Beta. Reaper

THE DECISION TO BEFRIEND GREY

I gazed out my balcony at the perfection of the setting sun, letting the beauty all around relax my tightened nerves. The skies were a deep orange and a slight breeze rustled the tall trees of the woods behind me. They waved and created a soft melody as they moved and as I watched, the sun steadily disappeared behind a building in the far distance.

I began to count down the hours till I could go to sleep, assuming I could. My normal sleep time was eleven o’clock, when the glare from my phone started to hurt my eyes and my scrolling through i********: began to get boring. However, with my present condition of fear induced insomnia, I tried to sleep by at least ten o’clock, suspending all social media and electronic usage thirty minutes before then.

It was a technique the internet recommended for sleepless nights. I was to have a relaxing bath, turn off all form of disturbance and noise an hour before I went to bed which should be covered with clean satin sheets and then I was to turn the lights off and close my eyes, clearing my mind of thought until sleep came for me. 

I found it hard to turn off my lights, rushing to bathe myself in brightness every time I had enough courage to cast my room in darkness. The darkness was a cold reminder of death and even if I had established some form of friendship with the personality behind death, our first meetings were not to be easily forgotten. 

I played calm and soothing songs as I showered, closing my eyes to the world as water caressed my skin with warmth and rinsed away the dirt and grime of a hectic school day. I couldn’t close my eyes for long because with my eyes closed, there was darkness and with this darkness came the memories of death and doom.

Finally, it was ten o’clock and the right time for me to rest my body that had shuffled through hundreds of students, werewolf and humans alike, written down notes as teachers rapped them out and then spent hours confined to a chair in my office, making sure the affairs of my pack were running smoothly. I was tired and sleep was very much anticipated.

It felt like hours before my consciousness finally relaxed and gave way to sleep. The moment I crossed over from pretend sleep to real sleep, the nightmares started.

“Your soul is mine, Kelly Black,” Death in his true form whispered. 

“No, please, no,” The sheets around me tangled as I struggled with this force of darkness. 

This darkness had an aura of evil around it and staring at Death as I tried to wake myself up, I could feel in my spirit that this wasn’t the Death I knew. Death was practical and held no spite or mockery. He knew he had a job to do and even if he did it with a bit of coldness, he didn’t invest himself in causing his victims pain. This Death staring at me and whispering menacing words was enjoying my fear, almost feeding on it. As I watched, his image got clearer as if my fear was a fattening meal that gave it life. He wanted me to be afraid and it was obvious by the small, completely cruel smirk playing on his bony lips that he was enjoying my fear.

“Yes, Kelly Black. Did you think you could escape me?” The figure asked and I started to scramble about in the darkness. I couldn’t see and as my legs raced, taking me blindly about in the pitch black dream, I started to fall.

Laughter echoed around me from what seemed like a hundred different mouths opened up in savage mockery. “Say your last prayer, Kelly Black,” The voice whispered as a scythe materialized from thin air and slowly, torturously, began to lower to the very spot where my heart was located. 

Something cold touched me and I jerked awake with a scream. "No!" I bolted upright in bed and pain exploded in my head as it collided with something hard that made a loud cracking noise.

Grey’s touch had been the force to pull me out of my nightmare and when he spoke, I beheld his scary form, dressed in night and cold. "What troubles you?" He asked with his voice that made me shiver. I pulled my sheets over my face when it seemed my nightmare had followed me to the real world. Cold fingers pried my tight fist open without any effort and the sheets were pulled out of my fingers but my eyes shut tightly. I could feel sweat begin to gather in my brows even with the cold of Death spreading mist across the room.

"I’m not ready to die. Please don't kill me. Please don't kill me," I chanted. Tears mingled with the sweat on my face.

"Kelly, look at me," The voice was calm and the calmness rang with an assured authority that was all too familiar. I still wanted to tell myself that the voice was evil because on certain nights I remembered just how cruel it had been on my deathbed, but I couldn’t resist the command.

I opened my eyes to the red of Grey’s "You!" I shouted at him, scrambling out of my bed to get as far away from him as possible.

"Me," He replied calmly and a hot emotion started to uncurl in the deepest part of my being.

"My soul is not yours!" I shouted fiercely. How dare he torment me so? When I thought we were slowly but surely becoming friends, as unlikely as it sounded. Was this the treatment reserved for people who tried to understand and not vilify him?

"You misunderstand Kelly. Your soul is mine. Every soul on this planet belongs to me," He spoke slowly as if addressing an infant. My eyes saw red and it was the colour of fury, fear and finally, frustration. I grabbed a random item on my dresser, it turned out to be a snow globe, and then I hurled it at him with all the fury and frustration I was feeling. 

He raised his hands and time stopped right before my eyes. Everything was frozen as the snow globe paused two inches from his face then time sped on and the snow globe fell to the floor and glass exploded around him.

"I hate you!" I screamed when the shock of everything fully sank into my head. Of course he could make time his slave, bend it over and tweak it as he pleased. He was death after all.

"I am Death. I do not expect love from anyone," He answered solemnly. A shimmer of my anger seeped out of me and hunched my shoulder in pity. Without the anger to hold me upright, I was speeding like a freight train into pity for him. 

Except when he was dressed like he was now, fresh from a soul harvest – a kill – it was possible to forget who he was and everything he represented – darkness, evil, death – He could be mistaken for a person and who should exist without a form of love?

"Why would you do that? Why would you haunt my dreams?" I asked. The fight had abandoned me like an irresponsible companion, causing commotions and fleeing when commotion started to show him pepper.

"Haunt your dreams?" He asked in a wretched voice. “I do not understand,” His eyes held me captive as his words poured a fresh batch of hot anger into me.

"Yes – Yes, you do! Why would you haunt my dreams?" My voice echoed with the strength of all I was feeling around me.

"I do not haunt dreams, Kelly Black. I am the Grim Reaper not a Dream Chaser. I have no business with the frailties of the Dream World,” He answered serenely. His eyes gazed at a spot behind me as mist unfocused his eyes in thought.

"You were in your – Your less attractive form,” I motioned to his present appearance for indication, having no time to feel embarrassed about my words. “You raised your scythe and tried to cut out my soul after continually reminding me that my soul was yours,” I recounted my nightmare to refresh his memory but his eyes were still seeing things that I could not.

“I have not been in your dreams, Kelly Black but make no mistake, your soul belongs to me. A day would come and my visit would not be for the usual purpose of entertainment. I would wield my scythe and your last minutes would reflect in my hourglass as your grains of time would slip away and I would want something crucial to both our existence, your soul,” He stated in a monologue. His eyes still stared into space as he spoke.

“I cannot tell when but it wouldn’t matter if you’re old and greying or young and full of life as you are now. I was made the Grim Reaper to reap the souls that have been ripened by time so when your time is ripe, I will take my scythe and I will relieve the vessel of your soul the crushing weight of its existence and I would do my duty to the Lord of the Underworld. This is who I am Kelly Black. There is no attractive form, there is only death and an illusion that is a reward for thousands of years of service,” He said.

The usual white of his anger was coloured by a faint lilac of self pity. I perceived the colours in my mind, wondering when I became a master of reading auras. I realized he just unashamedly told me he was the picture I was seeing. The other form usually clothed in dark jeans and shirts was an illusion. A renewed surge of fear left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Watching me as if he understood the gravity with which his words had hit me, head tilted to the side to stare solemnly at me, he started to shake his head as his form flickered. “Duty calls, Kelly Black. The image in your dream of me is not me. Rest with the knowledge that death has not come for you yet,” Were his final words before the darkness surrounded him swallowed him up with a popping sound.

It was then I let myself cry. Tears of frustration and fear ran down my cheeks as I bawled my eyes out. There had been nothing but truth in his words and it made my heart ache knowing how far ahead of myself I had gotten, thinking I was somehow befriending a being that had no friends. 

I imagined roaming the earth for thousands of years, taking from people and getting cursed out in every household, yet , having no friends. It was a concept I couldn’t fathom even with my only friends being in another country. It was an Eye-opener. I had foolishly assumed the comradeship I shared with Grey was a start of something new, something unheard of, something unusual for me, but I was wrong. Our friendship had to be for him because I would not let him roam the world without a single friend.