Ruj had always liked Bangkok's public transport.
It was an unusual preference for someone who could teleport anywhere in Bangkok with a thought, but after 40 years of existence or whatever this was…he'd learned that the small mundane pleasures were what kept you sane. Or as close to sane as a dead person working in afterlife bureaucracy could be.
The BTS, the MRT, even the buses on a good day, each had their own rhythm, their own particular slice of Bangkok life. Today he'd chosen the Skytrain. The BTS at 6 AM was a specific kind of peaceful. Not empty, but not yet crushed with the true morning rush. Office workers with their coffee, students with their headphones, everyone existing in their own private bubbles of routine. Ruj stood near the door, one hand on the pole, watching Bangkok slide past the windows.
He looked thirty, maybe thirty-five, tall for his era, which meant average now, with the kind of face that people forgot easily. Handsome enough if you looked, forgettable if you didn't. He wore dark jeans and a simple black button-down, clothes that would blend in anywhere, anytime. His watch, to anyone else looked like a minimalist smart watch.
To him, it was silent. No pings yet. The early morning had been quiet.
The train slid into Sala Daeng station. Ruj stepped off, joining the flow of commuters heading down to street level. He could have teleported directly into the office, appeared in the break room or materialized at his desk. But then he'd miss this, the street food vendor firing up his grill, the smell of coffee from the café cart, the delivery riders checking their phones for the morning's first orders, the slow transition from the living world to the realm of the dead.
The After's Bangkok office was located at a prime piece of real estate on Silom Road, nestled between a bank and a high-end dental clinic. To most people, it appeared as "Bespoke & Brothers, Fine Tailoring Since 1875." The shopfront had mannequins in elegant suits, a dignified sign, and windows that never seemed to need cleaning.
Ruj pushed open the door, to living eyes, he would look like a well-dressed man entering a tailor shop. The bell chimed.
Reality shifted.
The cramped, fabric-filled shop dissolved into something that looked like a tech startup had collided with a luxury hotel lobby. The space was open-concept and flooded with natural light from skylights that didn't exist in the real building. Exposed brick walls were decorated with traditional Thai art in modern frames. There were standing desks with multiple monitors, comfortable lounge areas with bean bags and velvet couches, a coffee bar that would make any hipster café jealous, and inexplicably, a ping pong table in the corner.
Instead of the sterile efficiency of most offices, this place felt lived-in, comfortable. There were plants everywhere…some real, some that only existed in the afterlife. Soft instrumental music played from invisible speakers. The air smelled faintly of jasmine and freshly brewed coffee.
"Sawadee ka, Khun Ruj!" Mint looked up from the reception desk, a beautiful teak wood piece that somehow had four monitors and still looked elegant. She was somewhere in her thirties, or had been when she died ten years ago with short hair and glasses that she didn't need anymore but wore anyway because she liked them.
"Sawadee khrap, Khun Mint." Ruj nodded politely. "Busy morning?"
"Not yet! Only fifteen so far. Mostly elderly, natural causes. Very smooth transitions." She gestured to the waiting area, where a handful of translucent figures sat in comfortable chairs that adjusted automatically to each soul's preference. Some looked dazed but calm, one elderly man was actually smiling. "Kiet is handling them beautifully. He's really getting the hang of it."
As if summoned, Kiet emerged from the waiting area, tablet in hand, looking slightly frazzled. He was young…had been young…maybe twenty-five when he died three years ago. Motorcycle accident, if Ruj remembered correctly. He'd been hired as an After Butler eight months ago and still had the nervous energy of someone who hadn't quite accepted that death was just another job.
"Khun Ruj!" Kiet hurried over. "There's a woman in section C who keeps asking if she can go back for her cat. I told her the cat would be fine, that her daughter has a key, but she's very worried and I don't…"
"Tell her we can arrange for her to observe," Ruj said calmly. "Observation window, limited time. Mint can set it up."
"We can do that?" Kiet blinked.
"We can do that," Mint confirmed, already typing on one of her monitors. "Poor thing. I'll add it to her file. She'll feel better once she sees the cat is okay."
Kiet nodded gratefully and hurried back to the waiting area.
"He's getting better," Mint said diplomatically.
"He's still alive in his head," Ruj observed. "Thinks like someone who can fix things, go back, change outcomes."
"Don't we all, at first?" Mint's smile was gentler now. "You were patient with me when I started."
Ruj didn't remember being particularly patient, but he didn't argue. He checked his watch, still quiet, and headed toward the back of the office.
The corridor to Pratya's office was lined with doors, each leading to different transition rooms, processing centers, observation decks. Motivational posters hung on the walls, someone's idea of a joke. "Hang in there!" with a picture of a cat. "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take" next to the coffee machine. Ruj had stopped questioning the décor years ago.
He found Pratya exactly where he always was: behind his massive desk in an office that looked like a cross between a CEO's corner suite and someone's fun uncle's man cave. The walls were lined with shelves, but instead of books, they held hundreds, maybe thousands, of shot glasses. Shot glasses from every tourist trap imaginable: "I ♥️ Paris," "Greetings from Phuket," "What Happens in Vegas," "Santorini Greece," cheap ceramic ones, fancy crystal ones, ones shaped like boots and skulls and tiny beer mugs.
Pratya himself was leaning back in his ergonomic chair, feet on the desk, watching something on his large monitor.
"Ruj!" Pratya didn't look up. "Have you seen this? It's a TikTok compilation of people trying to pronounce 'Massachusetts.' It's killing me. Well, not literally killing me. We're already dead! That's what I call irony!" He laughed at his own joke.
Ruj felt the familiar twinge of mild irritation. "I haven't."
"You should! Laughter is important. You know what they say…" Pratya spun his chair around, grinning widely. He appeared to be in his fifties, with the kind of face that seemed permanently ready to tell a joke or offer life advice you didn't ask for. His Hawaiian shirt…yes, Hawaiian shirt, it was covered in tiny palm trees and surfboards. "...you're never fully dressed without a smile!"
"That's from Annie."
"The musical? I love that musical! Hey, speaking of which, we should do a team-building event. Karaoke night! When's the last time you sang karaoke, Ruj?"
"Never."
"Never?! Ruj, buddy, pal, my boy…you're breaking my heart here. Forty years you've been working here and you've never done karaoke?" Pratya clutched his chest dramatically. "That's it. I'm adding it to the next office retreat agenda."
"We don't have office retreats."
"We do now! I'm the boss, I can make executive decisions." Pratya swung his feet off the desk and gestured enthusiastically. "Picture this: team bonding, trust falls, maybe a ropes course…"
"How would souls do a ropes course."
"Magic, Ruj. Magic. You're being very literal today. Did you eat breakfast? You need breakfast. Actually, no, you don't need breakfast because we're dead, but you know what I mean. How was the morning commute? Still taking public transport like you're auditioning for 'Normal Human: The Experience'?"
"It's meditative."
"It's slow! You can teleport, son. Teleport. Do you know how cool that is? When I was alive… well, I don't remember when I was alive, but I'm pretty sure I would have killed for teleportation. Actually, maybe I did kill for it. Who knows!" He laughed again. "That's another joke. I'm on fire today."
Ruj walked over to the shot glass shelves, studying a new addition: a garish pink one that said "Cabo San Lucas" with a cartoon cactus. "When did you get this one?"
"Last week! Well, not me personally. Soul from Mexico City brought memories of it. I could feel the vibes, you know? Added it to the collection." Pratya joined him, looking at the shelves with the pride of a parent at a school recital. "That's number 2,847. Only 153 more until I hit 3,000!"
"You've counted them."
"Of course I've counted them! What kind of collector doesn't count? That's collecting 101, Ruj." Pratya patted him on the shoulder, Ruj resisted the urge to step away. "You should get a hobby. Collecting is great for the soul. Get it? Soul? Because we're…"
"I understand."
"You're no fun when you're like this." Pratya returned to his desk, plopping into his chair with the casual grace of someone who'd been doing this job for over a century. How long exactly, no one knew. Pratya dodged the question whenever it came up. "How many pickups today?"
"None yet."
"Enjoy it while it lasts. Morning rush hour is about to hit and you know what that means."
"Motorcycle accidents and elderly who pass in their sleep."
"The duality of Bangkok!" Pratya pulled up something on one of his monitors, a dashboard showing various statistics and projections. "We're expecting about 140 souls today. Seventeen are already flagged as complicated, unexpected deaths, young people, trauma cases. Kiet's going to have his hands full. Maybe you should give him a pep talk."
"I don't do pep talks."
"I know. That's why I said maybe. I'm your boss but I'm not a monster." Pratya leaned back, lacing his fingers behind his head. "You know what you need, Ruj? And before you say 'nothing' which is what you always say, I'm going to tell you anyway. You need passion! Excitement! When's the last time you felt really excited about something?"
"This morning's commute was pleasant."
"Pleasant! He said pleasant!" Pratya threw his hands up. "Ruj, my boy, you're forty years into your afterlife and you're talking about public transport being pleasant. That's not living! Or, well, not living-while-dead! You know what I mean!"
"I'm content with my work."
"Content." Pratya repeated the word like it was a death sentence. Which, given their circumstances, was particularly ironic. "Ruj, listen. And I mean really listen, because I'm putting on my serious boss hat now…do you see my serious boss hat? It's invisible but it's there"
"I don't see…"
"Forty years is a long time. You've been the best soul transferring officer Bangkok has ever had. Efficient, compassionate when it counts, never late, never complain, you're basically the employee of the century. But…" Pratya leaned forward, his expression shifting to something that was almost sincere. "...you're so busy being good at your job that you've forgotten to actually experience anything. When's the last time something surprised you? Really surprised you?"
Ruj opened his mouth to respond, but found he didn't have an answer.
Pratya's expression softened into something almost fatherly. "All I'm saying is, keep your heart open, son. I know you've seen a lot of death, occupational hazard, literally but don't let it make you closed off to everything else. The After isn't just about endings. Sometimes it's about new beginnings too."
Before Ruj could figure out how to respond to uncharacteristically sincere Pratya, his watch buzzed.
Both of them looked down at it. The display lit up with clean graphics showing location and basic information:
LOCATION: Sukhumvit Road, Intersection Asoke
TIME: 07:03 AM
TYPE: Traffic accident
SOULS: 1
STATUS: In transit
"And so it begins," Pratya sighed, back to his usual self. "Morning rush hour claims another one. Go ahead, I'll hold down the fort. And Ruj?" He pointed finger guns at him. "Stay safe out there, kiddo."
Ruj nodded, already mentally preparing for the transfer. Traffic accidents were always difficult, sudden, traumatic, often young people who had no idea they were about to die. He'd need to be gentle, clear, patient.
He raised his hand, preparing to open a portal…
His watch buzzed again. Aggressively.
The display flickered, showed the same information but…
STATUS: In transit
STATUS: Alive
STATUS: In transit
STATUS: ERROR
Ruj stared at his watch. In forty years, he had never seen it glitch.
"Whoa." Pratya was beside him in an instant, his usual goofiness completely gone. "What's that?"
"I don't know." Ruj tapped the screen, but the information kept flickering between statuses. "It's showing conflicting reports."
"In transit and alive? That's not possible. Those are mutually exclusive states." Pratya grabbed his own tablet, pulling up the same case file. His screens showed the same glitching information. "This is... I've never seen this before. And I've been doing this a really, really long time."
"How long?"
"Long enough to know this isn't normal!" Pratya was typing rapidly, pulling up diagnostic screens. "Could it be twins? Sometimes if two people die at the exact same moment in the same accident…"
"It's showing one soul." Ruj looked up at Pratya. "I need to go there."
"Obviously. But Ruj?" Pratya's face was serious in a way Ruj had rarely seen. All the dad jokes and Hawaiian shirt cheerfulness had vanished, replaced by someone who'd been managing death logistics for over a century. "Be careful. If the system is glitching, and our system never glitches, we don't know what you're walking into. Could be a technical error, could be a cosmic hiccup, could be something we've never encountered before."
"What should I do?"
"Assess the situation. Don't bring anyone through until we understand what's happening. And Ruj?" Pratya put a hand on his shoulder, and for once Ruj didn't find it annoying. "I know I joke around a lot, but I'm serious about this. Whatever this is, it's unprecedented. Stay alert."
Ruj nodded. He closed his eyes, focused on the location pin, and felt reality bend around him.
The office dissolved.
The intersection at Sukhumvit and Asoke was chaos.
Ruj materialized on the sidewalk, invisible to the living world but able to see everything with perfect clarity. Police cars, ambulances, the morning commuters forming a crowd. A black car sat crumpled against a traffic pole. A motorcycle lay on its side fifteen feet away, one wheel still slowly spinning.
Two bodies on the ground.
The motorcycle taxi driver, Uncle Charan, Ruj read from the soul imprint, was already gone. His soul stood next to his body, looking down with the dazed expression of someone who hadn't quite processed what happened. Standard transition. Ruj would collect him in a moment.
But the girl…
Ruj moved closer, studying the scene. She was young, twenty-one according to the imprint, wearing an unfortunate floral shirt that somehow made her look both pretty and completely wrong. Junjao, her name whispered across the metaphysical space. The paramedics were working on her, shouting medical terms, loading her onto a stretcher.
Her body was alive. Barely, but alive.
Her soul was standing three feet away, staring at the scene in absolute horror.
That should have been impossible.
Souls didn't separate from living bodies. That only happened at death, at the moment of true separation. But here she was, Junjao's soul, translucent and confused, still connected to her body by the thinnest thread of light Ruj had ever seen. Like a spider's silk, barely visible, stretched to its breaking point but not broken.
She turned, and her eyes…somehow, found him.
"Can you see me?" she whispered.
Ruj, for the first time in forty years, had absolutely no idea what to say.
His watch buzzed again:
STATUS: CRITICAL - COMA STATE
SOUL SEPARATION: PARTIAL
ESTIMATED TIME: UNKNOWN
RECOMMENDATION: MONITOR
Ruj looked at Junjao's soul, at her terrified eyes, at the impossible situation unfolding in front of him.
"Yes," he finally said. "I can see you."
And somewhere in his chest, in a place he'd thought had gone numb decades ago, something stirred that felt dangerously close to concern.
Pratya's words echoed in his mind: Keep your heart open. Sometimes it's about new beginnings too.
Well. This was certainly unprecedented.