his eyes were green. He was so young, could he really be dead? As he stepped into the light, he kept his gaze down, employing Ash's trick of letting his bangs hide his eyes. He was dressed in a tattered blue T-shirt and dirty shorts. Ugly sneakers too big for him covered his feet. He looked so familiar.

"You see, we usually do not summon children who haven't had time to correct their lives down here unless they have done something terrible." Maple said, his eyes now sharp and cold. "Unfortunately, you are an exception." Ash's blood seemed to pound in her ears at this point. She didn't look at Maple, but at Windmill instead. She knew him. Maybe not his name, but something about him pulled at her memories. "You have a responsibility as an older sibling. Every day you would leave your younger brother at home without supervision. Every day he would attend school himself, feed himself, have to go look for money himself. All this he did while worrying about you. He would follow you every night whenever you left, but you never noticed. You never even noticed when you came back home and he wasn't in bed." Ash looked at Windmill with wide eyes full of horror. "You never even noticed when he followed you that night. You never noticed when he ran into that alley after you." Windmill did not lift his gaze from the black and white tiles. "And of course, you didn't notice when your boyfriend shot him in his crazed escape. You have failed as an older sister, as a family member. This is the reason why you are here."

Ash's horrified gaze in the silence that followed shifted rapidly between Maple and Windmill.

"W-windmill!" She choked out. "I didn't know!" She ran to the small boy, but he would not move. She knelt down to face him, placing her hands on his shoulders. "Why did you follow me? Why didn't you just stay at home?"

"Because you're my sister. I was worried."

"But… I never said anything to you. I never gave you a reason to care about me!"

"You were all I had." His voice was dry and without emotion. Still, he did not lift his gaze.

"I'm… so sorry." Ash said. She felt her eyes burn, but tears didn't come. She suddenly hugged him, her head buried in his dirty T-shirt.

"We have devised a proper judgment for you." Maple spoke again, but Ash did not move. "Although most of the memories that a person has of their earthly lives are erased when they come here, the things most basic and important to them remain. You knew the word for ash. You know what a maple tree looks like and what chimes sound like. However, I doubt you recall your own name. Few people do. What most people do recall are the names of their closest friends and family." Ash lifted her head. Chime met her gaze with an unreadable expression.

"Ash, do you remember your brother's name?" Chime spoke.

Windmill finally raised his eyes to meet Ash's. His gaze was not full of anger and rage as she had expected, but a sad, pitiful look. Ash searched her mind. What was her brother's name? Surely she could at least pay him this respect. She opened her mouth and Windmill looked hopefully at her. However, no words came out.

"I see." Chime said indifferently. He placed a firm hand on Windmill's shoulder and directed him behind the bench again. Ash was left kneeling before the committee, her head bowed and her eyes wide in disbelief. What was her brother's name? She surely couldn't be that heartless. She turned to gaze at Windmill one last time, but he was already gone. Too late.

"Ash." Maple said coldly. "You who have lived your life irresponsibly now stand before this committee." Ash got to her feet, feeling a sudden numbness coming over her. "This shall be your punishment: you shall find your brother's name. We will not return any of your memories. We will not tell you your original name. We will not tell you where to look, where to go, or what to do. You will travel earth as a flicker of a spirit, seen by few." Maple's word came relentlessly, like a waterfall over Ash's head, but at the moment, his words were a distant echo. She was so angry. How could she have let this happen?

"We assign Chime to watch over you." Snow said. Ash's eyes snapped to the woman's harsh gaze. "He will make sure that you are within certain limitations of your sentence."

"He will check in with us from time to time. We will monitor your progress. If we decide that you are not taking your punishment seriously or that you have taken too long, we will call you back." Lullaby supplied.

"Trust me, you don't want that." Chime whispered into her ear. She almost jumped.

"Until you carry out your sentence, you will hang in the state between life and death. Your body won't age, but you will still carry out bodily functions." Maple said again, the cold edge to his voice disappearing. "We will mark you so that our reapers do not collect you by mistake." He pointed a finger directly at her forehead. She instantly felt a hot burn between her eyebrows. Her hands slapped up to in.

"You are dismissed." All three said. Chime guided her back to the door. He held it open for her. She shot him another look of dislike and stepped outside.

"Tell my brother I'll find his body and bury it." She said, not facing the committee.

"Tell him yourself." She heard Snow say as Chime closed the door behind her.

Sooo... how was it? Reviews are greatly appreciated! More chapters to come soon.