The first thing I remember is a hand.
Not my hand. I did not have one yet.
It floated in the dark like a pale leaf, fingers trembling as they reached for a hospital bed I could not see. The knuckles were sharp, the veins thin blue lines under skin that had forgotten sunlight.
"Just one more minute," a woman whispered.
Her voice shook harder than her hand. The sound drifted past me, echoing in the black. Somewhere nearby, a clock ticked. Somewhere, a pen scratched across paper. Somewhere, a second voice answered, smooth and bored.
"Regrettably, ma'am, you have exactly twenty-four hours. Extensions are impossible. Please sign here."
The pen clicked. The clock ticked louder, as if pleased with itself. The woman's hand lowered, fingers curling into a fist.
Then I opened my eyes.
A fluorescent light stabbed my vision. The ceiling above me was flat, gray, and spotless—no cracks, no stains, no personality. The air tasted like antiseptic and cold metal, the kind that never remembered the warmth of human touch.
"Vital functions online," a voice said from my left. "Loaner Body Unit B‑742 active. Time allocation: twenty-four hours."
Loaner.
Body.
Unit.
The words slid into me like labels hammered into a crate. They did not hurt. My new nerves were too fresh, too obedient, to complain.
I turned my head.
The room wasn't a hospital. Hospitals had relatives and flowers and awkward silences. This place had desks. Four of them, lining the walls, each occupied by a figure in pale uniforms, backs straight, hands moving over glowing documents. Hourglasses filled with liquid light sat on every desk, slow streams of radiance falling from top to bottom.
Above the doorway, neat letters glowed:
AFTERLIFE BUREAU – TRANSIT DEPARTMENT.
The person beside me wore the same uniform. Their hair was parted so precisely it looked drawn. A badge hung from their collar with a name made of too many consonants and a title I could actually read.
TRANSIT CLERK.
The clerk looked down at a thin tablet. "Loaner B‑742," they said, "do you acknowledge activation?"
I opened my mouth. No sound came out, just a faint click in my throat.
"Vocal cords calibrated," the clerk added, tapping the screen. "Try again."
"I…" My voice sounded like a test tone. Smooth, neutral, genderless. "I acknowledge."
"Good." The clerk's face didn't move. Smiles were probably against regulations. "You will be used by Subject 6‑1‑0‑9‑A. Cause of death: pulmonary failure, long-term illness. Primary regret: leaving behind an estranged daughter."
Images slid through my mind—hospital walls, beeping machines, a girl's back as she walked away. Hands twisting in a bedsheet. None of them were mine. They brushed against something hollow inside me and passed on.
Except one stopped.
A doorway, half open.
A teenage girl framed in it, eyes red, jaw locked.
"I won't forgive you," she said. "Not for choosing them over us."
The scene vanished, but the words stayed. They reverberated against my empty insides.
The clerk snapped their fingers in front of my face. "Focus, B‑742. You are not to form attachments. Memories are one-way. You host, then reset."
"Host," I repeated. "Then reset."
"That is your purpose."
The word settled on me like thin dust. Almost weightless. Almost.
The clerk stepped aside and pointed toward the far end of the room. A vertical ring of light stood there, humming softly, sigils rotating along its rim like clock hands. In front of it waited a transparent capsule, open like a coffin ready for a rehearsal.
"Proceed to Departure Gate," the clerk said. "Your user will arrive momentarily from Intake. You will wake in the living world. Subject 6‑1‑0‑9‑A will have twenty-four hours of full sensory control. You will observe. You will record. You will not interfere."
"What happens after?" I asked.
The clerk hesitated, eyes flicking to the tablet, then back to me. Surprise creased their smooth expression, almost offended that a tool remembered it could speak.
"After," they said carefully, "the subject proceeds to Allocation. You are returned here, reset, and made ready for the next assignment. Do not concern yourself with 'after.' That is our job."
Their answer should have been enough. For every other loaner, it was.
For me, it wasn't.
"Have I been used before?" The question left my mouth before I could swallow it.
The clerk checked the screen. "B‑742 has completed one thousand, three hundred and twelve successful assignments. Memory slate cleared after each session, in accordance with regulation."
One thousand, three hundred and twelve.
I remembered none of them, yet my bones suddenly felt crowded. As if echoes of a thousand last words were pressed into the marrow.
The clerk's gaze sharpened. "Is there a problem with your functionality?"
I shook my head. "No."
The lie tasted easy for someone who had only been alive for a minute.
"Good." They gestured to the capsule. "Get in."
The inside was lined with faintly glowing threads that pulsed like veins. I stepped in. The surface shifted, wrapping around me and shaping itself to a body someone else had designed—average height, average build, average everything. A perfectly forgettable template.
A face appeared in the inner glass. My face. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Features that stubbornly refused to be interesting.
The lid closed with a soft sigh.
Outside, the clerk raised their hand to the ring of light. "Initiating transfer. Timer starts on contact. Twenty-four hours only, B‑742. Do not malfunction."
The ring flared.
For