The Runners.
Chapter One
"What you did was a crime against Life. Your punishment is to serve the higher beings in one of two ways. You can either become a Reaper or a Runner. The choice is yours."
I stared up at the blond haired man condemning me. The choice is mine?
"Why not neither one?" I ask defiantly. "If the choice is mine why wasn't this one!?"
"We all must suffer consequences," he says. "Suffer yours."
"Reaper then. It's what I'm best at after all."
His gaze turns impossibly sad. Makovail. My future friend, my soon-to-be mentor. For now he is my judge and jury. If I am brought before him again, possibly my excecutioner. Death beyond death...
That was ages ago. Now I stand before him again- a different person. Scared, alone. We aren't in a black, fathomless chamber in the Nether (world of the dead). Instead we are on a sidewalk, a wreck before us. A young man wails in despair. I never knew men to cry. It pierces my heart much differently than a woman's keening. The stink of exhaust and burning oil mixed with singed flesh gags me.
"I took the wrong girl," I whisper in disbelief. This can't be happening. I want to cry, scream. This isn't right. I did everything possible to change, to do things right! Had I caught my mistake in time, stopped her spirit touching my scythe, then this wouldn't be. Heather would be alive. I knew everything about her now. Mick is the man crying, holding Heather's lifeless corpse. He was her boyfriend of two years. Highschool sweethearts to the end. Tonight he was planning on asking her to marry him. She knew he was planning it. "This is so stupid..."
Makovail places his hand on my shoulder. "You know the Council will have to decide your punishment," he says somberly. Fear grips my heart, icy and paralyzing. Death beyond death...that was the only punishment known to be given from the higher ups...
I start to shake my head, but Makovail already has me in his grasp and the Mortal Realm closes on us only to reopen to the Nether. The black nothingness is around me again and I stare up at the Council. Most have indistiguishable faces as if they are nothing more than blurred memories. Makovail and others are more corporeal. My friend especially with the almost elvish appearance. His hair is long and blond, going straight down his back. He has deathly pale skin and a full, pinkish mouth with a cupid's bow shape. Had his eyes not been voids of deepest, darkest purple he could have passed for a model in the Mortal Realm. Behind the Council are seven things that stop the Nether from being so empty this time. Lightened silhouettes. They have no face, no real body. Just a space of light in varying colors and they are the ones who rule over the Council. They are the higher beings that only come down when one of us has messed up.
This is it. I fling my scythe at the Council's feet. It's a locket in the shape of a sun. I can hear the muffled sound of yet to be released souls moaning at the impact. "I already know what you're going to do," I say. "Send me to the Abyss or the Beyond. Or the Chasm. I fucked up. I know it." The Abyss is where souls went to be wiped. They are torn apart and put together anew with others before being reborn. It is a way to ensure that the soul sent there will never really return. No memory of past lives will remain. They would be truly new. The Chasm is where souls were sent to be tortured. Punishment eternal they say, though I have also heard that the higher beings rarely remove a soul from there and send it to the Abyss. The Beyond is a place of no return. Only the sickest souls are sent there. No rebirth, no retry.
They don't say anything. The Council is quiet. Then the being in red speaks. I say speak. It's difficult to describe what they do. Picture a low droning, just barely above the range sound disappears. Mortals can hear them sometimes. The ringing in the ears? That is when you're too attune to the life around you. The beings know so they send you a warning. There are some things that humans just don't need to know yet and the higher ups keep them from finding it.
The drone condenses into a voice. "We will not send you to either," it says. "One such as you who shows potential beyond what she started does not deserve to be cast aside so quickly."
What? The fear disappates. I am not being sent away?
"We revoke your title as Reaper, however," it goes on. "Instead you will become a Runner. Makovail will once again mentor you." I laugh in relief, a smile working onto my face. I could handle the job change. That won't be so bad. "However-" Oh, shit. "-should you fail us again, we would have no choice but to send you away to the Abyss. That would be the kindest thing we could do for you given how much your soul has progressed."
I shake my head vehemently. "No, I will not fail a second time. I swear it."
I stared up at the blond haired man condemning me. The choice is mine?
"Why not neither one?" I ask defiantly. "If the choice is mine why wasn't this one!?"
"We all must suffer consequences," he says. "Suffer yours."
"Reaper then. It's what I'm best at after all."
His gaze turns impossibly sad. Makovail. My future friend, my soon-to-be mentor. For now he is my judge and jury. If I am brought before him again, possibly my excecutioner. Death beyond death...
That was ages ago. Now I stand before him again- a different person. Scared, alone. We aren't in a black, fathomless chamber in the Nether (world of the dead). Instead we are on a sidewalk, a wreck before us. A young man wails in despair. I never knew men to cry. It pierces my heart much differently than a woman's keening. The stink of exhaust and burning oil mixed with singed flesh gags me.
"I took the wrong girl," I whisper in disbelief. This can't be happening. I want to cry, scream. This isn't right. I did everything possible to change, to do things right! Had I caught my mistake in time, stopped her spirit touching my scythe, then this wouldn't be. Heather would be alive. I knew everything about her now. Mick is the man crying, holding Heather's lifeless corpse. He was her boyfriend of two years. Highschool sweethearts to the end. Tonight he was planning on asking her to marry him. She knew he was planning it. "This is so stupid..."
Makovail places his hand on my shoulder. "You know the Council will have to decide your punishment," he says somberly. Fear grips my heart, icy and paralyzing. Death beyond death...that was the only punishment known to be given from the higher ups...
I start to shake my head, but Makovail already has me in his grasp and the Mortal Realm closes on us only to reopen to the Nether. The black nothingness is around me again and I stare up at the Council. Most have indistiguishable faces as if they are nothing more than blurred memories. Makovail and others are more corporeal. My friend especially with the almost elvish appearance. His hair is long and blond, going straight down his back. He has deathly pale skin and a full, pinkish mouth with a cupid's bow shape. Had his eyes not been voids of deepest, darkest purple he could have passed for a model in the Mortal Realm. Behind the Council are seven things that stop the Nether from being so empty this time. Lightened silhouettes. They have no face, no real body. Just a space of light in varying colors and they are the ones who rule over the Council. They are the higher beings that only come down when one of us has messed up.
This is it. I fling my scythe at the Council's feet. It's a locket in the shape of a sun. I can hear the muffled sound of yet to be released souls moaning at the impact. "I already know what you're going to do," I say. "Send me to the Abyss or the Beyond. Or the Chasm. I fucked up. I know it." The Abyss is where souls went to be wiped. They are torn apart and put together anew with others before being reborn. It is a way to ensure that the soul sent there will never really return. No memory of past lives will remain. They would be truly new. The Chasm is where souls were sent to be tortured. Punishment eternal they say, though I have also heard that the higher beings rarely remove a soul from there and send it to the Abyss. The Beyond is a place of no return. Only the sickest souls are sent there. No rebirth, no retry.
They don't say anything. The Council is quiet. Then the being in red speaks. I say speak. It's difficult to describe what they do. Picture a low droning, just barely above the range sound disappears. Mortals can hear them sometimes. The ringing in the ears? That is when you're too attune to the life around you. The beings know so they send you a warning. There are some things that humans just don't need to know yet and the higher ups keep them from finding it.
The drone condenses into a voice. "We will not send you to either," it says. "One such as you who shows potential beyond what she started does not deserve to be cast aside so quickly."
What? The fear disappates. I am not being sent away?
"We revoke your title as Reaper, however," it goes on. "Instead you will become a Runner. Makovail will once again mentor you." I laugh in relief, a smile working onto my face. I could handle the job change. That won't be so bad. "However-" Oh, shit. "-should you fail us again, we would have no choice but to send you away to the Abyss. That would be the kindest thing we could do for you given how much your soul has progressed."
I shake my head vehemently. "No, I will not fail a second time. I swear it."
♠ ♠ ♠
Just a little thing I am working on. For those reading my other story, I have the next chapter in works and hope to write on it some more my next day of which will be Tuesday. G'night Mibbians!