When she saw the rest of them, Liesel coughed. She listened momentarily as a man told the others that they had found one of the bodies in pieces, in one of the maple trees.

There were shocked pajamas and torn faces. It was the boy's hair she saw first.

Rudy?

She did more than mouth the word now. "Rudy?"

He lay with yellow hair and closed eyes, and the book thief ran toward him and fell down. She dropped the black book. "Rudy," she sobbed, "wake up..." She grabbed him by his shirt and gave him just the slightest disbelieving shake. "Wake up, Rudy," and now, as the sky went on heating and showering ash, Liesel was holding Rudy Steiner's shirt by the front. "Rudy, please." The tears grappled with her face.

"Rudy, please, wake up, I love you. Come on, Rudy come on, Jesse Owens, don't you know I love you, wake up, wake up, wake up..." The tears started flooding down her face as she laid down on his chest, not caring if people saw her crying for the boy she called her best friend, the boy she loved.

"Do I get a kiss now Saumensch?" A familiar voice asked, and Liesel was too scared to look up and find it was her own imagination.

"Liesel?" The same voice asked with worry, and forced her to look up, and when she did she couldn't believe her eyes.

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph, your alive!?" Liesel asked both in awe and confusion.

"I must be, unless we're in heaven, then you look more like an angel." Rudy answered, making her want to laugh and punch him for scaring her.

"You Saukerl, you shouldn't have scared me like that!" She replied, trying very hard to be angry with him, but failed and couldn't help the smile that started to spread on her face.

"So I guess I don't get that kiss?" He asked, and was surprised that he was given the one thing he had wanted since he first met Liesel Meminger.

I didn't claim Rudy that day or any day after. Was it for Liesel? I am still not sure. However, I did continue carrying souls from the place that was once Himmel Street and all over Munich.

When the LSE came to take Liesel away, they were surprised to find the boy that they thought was dead, still breathing and looking at the young woman, who was also looking back. They immediately rushed them to the police station, where a doctor awaited to look after them. Liesel never left Rudy's side and nobody tried to make her leave.

She sat on a very hard chair. Her papa's accordion looked at her through the whole in the case. It took three hours in the police station for the mayor and a fluffy haired woman to show their faces. "Everyone says there's a girl," the lady said, "who survived on Himmel Street."

A policeman pointed.

Ilsa Hermann was stunned to find a girl she knew and a boy who was unfamiliar to her. However, she did take both of them, back to the place where both Liesel once stole books from. When Rudy's father returned home from the war, they were offered to stay with the Hermann's for a while and during that time, Alex Steiner resumed work in his tailor shop. There was no money in it, but they made the best of it. Two years later, Max returned to Munich and him and Liesel shed many tears over the death's of Hans and Rosa Hubermann.

Liesel and Rudy lived to a very old age, far away from Molching and the demise of Himmel Street. When it was time for me to come and take them away, they must have sensed my presence, because their soul's both sat up and looked at me. I showed Liesel the book that she wrote, the one that I saved, and she asked me if I read it. I told her that I read it many times and that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race.

***A Last Note From Your Narrator***

I am haunted by humans.