DEATH GLITCH

Aidan loved rules. 

Rules were simple, clean, and never talked back. In his three hundred years as a grim reaper, the ledger in his hands had never once been wrong. Names appeared, clock ticks ran out, souls were collected, and Aidan moved on to the next task without skipping a beat.

Until tonight.

He stood in the corner of a dimly lit coffee shop, wrapped in a dark trench coat that rendered him invisible to mortal eyes.

 Rain rattled against the glass windows. 

At the small table near the window sat Alia. She was laughing over a warm mug of cocoa, completely oblivious to the fact that, according to page forty-two of Aidan's leather-bound notebook, her heart was scheduled to stop at precisely 11:14 PM.

Aidan checked his pocket watch. 

11:13 PM.

He unclipped his silver reaping blade from his coat and took a quiet step forward. He waited for the telltale sign—the heavy, cold stillness that always blanketed a room right before a human took their last breath.

11:13:58.

11:13:59.

11:14:00.

Nothing happened.

Alia took another sip of cocoa and laughed at a joke on her phone.

Aidan frowned. 

He tapped the glass face of his watch, thinking the hands had stuck, but the second hand kept ticking smoothly forward. 

11:14:15.

Frustrated, Aidan flipped open his ledger. As his eyes hit Alia's name, glowing golden ink rushed across the page as if written by an invisible quill. The black date stamped next to her name dissolved into smoke.

New numbers burned into the paper: Extended: +30 Days.

"What in the world..." Aidan whispered, his voice cracking the heavy silence of the room.

In three centuries, death had never been postponed. You were born, you lived, and when your time was up, you died. The cosmic ledger didn't offer extensions. There were no bonus rounds.

He glared at Alia. Was she a witch? A demon in disguise? A glitch in the universe?

If he returned to headquarters empty-handed without a soul or an explanation, the Council of Reapers would strip him of his title and throw him into the abyss. He couldn't just walk away and check back in a month. He needed answers now.

Aidan closed the ledger with a sharp snap. 

Since he couldn't take her soul tonight, he had no choice but to figure out what was keeping her alive—and that meant getting close to her. 

Very close.

As Aidan stood frozen in the quiet corner, trying to figure out his next move, a strange shiver ran down Alia's spine.

She paused, suddenly feeling like someone was staring at her intently.

She glanced around the warm coffee shop, but everyone seemed busy. A couple whispered across the room, the barista cleaned the counter, and an old man read his paper. Nobody was paying attention to her.

What is this feeling? She thought, rubbing her arms.

Why do I feel like I'm being watched? Am I just imagining things?

It was a strange sensation. Something about it felt dangerous, but at the same time, it didn't make her panic. Shrugging it off, she decided to stop caring about it and reached for the tote bag on the chair beside her.

She unzipped it, pulled out a neat leather notebook and a black pen, and flipped to a page titled Bucket List. But just as her pen touched the paper, her phone loudly buzzed on the table.

Alia looked down at the screen. The caller ID read Ms. Cindy.

Her eyes widened in instant shock. She quickly grabbed the phone, but she didn't answer right away. She just stared at the glowing screen while it kept ringing, her hand frozen in place.

Watching from the shadows, Aidan's curiosity flared. What could make her look so terrified? He stepped forward, leaning down close over her shoulder to get a better look at the screen.

Without warning, Alia suddenly stood straight up.

Aidan recoiled, dodging backward just in time as her head almost slammed right into his face.

"Phew! That was close!" Aidan gasped, exhaling a sharp breath.

Even though Grim Reapers were invisible to human eyes, physical contact was a dangerous rule. If a mortal collided with a reaper, they wouldn't just bump into them—they would feel a sudden, unnatural freeze, often getting sick with a terrible fever for a whole week.

Unaware of the bullet she had just dodged, Alia quickly packed her notebook and pen back into her tote bag, slinging the strap over her left shoulder. She turned around to leave—putting her face only an inch away from Aidan's.

Aidan froze, his heart dropping into his stomach. Only he was aware of how dangerously close they were, but what shocked him most was her gaze. Alia was looking straight into his eyes, almost as if she could actually see him standing there.

"What are you?" Aidan whispered, his voice trembling even though he knew she couldn't hear him.

Before she could take her first step toward the door, Aidan quickly shifted out of her path. He let out a long, heavy sigh as he watched her walk away toward the rain outside, realizing his mission was going to be much more complicated than he thought.

Alia pushed open the heavy glass door of the coffee shop and stepped straight into the pouring rain.

The cold water instantly soaked through her clothes as she sprinted toward the sidewalk, desperately looking up and down the dark street for a taxi. She held her phone over her head to shield it from the downpour, her eyes fixed on the bright screen.

A new notification popped up: "Come at the office right now."

It was a text from Ms. Cindy—her demanding boss.

Alia worked at a well-known cosmetics company. When she was hired three years ago, her contract was for a Marketing Analyst position. She was supposed to analyze customer trends and plan product campaigns. But Ms. Cindy had other plans for her. Ever since day one, Cindy had treated Alia like her personal assistant, forcing her to handle last-minute errands, late-night coffee runs, and endless urgent tasks at all hours of the day.

Today was supposed to be Alia's official day off. Yet, here she was again, freezing in the storm, her phone buzzing with another unshakeable command.

This had been her life for three exhausting years, but no matter how many times it happened, she still wasn't used to it. The heavy, familiar weight in her chest returned—the feeling that her life wasn't really her own.

Yellow headlights cut through the thick sheets of rain as an empty taxi finally pulled up to the curb. Alia flagged it down, her hands shaking from the chill, and yanked the door open.

"Downtown, please" she panted, sliding onto the back seat and wiping wet hair from her face.

She stared out the water-streaked window as the city lights blurred past. What she didn't know was that just a few feet behind the cab, standing completely dry in the middle of the torrential rain, Aidan was watching her go.

His ledger glowed faintly in his hand, the golden letters "+30 Days" still pulsing against the dark cover.

She's running herself to death for a job, Aidan thought, his dark eyes narrowing as he stepped into the street and vanished into thin air, following the taxi through the storm.

The taxi pulled up to the looming glass skyscraper that housed Aura Cosmetics. Rain poured down the tall windows, turning the warm city lights into blurry smears of yellow and red.

Alia stepped into the quiet lobby, and rode the elevator to the twelfth floor. The floor was dark except for the harsh white light spilling out from the corner office.

She took a deep breath, patted down her damp jacket, and walked inside.

Ms. Cindy sat behind a massive oak desk, her dark hair pulled into a tight bun, tapping her manicured nails impatiently on her tablet.

"You took twenty minutes" Cindy said without looking up "I thought I told you it was urgent."

"I'm sorry, Ms. Cindy. The rain made it hard to get a cab" Alia said softly, standing near the door. "Is there an issue with the quarterly report?"

"The report is fine" Cindy dismissed with a wave of her hand"The board shifted the product launch for the new spring line to tomorrow morning. I need the entire marketing deck completely redone with updated regional analytics before 8:00 AM."

Alia felt her stomach drop"Tomorrow morning? But I thought the team was meeting on Monday"

"The team isn't here, Alia" Cindy interrupted, finally looking up with a cold, fake smile "You are. That's why you're my favorite. You always get things done." She gestured toward Alia's small desk just outside her office glass wall. "Everything you need is in your inbox. I expect it finished before sunrise."

Without another word, Cindy grabbed her designer coat and walked past her toward the elevators, leaving Alia standing alone in the silent, empty floor.

Alia let out a long, exhausted breath. She walked to her desk, sank into her chair, and rubbed her tired eyes. She opened her laptop, the bright screen illuminating the deep shadows under her eyes.

Just another day, she thought bitterly.

In the shadowed corner near the printer, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, stood Aidan.

Because he was invisible to human eyes, he could observe her freely. He watched the way her shoulders slouched under the weight of exhaustion, the subtle tremble in her fingers as she typed, and the endless stack of folders piled beside her keyboard.

This is what took her life, Aidan realized.

He pulled out his ledger, flipping to page forty-two. He scanned her original cause of death: Cardiac arrest brought on by severe exhaustion and chronic stress.

She wasn't supposed to die in a dramatic accident or at the hands of a villain. She was literally working herself into an early grave. And if the ledger hadn't glitched tonight, her heart would have stopped right there at her desk.

Aidan watched her type for two solid hours without stopping to drink water or rest her eyes. A strange, unfamiliar spike of annoyance flared in his chest—not at Alia, but at the system that allowed people to crush themselves like this.

Suddenly, Alia gasped, clutching her left shoulder as a sharp cramp pinched her muscles. She leaned back in her chair, wincing, and rubbed her neck with a small groan.

Aidan took a step out of the shadows. He knew he shouldn't interfere, but watching her suffer in silence was becoming surprisingly hard to do.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, letting a faint, controlled cool breeze circulate through the stuffy room.

Alia blinked as a gentle, refreshing draft brushed against her face. The heavy, warm air in the office instantly cleared, cooling down her flushed skin and making her feel surprisingly alert.

"Where did that come from?" she murmured, looking around the airless room in confusion.

Aidan smiled faintly from the corner. It wasn't much, but it gave her a moment to breathe.

As she went back to her typing, Aidan stared down at the glowing "+30 Days" written in his book. Who had given her this extra month? And was thirty days really enough time to save a girl who didn't even realize she was killing herself?

Aidan looked down at his pocket watch. The hands pointed to 6:42 AM.

Across the room, Alia was soundly asleep, her head resting softly against her crossed arms on the cluttered desk. Her quiet, steady breathing was the only sound in the dim office.

Aidan walked over, stepping silently until he was standing right beside her. He leaned in, taking a closer look at her face. Free from the dark shadow of death, she looked peaceful.

As he stared at her soft features, a strange feeling flickered in his mind—she looked oddly familiar, like someone he had seen before, though he couldn't recall where or when. He couldn't help but think she was remarkably pretty, too.

Just as Aidan was leaning closer, the heavy office doors suddenly creaked open. Upbeat voices bounced off the walls, startling him. Instinct took over, and in a split second, he vanished into thin air, reappearing across the room near the high windows.

Alia stirred, awakened by the cheerful chatter right in front of her desk. She rubbed her tired eyes and slowly blinked.

When she opened them, a bright, smiling face greeted her. It was Abby.

Abby was not just her coworker; she was her roommate. They had lived together in the same small apartment for three years, making them as close as sisters.

"You didn't come home last night" Abby said, resting her hands on the desk. "I thought maybe you were out having a romantic night! But then I walked in here and saw you practically living in hell"

Abby knew better than anyone how much Alia suffered under their ruthless boss. In fact, everyone on the floor did. Joining Abby were Frank and Georgina.

Frank was a warm-hearted marketing manager for another team, and Georgina was his sharp, loyal assistant.

"Did she trap you in hell again?" Frank asked, shaking his head in sympathy.

Alia offered a weak, tired smile, opening her mouth to answer—but a sharp, cold voice cut through the air before she could speak a single word.

"Who said I was putting her into hell?"

All four of them froze. Their eyes widened in sudden terror. Alia quickly pushed her chair back and stood straight up, her heart dropping right into her stomach.