The Untold Story of a Grim Reaper: Chapter 11: The Spirit of Fire

      The air was thick with layers of white clouds and fog. It became difficult to navigate and even more difficult to  find Lilli. Her wings matched the color of the atmosphere perfectly. Mine though was a dark stain that could be seen from any direction. 

      My crow flew up to the left of my face, it cawed and shook its head in the direction it wanted me to follow. So I did so. 

      We flew for about a mile, I didn’t even know where we were racing to, what game we were playing, or if we were just sailing for fun but I just kept flying anyway. My crow got my attention again and was pointing its beak northwest. I squinted my eyes and eventually saw what it was pointing at. The black vulture was about ten feet from us, showing off with fancy flips and turns. I settled on the idea that we were merely up here to bond and play.

      Closing my eyes, I decided to rest on a wind current, trying to find some sort of relief that not every inch of this new existence seemed awful. For such silliness didn’t seem appropriate for the dead, but I wouldn’t let that thought spoil this.

      Out of nowhere, my crow sprung to my face and barked, startling me to fallback and lose speed. It wasn’t until my eyes caught a stream of fire heading toward me that I understood what my spirit was warning me of.

      I curved my wings to the left as fast as I could and felt the heat of it curve around me, missing me. Fear. That’s what first hit me. Then confusion. 

Did Lilli throw that?

Suddenly, I saw a stream of light pass about fifty feet above me. I spun myself around and relaxed flying on my backside. 

I looked down at my feet and saw another stream of fire was heading towards me. I let out a small yell as I twisted to avoid it. As it passed me I caught a better glance of it. 

It was the vulture and it was on fire! 

The vulture kept hurdling forward and caught an air current to turn itself around on. Then came straight back towards me. Ablaze, the vulture made me its target.

I dodged it again and thought it’d be best to fly lower so I could see better. I flew the best I could out of the fog and clouds. I desperately searched for some sort of source of water. The instinct to find water seemed like a natural pull, a trigger in my fear that had me feeling the call of water.

I did a nose dive as I again avoided the spearing vulture. 

I felt more alert and aware of my surrounding, like some unfamiliar, foreign monster had awakened inside of me. 

It was hard to pray for assistance when I couldn’t keep my thoughts in order. But nonetheless, no help would come.

No saints will help me. 

I dove farther down to better search for water and I thought, If my mom could only have seen the beast I was turning into. 

I wasn’t paying attention as the bird knocked into my right wing. It spun me off coarse and I began hurdling towards the ground. 

My crow came to my rescue. It grabbed one of my wings and tugged the best it could to straighten it out. It was successful and I swung my wings faster to try to lose the vulture. My crow flew ahead of me then dove to the left. I noticed what it was going for, a pond was about a mile away. I directly followed it and kept an eye out for the vulture. 

Behind me, I heard a booming cackle come from the clouds. I looked up and within that second the vulture struck down on my crow. My crow spiraled out of control and hurdled to the ground. Frantically, I lunged after it. My arms were stretched out the farthest I could reach.

I pencil dived and narrowed my body and wings, increasing my speed. I caught my crow and brought it in and hugged it tight to my chest. I wasn’t going to lose it.

I landed on the ground next to the pond and rested my crow on a bush branch. It ruffled its feathers and nodded in assurance that it was all right. I gestured for it to stay. I ran and sprung back into flight to find the vulture. The only solution was to rise and fight back. 

I don’t know what game Lilli is playing, but I will end it. 

Whatever friendship I saw before was hard to recover in this moment, the anger I had for her burned.

I frequently flew sideways and upside-down to better find the vulture, that red-eyed vulture. After about twenty-minutes, I was losing motivation and wondered if I should just head back to the wood. 

As if the vulture read my mind, it sprung out from the clouds, still on fire, and lunged towards my chest. I sprung my hands out and grabbed its neck. I twisted it and threw it towards the ground. It seemed to have no effect. It recovered and flew back into my direction. The fire was bigger now. I was ready to fight, but a better idea occurred to me.

I dodged the vulture once again and kept flying passed it. Heading towards the pond. It followed like I wanted. Hot on my feet, I pushed to fly even faster. With the wind whistling in my ears, I dove straight towards the pond. Straightened out my body completely. Seconds away from diving into the lake the vulture tried to expand its wings to create resistance and change its course. 

It was too late for it though. I brought out my feet from underneath me and wrapped myself into a large ball. Crashing straight into the water, which followed with a colossal splash. The wave swallowed the vulture completely. I arose from the shallow depths of the pond and swam to its edge. Praying that this was all over. The vulture was lying lifeless in the water. 

“What have you done?!” The tone was unholy and fierce. With such a hoarseness to it that it brought out a dread in me, “What have you done?!”

I jumped out of the water, ready to put up my guard. I looked up and saw, feet first, Lilli landing right on me. I scurried backwards, tripping over myself and landing on my back. Lilli landed where I was standing and lunged for me. 

“Where is it?!” 

I pointed to the pond. She jumped off me and soared above the water. Dipping her hands in the pond to rescue her pet. She landed on the far side of the pond, opposite of me. She petted its head, whispering baby talk to it. But it was in a language I didn’t understand. 

I was still lying on the ground when Lilli brought her snake eyes to dart at me. She leaped across the pond and gently placed her twitching bird on the ground. She jumped onto my stomach and knelt down to bring her face centimeters from mine. 

Holding down her rage, she calmly asked, “Why would you do that?”

I stammered, feeling extremely uncomfortable with her foot digging under my ribs, “Why? Your vulture was lunging at me on fire! It was trying to attack me!”

Lilli retracted her face and looked back at her vulture. Contemplating the truth of my statement, “You’re sure? It was on fire?”

“Yes! And attacking me!” I pleaded. 

She got off me and shook her head as she picked up her twitching bird. 

I continued, “Why did your vulture do that?”

Calmer, she replied, “It wasn’t attacking you. It was trying to find me and I guess got confused.”

“Why was it looking for you?”

Lilli carried her eyes from the vulture’s to mine. Coldly and with a small grin she said, “Because someone’s been murdered.”