Life, Death, and the Inbetween

Even knowing that Grayson could see her, and hear her apparently, even having him answer her, Arimina still couldn’t accept it. She pulled away from the tree trunk she was leaning on and circled the area, looking for any sign of another person. Finally she stopped at the same spot she had started from and turned to face him. “You can see me?” she asked, disbelief coloring her voice. “Like, you can actually see me?” Mina shook her head. “How?”

Grayson blinked, not sure how to react to Mina’s disbelief. “Well...” he finally answered, drawing out the word. “I open my eyes, and I look at you, and then my eyes send a signal to my brain, and my brain decodes the signal and produces an image, and then I see you. Simple as that. You’re doing the same thing to look at me, too. I don’t know why you’re so surprised. It’s not like you were going through any real effort to hide yourself. Seriously, Girl. If you’re going to follow someone, you should do a better job of making sure they don’t realize they’re being followed. Any normal person could tell you that that’s the best way to do things, and any other stalker would call you an idiot, I’m sure.”

Arimina shook her head again. “But you shouldn’t see me!” she cried, bowing her head and curling her hands into the roots on top of her scalp. She held her head there a moment, trying to make sense of things. “Even if I was dancing in front of you like a mad man, singing show tunes at the top of my lungs and waving a sign around that said ‘Look at me, I’m following you!’ you shouldn’t be able to see me! Nobody should be able to see me!” Mina collapsed onto the ground, staring ahead dumbfounded. She couldn’t figure it out. Why hadn’t the Reaper’s College warned her? Shouldn’t they have told her that the boy she’d be reaping would be able to see her before he was dead? Or did they not know that he could?

Grayson watched her reaction in bemusement—though he also couldn’t help but chuckle at it—not quite sure what was going on with the girl. He couldn’t understand why she was so certain that he shouldn’t be able to see her, when she was so obviously there. Mina looked up at him finally, confusion clear in her eyes. “You really can see me?” she asked finally, after simply watching him for a moment. “Who am I kidding, of course you can.” She shook her head. “The real question is why. Why can you see me? You shouldn’t. Nobody else does. Heck, I can walk through other people. I’m not real to them. Even if I affect the surroundings, say by walking around with an object from this realm in my hands, or by throwing something by them, their minds just change it so that it never happened, or that there’s a logical explanation for it. So why can you see me, huh? Are you dead? Did you die when I wasn’t watching?” She stared at him as Grayson’s jaw dropped at the question, but she answered it herself before he could. “No, you couldn’t be dead. You were interacting with living people when I first appeared...” Arimina trailed off. She had no other guesses.

“Excuse me, but I’m not dead. And you’re real, because I’m not crazy. I don’t think. You’ve got to be the crazy one, if you honestly think that people can’t see you.” He stopped speaking, just staring at the girl who had dropped to the ground. This didn’t make sense. None of it made sense. Why was she so certain that he shouldn’t be able to see her? No, she had to be crazy. That was the only explanation for the whole ordeal. Because Grayson didn’t think he was crazy. He was too sane.

Arimina met his eyes, and then stood. Well, she thought to herself. Might as well give my introduction now. She walked toward him and Grayson stepped back at first, before stopping himself. Maybe the girl was crazy, but she was smaller than him. He’d be fine. Or so he thought, until she spoke. “Hello Grayson Harker. My name is Arimina Dawson, and I was born so that you could die.” Crazy or not, those words weren’t exactly something he wanted to hear coming from anyone, big or small. He flinched, backing away from her further. Arimina shook her head. “I’m not going to kill you, that’s not what I do, so quit acting all afraid. You’ve got quite some time left anyway, you’re not going to die today. I promise.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s really reassuring,” Grayson scoffed. “I’ve got time. How much, huh? How long until I should expect you to murder me?” Grayson shook his head. “You’ve got to be insane. This is completely ridiculous. How is a little girl like you going to kill me?” He was babbling, and he knew it. Arimina was making him nervous. How was he supposed to accept this? It made no sense.

“I’m not going to murder you!” she cried incredulously. “I hate death, just so you know. But it’s my job to sit back and watch you die. I’m a reaper, Grayson. I guide the souls of dead humans into the realm of the dead, nothing more. I’m powerless to save your life, but I can make your death easier. Or the aftermath of it anyway.” Arimina sighed, standing where she was. “Look, I can’t make you believe that I’m not insane, nor can I prove to you that you aren’t crazy when you realize that I was telling the truth and that no one else can see me. But I’m being honest here. I...” Mina stopped, then reached forward and grabbed Grayson’s hand, dragging him back the way they’d come into the woods.

“Wh-What are you doing!?” Grayson cried as Mina pulled him along. “Where are you taking me? Stop! Stop it!” With one quick jerk, and more strength than Mina had in her body, he pulled his hand out of her grasp, backing away from her. “Look, just stop crazy girl. Arimina. Whoever you are. Just stop. Leave me alone. Please.”

Mina smiled, cocking her head to the side as she looked up at him. “You’re a pretty big guy,” she said, a hint of a laugh in her voice. “But you’re completely afraid of a small girl like me. It’s kind of comical.” She laughed out loud then. “Just call me Mina. Everyone else does. And relax. I’m not going to hurt you. I told you that already. I’m just showing you that at least one of the things I said wasn’t a lie. I’m trying to show you that no one else can see me. Or touch me for that matter,” she added, reaching out and poking him. “But you’re solid. Or I guess I’m solid to you... In any case, it’s weird. I don’t know what it is about you that makes this possible, but obviously it is. You’re special.” She frowned, pulling her eyebrows in as she thought. “I won’t pull you,” she said finally. “So can you please follow me?”

Grayson hesitated. It was natural. Any sane person would hesitate when dealing with such a strange and possibly mental girl. But she was right. He was bigger than her, and she didn’t have any weapons on her, at least not that he could see. And she wasn’t heading deeper into the woods, but rather toward the town. So... So he followed her, against his better judgment, which happened to have been screaming quite loudly at him to turn and walk in the other direction, to leave the crazy girl and just run. Still, curiosity also played a part. He wanted to see just how this girl planed on proving to him that nobody else knew she was there. And he wanted to be sure he wasn’t the insane one.

Arimina couldn’t help but look back every once in a while to see if Grayson was following her. He always was, but she still had to make sure. She’d find him easy, but she didn’t want to chase him. She led him to the grocery store. It seemed a good enough place to prove everything she had to prove to him. Grayson raised an eyebrow at her, letting her know exactly how weird he thought she was, but he went inside with her anyway, which she appreciated. “Ready to be proved wrong about me being insane?” she asked, flashing him a cocky smile. After all, she knew that he was the only one who could see her. So she knew she’d be proving him wrong. He just rolled his eyes and nodded. Mina couldn’t help but shoot him a quick glare as she walked away from him. She didn’t pick and choose anyone, she just walked up to the first person she ran into, Grayson following a small distance behind her. “Hey lady?” she said loudly. “Lady!” she yelled. The woman didn’t answer, of course, but Mina had been expecting that. Arimina started dancing around foolishly in front of the woman, and the woman looked right at her but didn’t react. Mina shrugged and looked over at Grayson. “Huh, she must be blind and deaf, right? After all, I’m perfectly visible to everyone else, and anyone who can hear can hear me,” she said with a smirk.

Grayson just watched her, his mouth had fallen open a bit. Mina could help but giggle a little bit. She waved for him to follow and went to an aisle that had glass jars and people. Arimina warned him to step back, so that he wouldn’t get blamed, then she picked up a jar of pickles and threw it against the ground. Grayson jumped back, shocked, as the jar fractured into many pieces, the sound of shattering glass sounding through the aisle. Mina, meanwhile, was dancing around the pickles. No one saw her, and the attendant who had been stocking items apologized to the startled customers, explaining that he must have just placed the jar wrong. Grayson looked at Mina in confusion, and she couldn’t help but give a smug laugh. “W-w-w-well,” he stuttered. “Well, how do I know that the store isn’t in on it, and the customers here aren’t used to your strange actions. Maybe they’re just letting you continue your fantasy in a sense of misplaced kindness!”

“Seriously?” Mina cried incredulously. “Seriously? You’re going to go there? Jeez, you choose the place this time, I’ll do the same things, and we’ll see where it goes from there, alright?”

Grayson begrudgingly agreed, and the two stalked off. As soon as they reached Grayson’s choice place, Arimina started doing the same things to people, and all the reactions were the same, meaning that no one had seen her as she’d done her tests. Still, Grayson doubted, and brought her to another store. Still the same reaction and still the same argument from Grayson. He dragged her to store after store, always denying that people really hadn’t seen her. Eventually he grabbed her arm and dragged her toward an intersection. Mina pulled her arm from him and backed away. “What are you trying to do, huh?” she cried, rubbing the place on her arm where his grip had been. “Throw me into the street? People can’t see me, but you saw me pick up that pickle jar. I can still touch things, which means that when I’m hit, and I will be hit, I’ll be hurt. The difference between me being hit and you being hit, though, is that if you’re hit, and it doesn’t kill you, people can see you to help you. No one can see me, Grayson. Only you. God. What were you thinking?”

“Even if all these people are pretending not to see you, no one will pretend if it means hitting you with their car. That’s what I’m thinking.”

Mina stared at him, her mouth falling open. “Are you serious? Really? God, you’re driving me crazy!”

“You are crazy!” he shouted at her. Some people turned to look, raising their eyebrows, before turning back to their business.

“I. Am. Not. Crazy!” Arimina shouted back. “You know what, fine. Fine!” She stalked away from him, and into the pathway of a man walking in their direction. Grayson stared at her, uncertain of what she was doing. Mina just stood there as the man approached, until he was right in front of her. Then Mina stepped toward him as he stepped toward her, and her body went through his. The man walked on as if nothing had happened. Arimina turned to face Grayson. “Satisfied? Huh?”

Grayson just stared at her, utterly dumbfounded. “Then I’m the crazy one?” he whispered, sinking down to sit on the bench near him. Arimina reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. The frustration and shock of the day was giving her a headache, but she really couldn’t blame Grayson for his final assumption, even if she knew it was wrong. Instead she shook her head, walking back to him and easing herself onto the bench next to him.

“No, no you’re not crazy. Remember when I threw the pickles? You were way at the end of the aisle, so you know that you couldn’t have done it. But people reacted to it, even if they couldn’t see me. Remember?” Grayson nodded slowly, still processing everything. Mina leaned back, sighing heavily. They sat there in silence for a while, Mina and Grayson both trying to wrap their heads around everything. Finally Mina stood and tried to get Grayson to do the same thing. “Come on, please? Let’s go somewhere not so crowded. Or people will think you’re crazy when we’re talking. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to sit there in silence.”

Grayson nodded and rose, and the two walked off. They ended up at the park, and Grayson headed for a tree and began climbing. Mina cringed. One of her jobs when she was younger was a child who’d fallen out of one of the trees in the park. Still, she followed him up. He’d gone as high as possible, and Arimina found a branch relatively close to his at around the same height. She tested it to see if it would hold her weight, and then sat. “So I’m not crazy?” he asked as soon as she was sitting.

Mina couldn’t help but laugh. “No, and neither am I. Reapers really do exist. That’s what I am, a reaper. I don’t know if you were exactly paying attention when I explained that earlier?” Grayson shook his head. “I guide the souls of the dead to the realm of the dead. Nothing more than that. Humans have it wrong. Reapers don’t kill when it comes to be someone’s time. We just wait for it to happen and then guide the soul.”

“So then...” Grayson frowned, pulling his eyebrows down. “So then I’m going to die soon?” Mina opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it, biting her lip and nodding. “When?”

“I don’t know,” Arimina answered honestly. “I really don’t. Other reapers do, but the college doesn’t tell me when they assign me a job, even though I get assigned more jobs than anyone else my age.” She shook her head. “I told you that I don’t like death. God, I hate it. I’d give anything to not have to watch people die and not be able to do anything about it. The College is afraid that if I knew the details of when my charges were to die I’d do something drastic, like stop it or something. So they give me the cause, and a vague awareness of when it might happen, and send me off.” She laughed at the confused expression on Grayson’s face. “It’s... complicated, I guess. I’ve never had to explain the semantics of reaping to anyone before, because everyone I’ve known has either been dead, or been a reaper.”

“Then... You know how I’m going to die, and you know around how much time I have left?”

“No, and yes. I know that you’ve got about six months left, but I don’t know how you’re going to die.” She frowned. “That’s another way you’re special, Gray. They won’t tell me how you die. I don’t know. They’ve always told me before, but they won’t tell me yours.” She shook her head. “Maybe it’s because they knew that you’d be able to see me? But they would have warned me, wouldn’t they have...”

“So... What now?” Grayson asked finally, after considering everything Arimina had said.

Mina broke out of her thoughts, and looked at him. She finally noticed how late it had gotten. She shrugged. “Now? I go back to the realm of the reapers, and spend my night with my family. You go home to yours. I’ll see you tomorrow. I’ll find you. As soon as you became my charge I became constantly aware of where you are. It’s a reaper thing.”

“Wait! You’re leaving? You throw all this on me, and now you’re leaving?” He was angry, she could tell that much. He had the right to be, she’d thrown a lot at him.

“Yeah,” she answered simply. “I have a life outside of reaping, and you should have a life outside of knowing that it’s ending soon. Especially knowing that it’s ending soon. I’ll see you tomorrow, Grayson, and I’ll answer your questions then. I promise.” And with that she made her way out of the tree, only looking up once, when she’d reached the ground. Grayson was still sitting there, watching her. She bit her lip, and shifted into her own realm, making her way home.

She brushed off her families questions about how her day was. How was she supposed to explain things to them, if she couldn’t even explain them to herself? Instead Arimina headed straight to her room. She collapsed onto her bed, and fell directly into sleep.