Attire of the Dead

Morning arrived and Finn walked into a room filled with a multitude of bizarre characters each in office attire. Despite each individual being odd and unique Finn noticed and singled out one particular person. A teenage girl with a red streak in her black hair. Her reserved and somewhat shy behavior indicated to him that she was also a newbie to all of this.

"Finn, what are you doing standing by the door? Come in the briefing is about to start" Said Arin walking in the room.

"Good morning my fellow spirited individuals, I would like to begin this week's briefing." Said Arin as he stood on top of a small stage.

"Alright we have two new souls joining our organization today. Finn Belront and Jessica Hart. Now I would like for some of us to introduce ourselves, stating your full name and how you died before Finn and Jessica would do the same. Gus, would you like to go first?" Said Arin.

"Gladly sir, Augustus Conway, and I died in a fight between two rival yakuza families. In 1975 my dad died in a brutal car accident leaving me with his massive debt to the yakuza, my only way to pay it off was to work for the yakuza, doing their dirty work until seven years after I started working with them I got shot  during a shoot out with a rival Family and even though the higher ups rules state that it's the person who ordered the killing that is labeled as the murderer I still got sent here." Said Gus before sitting back down.

"Thank You Gus. Dory, would you like to speak." Said Arin.

"Ok my name is Dory Cruz and I was killed then had my dead carcass defiled. I was born in 1495 to a slave from columbia turned rich merchant after his spanish owner set him free. I was always told I was extremely good looking that I knew a lot of men wanted a piece of this, especially with the added rarity that they had never seen a woman that looked like me. Just didn't expect that they were willing to have sex with my cold dead body. Got to the afterlife and my deaths is ruled as a suicide because that what the people who raped my corpse said happened to me and the higher ups didn't bother to check what actually happened." Said Dory.

"My goodness, that's awful. How are you even able to joke about it?" Asked Jessica.

"Because it helps. Treating this extremely fucked up thing that happened to me as a joke just helps makes it feel less shitty because even though I've been here for six hundred years I can still feel one of the three boys massive rugged hands squeezing the life out of me." Said Dory as she sat down.

"Alright thank you Dory, why don't we just skip ahead to the newbies to save time. Finn your turn" Said Arin.

"Ok my name is Finn Belront as Arin told you a few minutes ago and I don't know how or why but I was murdered by a Flage whilst on my way back home, got here and I'm being accused of ending my own life." Said Finn.

"Alright thank you Finn. Now for Jessica to speak." Said Arin.

"I would rather not." Said Jessica.

"Jessica, this is a bonding exercise, you gotta do it." Said Arin.

"I don't want to!" Jessica exclaimed.

"Alright then. Finishing this Briefing Jessica and Finn you two are partners and you will just follow Gus for now while he is patrolling." Said Arin.

"Wait, I want to say how I died too." Said Derek.

"No Derek, the last time we let you do this you and your alter egos tried to fight one another over whose death story was the right one." Said Arin.

"Wait, hold on. You don't know which story of his death is true?" Asked Finn.

"Why do you think he's here in the first place?" Said Arin.

"But what about being able to check what happened on earth?" Asked Finn.

"Well it shows how you died from your perspective and all four of his personalities have different perceptions on how they died. Now enough about Derek we have a job protecting the universe to get to." Said Arin as he walked off the stage.

"So I guess I'm stuck on newbie duty." Said Gus.

"You don't seem really thrilled about that." Said Jessica.

"Oh I am, I love newbie duty. I get to do nothing but explain shit while others go around busting their ass. I just have to make it seem like I hate it all the time so that Arin thinks he is punishing me." Gus whispered to the two.

"Now follow me." Said Gus as he led the two outside the building into this distorted Urban society where lumpy and disfigured spirits go around aimlessly in a routine like motion.

"Wow this looks far different from how it did yesterday." Said Finn.

"Dude it was so clearly all fake or are you too old to understand." Said Gus.

"Gus I understand what you are trying to do, make yourself look cool to me, a teenager, by making fun of someone older and it's a nice gesture but it's just kind of mean." Said Jessica.

"I know it's just the first time I've had to interact with a teenager in a long time." Said Gus.

"Plus how am I old? I died at the age of 27!" Finn exclaimed.

"Wait, seriously! The years have not been good to you." Said Jessica.

"It's the kid. They are just able to age people. That's what I told my girlfriend Sheila when she kept mentioning she wanted kids." Said Gus.

"My Kid didn't make me look older and I do not look old!" Said Finn.

"Whatever floats your boat, just saying that is not the face I want to have for a possible eternity." Said Jessica.

"Can we just go patrol?" Asked Finn.

"Ok let's go, I'll explain the major stuff as we walk." Said Gus.

"First things first, the outside of reality is made up of six separate layers namely, Limbo, The sea of Flages, The fragmented abyss, the forever forest and lastly the quarters of the Fifth dimensional, where unsurprisingly those who control the universe reside. We are currently in Limbo or the tethered realm is where we are and is the closest realm to reality which is why sometimes you will catch a few Flages trying to bust through here and escape, granted some do and cause reality to shift." Said Gus.

"Reality to shift in what way?" Asked Finn.

"Well I could be really small like changing a small part of a companies' mascot from black to blue or something massive like making it so that dinosaurs go extinct." Said Gus.

"Wait a Flage caused the extinction of dinosaurs?" Asked Jessica.

"Yep they were supposed to prevent climate change but that's not what I'm trying to say here. Whether the Flage does something big or small it getting into reality is never a good thing." Said Gus." Don't see how changing a small part of a mascot from black to blue could hurt anybody." Said Jessica.

"Ok what If it was the mascot of a kid friendly entity, like pokemon for example. A kid wants to paint a picture of Pikachu but has no blue for his eyes, but has a ton of black. His mum walks down to the store to buy some blue paint and she gets hit by a drunk driver and dies instantly, the driver just earned an instant ticket here. But wait there's more, the kid was already struggling with the fact his dad died of leukemia but hearing his mum died just messed him up, he runs away form the orphanage, Flunks out of school, start doing crack, next thing you know he starts getting the desire to kill people, he does it once out of self defense but he already has a state. He goes on a killing spree, gets bored, starts thinking big. The next thing you know he somehow manages to shoot the president. He's caught but the president's death was blamed on another country that the president has some serious disputes over. They go to wars. The two countries are world superpowers which turns their war into a world war. Millions die and countries collapse all because Pikachu's eyes are blue now." Said Gus as both Finn and Jessica stared at him with a great amount of fear in their eyes.

"How do you even know what Pikachu is?" Asked Jessica.

"Same reason I know why Global warming is such a big deal, I frequently study all the trendy and important shit of each year since I die." Said Gus.

"Wait, but why do some Flages want to enter reality and mess with established things?" Asked Jessica.

"You see that blob like translucent thing mimicking drinking a cup of coffee, that is a ghost, Finn if you were wondering why ghost is a slander that is why. He was sent here to either killing himself or killing someone else just like we were allegedly but he came here like this instead of looking normal like we do and in a short amount of time he will fall out of this realm into the sea of Flages." Said Gus.

"Why didn't he come here lookin like us?" Asked Finn.

"He actually deserves to be here." Said Gus.

"What are you talking about?" Asked Finn.

"The fact that we still look human, the fact that we are able to form connections with Flages is because we don't belong here." Said Gus.

"Why didn't Arin mention this to us?" Asked Finn.

"He didn't want to, because he remembers how he felt when he was in front of the higher ups showing them his very obvious facts just for them to tell him it's all bullshit. Do you have any more questions" Said Gus.

"I feel kind of bad for asking this now but why the office attire?" Asked Jessica.

"Arin said his partner Raymond came up with it. He called it the Attire of the dead. He said Raymond said that if no one will give you respect even after they wronged you at least you should respect yourself enough to dress like someone who deserves it." Said Gus.

"Anyway, that's my time. Go around a few 100 meters around the headquarters then come back and tell Arin that I was an excellent mentor." Said Gus.

"Wait what, after that speech about letting one of these Flages get into reality could have drastic consequences and now you want to leave." Said Jessica.

"Well yes but you two are monitoring an area where potential breeches almost never happen. There is almost no chance that a Flage could try and escape into reali….." Said Gus as a large pillar of fire bursted from the ground straight into the sky.

"I hate being right sometimes." Said Jessica as she stared in awe at the continually expanding fire pillar.