It was a snowy and cold night, Christmas eve and a happy night.
Raya watched the families around her, the parents looking at their children with doting eyes, happiness written on the children's faces as they held onto balloons or other fun items.
Raya had always been afraid of the cold to the extent that during winter and late autumn, she always covered herself in the best fur clothing but now, she was wearing a tattered and torn sweater that could barely keep her warm.
She brought out her old piece of phone from her pocket and dialed a number.
"Who is this?" A masculine voice could be heard.
From the other side of the line, Raya could hear the laughter and warm merriment, she was once part of the merriment do she could envision exactly the scene
"It's my birthday, Arnold, don't you ever think of me for one day?" Raya asked, her voice sounded weak and pathetic to hear, vapor curled out of her mouth.
"Raya! I thought you were dead…you …all these while" the man stammered out.
A sarcastic laughter escaped Raya's lips.
"Dead?In case you don't know I am as relentless as a cockroach, no matter what you and your wife do, I won't ever die" Raya said into the phone.
There was silence for some moment before a beeping sound, signifying that the other person had hung up the call.
Raya brought down the phone from her ears and looked into the snowy night with dead eyes.
Tears rolled down her cheeks slowly and she hurriedly cleaned them, she went into an alley and disappeared.
A week later.
It was already after Christmas but still it was like Christmas was still starting.
Raya closed the shop and finished her shift for the day.
Ever since she left the Malcolm family, she had begun to work part time jobs in a bid to make ends meet but her job was barely enough for anything.
Raya walked to the bridge, sitting on the pavement that stopped people or cars from falling into the large body of water.
She had gotten this habit two months ago.
Looking at the still body of water calmed her turbulent heart.
The sound of crickets and occasional passage of electric motor boats was like a harmony to her troubled soul.
But this night, Raya felt like the atmosphere was strange, the night was usually quiet except for the tapping of shoes on the ground.
Wait…shoes?
Raya turned in panic but the displacement of her body and the sudden weightlessness startled her, she held onto the banisters to prevent herself from falling into the water as she knew that it meant death.
As Raya stared up at the person that was looking down at her, her eyes brightened in joy.
"Arnold…please help me", she cried out stretching out her other hand to him, expecting him to pull her up
But to her shock and disappointment, he gave her a sinister smile.
"You made a big mistake Raya, you shouldn't have called home on Christmas Eve" Arnold said.
Raya looked at him in confusion, "what do… you …mean b..y that" she stuttered.
Arnold bent down and slowly but forcibly peeled her fingers that were wrapped around the banisters.
Once again, Raya experienced the chilling feeling of weightlessness accompanied with the sound of the wind wishing in her ears as she fell rapidly into the body of water below.
With a sound which went unnoticed in the night, Raya fell into the water,while Arnold watched cold heartedly.
©
"Why did the headquarters assign such a smelly and vengeful soul to me?" A soft voice said.
Raya winced, cracking her eyes open a little bit.
She was welcomed with the rays of a strange light shining into her eyes.
She hissed and sat up, her body felt heavy and smelt bad.
Wait…she cracked her eyes wide and looked around in panic.
She could remember falling into the water because of Arnold.
At the thought of Arnold, her eyes flared red and she didn't notice that a black pungent smoke was escaping her body making the room smell like spoiled eggs.
"Stop that, don't you know how bad you smell?" Raya looked up in shock.
She saw a rainbow coloured ball floating far away from her, the ball didn't have a face but mysteriously, Raya could envision the disgusted face of the ball.
"Where am I?, In heaven? I remember dying…" Raya trailed off.
"Ha! Heaven?, A filthy soul like yours does not deserve to be in heaven, hell is the only place for a vengeful Spirit like you" the ball said, twirling around.
Raya hissed at it "Filthy…what an unfair world, a person like me who was set up and suffered a lot of unjust is termed filthy while someone like them…lives a long life, what an irony" the hatred condensing in Raya's eyes was enough to scare the timid fluffy ball further away.
But the fluffy ball felt pity at her words "host, there's no need to feel so much hatred, once you complete the tasks and go through all the worlds you would be able to go back to your world and live happily" it said, moving closer to her.
Raya looked up "what do you mean by that, what world and completing tasks" she asked, a clueless expression on her face.
"You are a vengeful spirit who should have been cast into hell and experience countless torture but because of the unjust treatment you had received,the lord god decided to have pity on you".
"But I don't want to be under the control of anyone anymore…what will happen to me if I don't complete the missions?" Raya asked.
"Then you will be cast to hell, suffering brutal torture for enternity".
Raya looked down and clenched her teeth in determination "okay, I agree" she said .
The rainbow ball twirled around in the air joyfully "Good host! I will transport you to the first world now.
This was followed by a blinding white light and the feeling of being sucked into something and Raya lost consciousness.