I’ve seen many small hands reach up to grab my garments for guidance.

But never have I seen ones quite this cold.

Lost and confused are souls who travel from one world into the next. Some not even realizing the bypass between the worlds when their life soon becomes mine to care for.

This one is no exception, but the abnormality of her hands is what makes me burdened for her. Children are new creatures that bare the weight of the next human generation on their shoulders. Unfortunately more than most won’t get to see what else that life had to offer them before being given to me.

Standing a bit away does her body face me but her head bowed to stare at the reflective floors of the abyss. Her damp hair almost stiff from the ice that lingered and her flesh pale and blue.

She did not move, nor did she look at me.

“Alison Grey. That is your name, is it not?” I ask.

To no surprise, she seems unresponsive to my question. Her eyes unmoving from her own reflection beneath her with remorse and regret.

Many children and even adults come to the afterlife unaccepting the conditions that they are in fact, dead or dying. Alison was dying and she was already sitting in the in between of fighting for her life or accepting…

I moved closer to her gradually, to which did her head lift and her foot slide back to begin moving away. I stopped seeing this reaction and I thought for a moment.

“You’re very cold… Would you let me warm you in my arms?” I ask her, tilting my head at an angle to look at her face better.

The girl seemed to finally look at me, assessing if she wished to approach me. The unfamiliarity of my garments and peculiar eyes offset her to uncertainty.

“…I am cold… Because I fell in the ice,” she explained her reasoning, as if she needed to. “My papa will warm me up soon when he pulls me out of the ice,” she spoke with a broken confidence.

My hands moved to behind my back when hearing her strained voice speak at last. Observing further, this was no ordinary fall in the ice. I could tell deep down. I began to walk again forward with more care this time.

“How did you fall in the ice?” I asked, looking down at her reflection beneath her feet.

It showed her in the distorted waters beneath the thickness of the ice’s surface. The sunlight being blocked by a larger shadow from “above” the ice.

“I…” the girl began to stutter. “I…I was playing… And… I was scared… Because… Mommy and daddy were fighting again… About me,” she stated, eyes filling with tears as her small hand curled into a fist.

“Is that so?” I hummed, stopping in front of her.

I watched as her head turned away from me almost in shame.

“Why would they fight about you?”

The girl slowly got on her hands and knees, caressing the floor at the reflection she saw. Her skin grew more blue from the length of time passing being under the cold winter water. She sniffled and began to grasp at the floor.

“I ruined mommy and daddy’s happiness,” she sobbed. “I… I made daddy angry…”

I was silent at this, knowing this story all too well from other children. All different yet all the same. I slowly moved to kneel in front of her, brushing the back of my bone fingers against her hair to reveal the fresh horrendous forming bruises of fingerprints around her throat. I looked back down at her reflection to see her small form thrashing slightly beneath the water for air.

“…You didn’t fall in the ice, did you, sweetheart?” I sigh with a saddened disappointment.

She began to cry harder at my words as her small fist began to pound at the floor to go back to that life.

“I will do better, papa! I will make you happier! Please! I’m scared, papa!” She cried out into the abyss, clawing and gasping for air. “…It hurts… I’m so cold…” she shivered in her shaky voice.

This job was never an easy job. You’d think after seeing millions upon millions of cases like this you’d get used to such a thing. But my heart aches for each soul that comes to me in such conditions.

“…Be cold no longer, Alison,” I say, moving to sit beside her. “Let me keep you warm and safe from that world that you knew as home but never was home,” I stretched an arm out and around her small frame, slowly encasing her in the warmth of my arms.

Her sobbing died down and her thrashing upon the other side of the reflective abyss stopped. She turned to me to feel more secure in my hold, eyes holding more relaxation than fear.

“What is your name?” She asked softly, resting her small head against my cloaked chest.

“I go by many names, little Alison. But one of the names you will know me by is Death,” I tell her, watching as her small arms reached up to wrap to the best of her ability around my waist.

“Death always sounded so scary,” she whispered against my chest to herself. “But you don’t seem so scary. You feel… Warm…” she melted into my hug and her body began to ease in tension. “Be kind to me, Death…”

I chuckled sadly and my embrace around the small girl tightened at this.

“I will be kind to you when man wasn’t. I promise.”