Not So Grimm Reaper

"Get up Astrid! You're going to be late for your classes!" my mother shouted as she barged into my room.

I groaned and kept my eyes closed, "It's college, mom, I'm allowed to be late."

"Oh no, no, no. My daughter is not going to be late! What will your teacher thing?" she questioned as she rapidly opened my blinds and let the sun stream through.

I gasped and pulled my comforter over my head to shield my eyes from the blinding light, "Okay, first of all, in college teachers are known as professors. Second, there's like 90 students in the class. And third, most students show up for the first week and the last week only so me not showing up to just one class is not a big deal." I said from underneath the blanket.

"You will not miss any of your classes, young lady! Now get up and get ready before you're late!" she shouted before she yanked my comforter and pillow away from me.

I groaned as I got up and stomped into my bathroom and muttered, "I hate you!" as I slammed the door closed.

"You'll thank me for this one day!" she called back to me as she walked out of my room.

I quickly did my morning routine, just wanting to get the day over with as quickly as possible so I could come back home and claim a few more hours of sleep.

As I searched through my closet for a hat and scarf I began to mutter to myself, "I'm 21 years old. I shouldn't be living at home anymore. I shouldn't be taking all this crap from my mom all the time. I should be living in a dorm room at a four year college with a bunch of friends and living up my college years. But nooooo! I decided to turn down fancy college life because my father walked out on us nearly a year ago and I stayed behind to take care of my mother and brother because they needed me. But now I don't think they need me too much anymore."

I found what I wanted, slid on my Ugg boots, and slid on my messenger bag before I left my room.

When I walked out into the hallway, my brother nearly ran me over. He looked my appearance up and down before he smirked and asked, "What are you still doing here, under achiever?"

I rolled my eyes, "I could ask you the same thing, teenager. Shouldn't you be in school?"

"Don't bother your brother, Astrid, he's not feeling well." my mother scolded as she spotted the two of us in the hallway. "So I'm letting him stay home today." she added.

"Oh yeah, I'm sure if I stayed out all night partying and drinking I wouldn't feel very good either." I replied.

"Don't speak ill of your brother like that," mom gasped, "He's a good boy."

"More like the favorite." I corrected.

"Astrid, get to school before you're late." mom said, getting flustered with me.

I held out my hand to her, "Can I have the car keys? It will insure me being on time."

Mom was about to hand me the keys when my brother called out, "She should have to ride the bus to teach her a lesson of how she should be more proactive and on time."

"That's a great idea!" my mother said loudly as she snatched back the keys and pocketed them.

"Don't shout." my brother moaned as he held his hands to his temples and shuffled back into his room.

"If I take the bus, you waking me up would have been a total waste." I tried to point out.

"Just go, you're giving me a headache." she said, brushing me off.

"Yeah well, you're giving me a migraine." I muttered as I stormed out of the house and walked to the bus stop.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

Forty-five minutes later I was thirty minutes late to class and twenty minutes away from the college's bus stop. At this rate, by the time I would arrive I would only have to turn around and go home because class would be long over by then... Well, not completely over. There'd be like ten minutes left... Maybe fifteen.

When it comes to busses, I have the worst luck. The creepy guy, the grandma who chats non-stop, or the super hyper kid always end up sitting next to me. This time it was the sick, clueless middle aged man. He had a wad of tissues in each hand, which he used to wipe his constant running nose.

I could just see what was coming next. In fact, I could practically count it down. He arched back before letting out the loudest sneeze I had ever heard while on the bus. As he sneezed, he dropped half of his tissues and in a panic reached down for them but couldn't quite get them.

I could tell what he was thinking as he eyed me. "No, no, no. Don't do that! Don't do that!" I said quickly, but it was too late. He pushed all the tissues from one of his hands into my lap.

"Dude, so gross." I muttered as I stared down at the used tissues in my lap and refused to touch them.

"Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry." the man said as he scooped up the tissues from the ground and then the tissues from my lap, letting his hand rest on my thigh for a little longer than I would have liked.

After that, I was done. I picked up my stuff and squeezed past the guy, opting to stand until my stop instead of having to sit next to that guy a second longer.

When I finally got off the bus I was relieved to get away from that guy. After I got up from the bus bench he kept turning his head and stealing glances. Creeper.

By the time I arrived to the college campus my class had about five minutes left and I wasn't about to walk in only to sit there for two minutes, look like an idiot and walk back out.

Another choice was to get on another bus and go back home to argue with my brother some more and have my mother bitch at me about absolutely everything. Forget that!

Instead I walked to the campus cafeteria to grab some lunch and chill out for a little while before having nothing better to do but to go back home.

I loaded up my tray with a roast beef sandwich on wheat bread and a blue slurpie before I walked up to the cashier and paid five bucks in mostly change for my food. When I walked into the lunch room I was disappointed to realize I had gotten food during the late rush and all the tables were full.

"Well this sucks." I muttered.

"Over here!" someone shouted, catching my attention.

My eyes searched the lunch room until they landed on an empty chair next to a pretty good looking guy who was waving me over. I had never met the guy before in my life but a spot was a spot. All I would have to do is make a little pleasant conversation with him for a while and if I wasn't in to it I would never have to see him again. So I booked it to the table and slid into the seat next to him.

"Hey, thanks." I said as I smiled.

"No problem." he said, "I'm David." he added.

"Astrid." I said, giving him my own name.

He smiled, "Well Astrid, you have an interesting lunch choice. You wouldn't happen to be working on the freshmen fifteen, would you?"

I felt my jaw drop a little, but I quickly picked it back up, "I'm in my third year of college and I managed to only gain the freshmen four my first year, thank you very much. This is just for the bus ride home."

"Ooh, the bus, that sucks." David replied.

"Tell me about it." I groaned.

We sat in the lunch room for over an hour, talking about anything and everything. We talked about music interest and compared our tastes. We talked about which shows were great and which ones just sucked. We talked for so long, the next time I looked around the lunch room it was practically empty.

"Oh shit, I've got to go!" I said as I quickly got up and grabbed my stuff. I started to walk out of the cafeteria and David followed after me.

"What's the rush?" David asked as he fell into step with me.

"I have to get home before my mom has a cow about how long I've been out." I said before I took a sip out of my blue slurpie and slammed my hand onto a crosswalk button.

"You still live at home with your mom?" David questioned with a raised eyebrow.

"You go to a community college." I replied.

"Touché."

The little hand on the other side of the street disappeared and was replaced with the walking dude so I stepped off the curb.

I looked up just in time to see a city bus barreling down on me and I froze.

A hand shot out, grabbed me by the arm, and yanked me onto the sidewalk just as the bus whizzed by, blaring the horn at me.

I turned to see who the hand was attached to and was glad to see it was David. "Thank you, thank you so much!" I said quickly. I kept repeating myself until he interrupted me.

"Don't you look before crossing the street?? What the hell were you thinking?!" David snapped.

"I- I wasn't." I said quietly.

David sighed, "You need to-" he cut himself off and seemed to rethink his words before he spoke them, "be more careful next time." he finished.

I nodded, "I will be."

"C'mon, let's hurry up before we have to wait for another crosswalk cycle." David said before he stepped off the curb and I followed after him.

When we were half way across the street, the squealing sound of tires perked my hearing. Out of the corner of my eye a red car burst through the intersection and headed straight for us.

The next thing I knew the car smacked into us and carried us on the hood as it jumped the curb and came to a crashing halt as the car wrapped itself around a tree with me pinned in between the tree and the car. David had gotten lucky. He had been thrown off to the side and was able to get up and walk away from the accident.

I knew this because I felt like I was standing off to the side watching the whole thing... No, wait, I was watching from the sideline and now that I think about it, I didn't feel any pain.

David walked up to me and stood next to me while a bunch of people ran up to help the guy in the car and the other me.

"You... you can see me, can't you?" I asked David.

"Yeah, I can." he replied.

"Am I dead?" I asked again.

"Yeah." he repeated.

"So what does that make you?"

"I'm a reaper... I took your soul before you could feel any pain." he said.

"Thanks, I guess." I said quietly, "...So, what happens now?"