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Flashes of the drowning came back to me. The panic. The thrashing. The cold water being forced into my lungs. The heaviness as I was pulled under. The sight of the bright moon fading as the life left my eyes.
I knew. I knew I was dead. I knew what this was.
And I wasn’t about to give in without a battle.
You see, my Reaper was sloppy. In his foolish attempt to terrify me, he left himself vulnerable. He didn’t have to do it. He could have just sliced me with his scythe, sent me to the afterlife, and been on his way. But no. This fucker was all about the theatrics.
I was stunned and shivering as he raised his gray hand and pointed his long crooked finger at me.
“Your soul is mine,” he whispered in his raspy voice once again.
He speared the butt of his scythe into the dirt and slowly, carefully, peeled back the hood. I could see the enjoyment on his leathery face, the skin pulled tight against his skull. Who knows how long he was wearing the black? From the looks of him, he might have been one of the first.
While he was distracted with the show of revealing his face, I grabbed the scythe from the ground. Plucked it right out of the earth and gripped it with two hands.
Itsingedmy palms, but I didn’t care about the pain. Smoke rose from my clenched hands as the power of the scythe hissed and burned through my skin. I raised it over my head with the blade pointing right at him.
Now it was his turn to be afraid. I could see the fear on his face, widening his eyes and tightening his pale skin. His grave-colored lips parted. He rose his hands in desperation.
I clenched my jaw and swung the scythe down with all of my might. The curved blade sunk into his chest and he let out a gruesome macabre scream that chills me to this day.
His body imploded in on itself, crunching into a tight ball before disappearing with acrack.
The ground opened up at my feet, bright orange light shined up from the depths, and I got sucked into the lair of the Soul Collector. It was the first time I laid eyes on him, but it wasn’t going to be the last…
A sibilation distracts me. No, several of them. More souls ready to be collected.
I turn in the direction the murmur is coming from and slide through space and time until I arrive on the scene.
A giant bridge. Broken vehicles everywhere. An upside-down car with the wheel still spinning. Shattered cubic glass on the concrete. People screaming. A radio playing too loud—the female disc jockey happily talking about her dog seems jarringly out of place. Frantic sirens in the distance rip through the misty air as I take in the scene.
Four souls to transport. I canfeelthem.Sensethem.
One calls to me more than the others. My body prickles with an odd sensation as I feel the soul pulling me toward it.
In the century and a half I’ve worn the black, I’ve never felt anything like this.
I’m more curious than anything, but another of the four souls wanders in front of me, distracting me from the call.
It’s a man. About fifty-seven or so.
His face flashes with recognition when he sees me and then terror takes over.
Before he can scream, I slice my scythe through his torso, disappearing his body and sending it to the Soul Collector.
Two more wandering souls are next. Two slices of my scythe and two more souls are in the collection. Preserved in the afterlife for all of eternity.
And still, the fourth soul calls.
I tremble as I feel the pull intensifying. Something is wrong. No, not wrong… different.
If I had a heart, it would be pounding in my chest as I wander through the wreckage, letting the sibilation of this unique soul draw me in.
That’s when I see her.
Sitting cross-legged on the edge of the bridge, gazing out at the water. In all of my days as a Reaper, I’ve never encountered a soul cloaked in peace like her.
I can feel the tranquility emanating from her body. The harmony. The serenity.
