I groaned as the memories, once again, came flooding back. The flashes of past lives — past mistakes, past hopes and dreams, past deaths — swarmed my mind like a bottle of angry hornets. Not just the previous life that ended in a hospital bed, but the seven that came before then as well. All I could do was reminisce at the familiar feeling of remembering as I sat, once again, on one of the many chairs in the Office of Reincarnation.

At this point, the spirits knew where to place me after each life — they knew I wasn't one to give up after each failed attempt. But at this point, when I looked around the office's waiting room that hadn't changed at all in the last half dozen centuries, I began to think about giving up. For the past seven, now eight, lives I've lived in that world, each ended too horribly and awfully too soon. And as I slouched in the soft, off white chair I started to think about how easy it would be to just go up to the receptionist and request for a transfer to begin my trial for the Afterlife Council. Surely they'd show some mercy at a tired and failed soul...right?

I let out another tired breath, knowing that in actuality, I didn't even need to breathe here. But since I had just recently came from living my longest life yet — dying at the tender age of 21 — where I died not being able to breathe... well you can imagine how calming it was to sigh despite not needing to. Without thinking too hard, I perched my feet up on the chair until my head came to rest on my knees. I peered at my feet, the same I had in my most recent life.

I always realized that souls — and especially Limbo — were weird, having the ability to change the appearance of yourself to match one of the bodies of your lives or none of them at all. But as I sat there, peering at the toes that peeked from out of the hospital gown, the toes that I once hated in my most recent life, I felt a heaviness in my non existent heart. My most recent family will have to bury that body, a body I'll never see again, a life I'll never see again. And I felt a little bit more love for those toes that I watched wiggle in the Office or Reincarnation's chair.

"Ainsel?" A sweet, familiar voice called.

    Yes, I realized, that was me. At least, my soul's name. While our worldly names changed with each life, our soul name stayed the same. And I knew the other soul name of the spirit that called my name: Charmeine.

    I looked up to see soft blue eyes, surrounded by thick eyelashes looking intently at me. As our eyes met, an angelic smile appeared on her face. Charmeine...

    She was once a human soul like me, from the same world even. But after living out her life, she quickly climbed the ranks in the afterlife. It was hard enough to get into a good afterlife, let alone trying to become on similar standing as angels. Of course, it had been done before; mortal souls have the opportunity to do the same tasks as some of the lower spirits, although they will never truly be angels, demons, or spirits themselves.

    Charmeine had become an intern for the Office of Reincarnation a little after the end of my fifth life. She was fresh and bright and eager to begin her afterlife well after her studies at All Souls Academy, a school for those who wanted to do something with their unlife. Charmeine, of course, wanted to become a guardian angel — one of the lowest, yet most important of roles in the Angel Ranks. But even after several more centuries, she's still here... although I guess that happens when you have literally forever to get a promotion.

    "Dr. Windsor will see you now, Ainsel." Charmeine flushed, holding the door open from across the room.

    I stood up, walking across the warm wooden floors towards the door, gaining angry mutters from around me. I had only been here for a few minutes, they snarled, they'd been here for months. What they didn't know was that they were still new souls, only trying for their second life; I was a senior here and was by now grandfathered in.

    We passed by a series of doors until coming to the very back where the last, but most important door in the whole facility lied, with a golden plaque reading "Dr. Windsor." Charmeine led the way, grinning brightly as she knocked and opened the door upon the brief command to come in.

    "Windy," I greeted the doctor as I strode in, plopping myself down on my usual seat in all my hospital gown glory.

    "Anal," he greeted back with a smirk before letting out a sigh. "So... Corona, huh? Nice."

    I rolled my eyes at him.

"Hey, give me some credit — This is the longest I've been alive so far..."

"Ah yes, twenty-one; a ripe old age to die!" He sassed.

I gave him a look, one he was all too familiar with. He sighed, rubbing his hands over his face as if trying to tear the skin off.

"Look kid, I'm trying my best here." He pleaded. "Some things are just beyond our control; you know we cannot interfere with the choices of mortal souls.

"But," he continued with a sly smirk, waving a hefty stack of papers in the air. "I just so happened to be prepared for this and have been hard at work arguing my case the past twenty one years-"

I blinked in confusion, not knowing where this was going.

"To get a time transfer..."

Still did not know what was going on. Thankfully, Windy seemed to realize this with a dramatic roll of his eyes. Charmeine even let out a chortle, that is until Windy placed his exasperation into a glare directed towards her. But soon enough, he directed his discontentment back towards me.

"A time transfer... hello?!" He cried. "Does this not ring a bell?!"

"Ummm...."

"Of course not..." he groaned. "Listen Ainsel—"

Dr. Windsor looked more serious than I had ever seen him in the last eight centuries. It made the slight hollow, achy feeling of fear crawl back into my nonexistent rib cage and start to poison my soul. But underneath that fear was the slight tingling sensation of hope.

"Each soul is unique — mortal souls, spirits, angels, demons — doesn't matter! Each soul has a purpose of its own; some souls find their purpose in bettering the lives of others, some find it in using the given gifts, some... even both. But you! You, kid, have a particular purpose..."

    Dr. Windsor started shifting around the papers on his desk, as if looking for his own purpose in the multitudes of files.

    "Ah ha!" He exclaimed upon finding a particular paper, already laminated and protected from the coffee like substance that had been spilled and dried on the surface. Without further warning, he shoved it in my face.

    "This, kid, is where you find it!"

I snatched the paper from out of his hands, eyes quickly scanning the surface of neatly typed information.

Rebirthal Documentation

Soul: Ainsel

Life: 9th

World: Earth

Parents: Margot Graves (birth giver) and James Cutley (sperm donor)

Guardians: Margot Graves and Ophelia Graves (Mothers)

Race: Witches

Birthday: January 1, 1987 A.D.

I stopped reading at the birthday, despite the list continuing on for several more pages. There was a lot already on there: the complexity of my parental birth, the race itself as (I had only had human lives prior), but the birth date — specifically the year — was what threw me off.

"The time transfer...." I said in realization. "You're sending my soul through a time loop. Isn't that dangerous?"

"Of course it is." Windy scoffed. "That why I had to fight for so long on the approval."

There was a moment of silence as I looked over the document and Dr. Windsor looked at me. Charmeine shifted her gaze between the two of us, wringing her hand as she did so.

"Fine." I surrendered. "But on one condition."

"Of course." Dr. Windsor said sarcastically. "Good ahead, shoot."

"I want to keep my memories and everything else from my past lives."

There was a pause, leading to a sigh of absolution that came from Dr. Windsor.

"You know what? Consider it done."

"Dr. Windsor," Charmeine intervened. "You know that the council must approve on such matters and you—"

Dr. Windsor raised his hand to silence her.

"I know the rules." Before he muttered. "And I know when to break them, too."

Dr. Windsor picked up the golden ink pen, the one that sets life in stone, and finished writing the finer details of my future life into the papers I handed back with shaky hands. It took less than two minutes before he handed the papers over to Charmeine. The angel in training clutched the papers tightly, gaping in shock at the doctor.

"File the papers," he stated. "And be a dear and lead Ainsel to the portal."

I could still see the slight shake of Charmeine's hands as she turned abruptly back to the door. As I made my way to follow her, Dr. Windsor called out one last time.

"And Ainsel..." he took his shaded glasses off, looking intently into my eyes with dark ones that nearly showed his age. "I don't want to see you back here for many, many more years, got it?"

"Same here, Windy." I nodded with a shaky smile."See you on the other side."

"See you, kid."

The door shut behind me, barely getting one last glimpse of the worry he rarely showed on his face.

*

Charmeine once again led me to a door, lodged behind several vaults and locks. The Door of Rebirth. As soon as I stepped through the door, I will be born once again into a cruel but hopeful world. This time, I just hoped that with the aid of my past life memories I could make my ninth my last. One last shot to know my purpose on this plane of existence.

Just as I was about to step through the portal, Charmeine placed a gentle hand on my arm. I turned to look at her, her ice blue eyes ever the same as they were the first time I saw her centuries ago in that cold, endless waiting room. Her red hair tucked neatly into her barrettes, brushing against my cheeks and she leaned closer. It wasn't until my eyes settled onto her lips that I realized she had been talking feverishly, her eyes darting around wildly.

"—who knows, maybe one day I'll be your guardian angel..." she rushes out. "Maybe even one day you'll give up on life and ... join me? I mean some humans can enter the ranks of higher spirits, that's what I'm doing after all, I mean —"

I rose up to kiss her cheek, successfully silencing her with a tender look.

"Thank you, Charmeine."

Before she could try to persuade me further, as she did before each lifetime, I crossed through the portal that rippled like spring water, casting rainbows and light about the surface. I felt a familiar coolness before a blinding heat took place. I couldn't even hear the last words she spoke to me as I smiled into my new fate.

"Bye, Ainsel..." The guardian angel in training stood there, hands still quivering around the papers and clipboard as she stared desperately at the now still surface of the portal.