The Untold Story of a Grim Reaper: Chapter 29: To put an end

In result of my deafness, I didn’t notice the officer had entered until he grabbed my arm. I looked at the aggressive cop, his mouth moving quickly to whatever demands he was spitting at me. But I couldn’t hear him.

Taken aback I didn’t have time to react before the officer dragged me from the room. The officer sat me on the chair next to the room, pointing at it, I assumed he was commanding me to stay put.

As the Officer left for whatever reasons, faintly, I heard laughing. To my left I heard it get louder. I stood up, paying no mind to the orders given to me by the officer, and pursued the only sound I could hear.

I reached a crossroads at the end of the hall. Straining my ears to better hear what sounded like children. Turning to my right, I continued following the breadcrumbs made of laughter.

At the end of the hall was the main waiting room of the first floor. I could see the dozens of patients and nurses flooded in the room but I could not hear a single bit of their conversations or movement. The laughing soon turned to small giggles and small words in between.

It sounded like it was right next to me. I stepped to the middle of the waiting room, revolving my head side to side. The laughter had stopped because I had finally found what was making the noise.

The two little boys, the same ones I saw standing in Ethel and Julius’s living room and the asylum, stood in front of the elevators. Hands tucked behind their backs, both were now dressed in brown pants, a green shirt, a brown vest, and shoes made of wicker. The one on the left had a wide smile, while the one on the right just grinned with his thick eyebrows raised halfway up his forehead. The one with the open smile took out one hand from behind his back and presented to me a ring.

I noticed the bandages with blood seeping through his palm. He shook the ring in the air and they both giggled again. I instinctively checked my hand for my ring but it wasn’t there. I looked at my finger and it was gone. 

I looked back to where the boys were standing but the boys had made their way into the elevator. Laughing and shaking the ring in the air again as the doors close.

Watching the elevator numbers as they climb I slowly walk towards the stairs. Seeing they only went up two levels, I sped up the staircase and burst into the third floor. No one seemed to react to me or the two little boys sprinting down the hall. 

I said what anyone would say while chasing, “Hey! Stop! Give it back!”

They came to a fork in the hall and split up. I didn’t know which one to chase, at any moment they could have traded off my ring. As soon as I came to the split in the hall, I randomly chose to go left. 

Voyaging down the hall, I could hear only his steps and his laughter. I nearly passed the room when I caught the little boy run behind the window curtain to hide. 

He kept laughing, surely knowing I could hear him. I couldn’t understand who these little boys were and didn’t give myself much time to ask that question before I ripped away the curtain to find him standing on the open window ceil.

He held out the ring over the edge, tipping slightly backwards on his heels. 

I hold up my hands, “Just stop! Stop! Whatever you’re doing just stop!”

The boy stuck out his tongue at me. I didn’t care if he dropped my ring, I could just retrieve it later but he kept rocking back and forth on his feet as if wondering if I’d save him or the ring. 

I kept my hands out, “Just come out of the window! We can just talk! Play more games even, just come towards me.”

He held my ring loosely between his thumb and pointer, rolled it into his bandaged left palm and closed his fist. He reopened his left hand and my ring was gone, he opened his right hand and my ring sat on the bandages wrapped on that hand. 

I stepped back from the window, “Who are you?”

He shuffled closer to the edge of the window, “Dismas.”

“Hi, Dismas,” I held my hands out again, “I’m Noa. Come down from the window, we can do whatever you want. Please, come down.” He shook his head. I paused, “How did you hurt your hands?”

From behind me the other boy stood at the doorway, “He took what wasn’t his.”

“My ring?”

“No, something else. A long time ago.”

I kept looking at the boy at the door while keeping the other in my peripheral, “And who are you?”

He took his hand out of his pockets and exposed his bandages but he wasn’t bleeding through like Dismas, “Gestas.”

“How come I can only hear you two?”

Dismas said as-matter-of-factly, “You broke your spirit in two, saving that boy. Now you can only hear the dead.”

Gestas, “You gave that boy a piece of your spirit when you removed what possessed him.”

Dismas, “Your actions called us here… you’re ready to receive your message.”

I ran my hands through my hair in slight frustration, “Ready to receive my message?”

Dismas, “But… one of us is a messenger while the other a thief.”

“So who is who?”

Gestas smiled, “Behold your son, behold your mother.”

Before I could utter a word, two little hands grabbed my shoulders and with an amazing amount of strength pulled me backward. Sending me flying out the window, my wings tried to spread out but Dismas hugged himself tight around me, I landed flat on my back, the impact shoved rocks and twigs in my spine. I moaned, realizing Dismas was gone. I blinked a few time, wondering if I had hurt my head in the fall, for the hospital was no where in my sight.

It was very dark, smoke and ash surrounded me. I got to my feet and rubbed my eyes, opening them and blinking quickly I realized it wasn’t in my head. I was in the midst of a graveyard.

Behind a tombstone, a tiny silhouette peaked, of whom I suspected to be Dismas. I approached the tombstone to check behind it for the boy but he was gone. I couldn’t hear anything from this bitter night air yet… this graveyard felt cozy. I was a little too comforting, to be honest, as if I belonged. 

My eye caught the name on the grave

 

CAROLYNA BLACK

LOVING DAUGHTER AND WIFE

1980-2012

 

What Dismas and Gestas had said… parts of it pieced together in my mind. Lilli needed Carolyna’s empty body… but for what?

A shadow passed my feet, I jumped my gaze to its direction, yelling, “Dismas?” 

The figure stepped out of the shadow of a tree to let the setting sun expose him. It was Salvatore. He looked awful. His face and hair matted with dried blood and dirt. Clothes torn and burnt, he shook vigorously.

Wrapping his hands over the tags he breathed, his markings were exposed, a magpie and a spear. Turning his hands over he exposed the markings on his palms.

Approaching closer to me he asked, “Can you trust me? For once.” 

His facial features were alarming, I couldn’t tell what he had in mind. His hands became uncomfortably close to my head. I flinched and backed away. Salvatore shook his head, gesturing his hands for me to stay put. So I did, trusting his intentions.

He wrapped his hands over my ears, taking a large breath. On his exhale I began to hear the whistling wind, the rustling leaves, my boots against the asphalt. The little noises started to crescendo back into existence.

“Salvatore, what did-,” 

Salvatore interrupted, “I can’t hear you anymore, the little piece of my spirit that I had left is with you now, so just listen to what I have to say. I don’t have much time.” I nodded. Salvatore continued, chocking on his words, “First of all, I’m the one who killed Aaron.” 

Salvatore reacted to my expression with an apologetic sigh of desperation, trying his best to show the sincerity of how much that tormented him, “I did it for Lilli. She said if I did this one last thing for her, I could be alive again.” He messed with his hair, clumps caught on his nails, pulling out more hair. His tone became darker, it’s as if he were sobbing, “Lilli betrayed me. I gave her everything she needed to be where she is. We were supposed to do this together… but this was all for Samel. I was just a pawn.” 

Another Nest, one similar to the one that took Phoebe, approached the cemetery. 

Salvatore noticed and began talking faster, “Lilli sold her soul and was promised eternal life if she brought Samel ninety-nine broken souls.” 

The monstrous shadow was only a few meters away. Salvatore panicked, grabbing my wrist to make sure I would pay attention, “She’s running out of time though too! Jonah is the last soul but if she doesn’t succeed then it’s all over. If she doesn’t retrieve him she cannot rise and this world will not perish,” Salvatore spoke urgently, “You can stop her. Hurry, Jonah is at Aaron’s treehouse.”

The shadow touched the building now. Salvatore started yelling out of fear, “But Lilli won’t need to do anything but wait. Jonah plans on taking his life. Since she knows your signature she can easily take his now.” He pointed to Carolyna Blacks grave, “She can’t get to that empty body! She cannot be allowed to possess it!”

“She didn’t put a stone in her mouth.”

“She needs that body to return back to this world! Go to Jonah! Don’t take the shadows to get to him! They will stop you! You have to fly!”

The shadow met Salvatore’s feet, yanking him under like quicksand, “You can’t let her win, Noa. She can’t win! She can’t be brought back to life!” His legs were completely under, “You know what you have to do. We’re all depending on you!” His torso was completely under. I reached out my hand to him but he refused to take it, “I have things I need to do too, Noa. I have demons I need to face, I have things I need to set right after all the wrong I’ve done.” His neck was out of sight. In his last moments he confessed, “I am so sorry, Noa. I hope you can forgive me for what I’ve done. I say to you today, we will see each other again. Perhaps in paradise or perhaps with the fallen.” He was almost out of sight, “Go! Go!” 

I nodded and frantically ran off to fly in his last bit of sight to make sure he’d know his end would not be in vain. So he could see that his trust in me was not for nothing.