The Untold Story of a Grim Reaper: Chapter 25.1: Choices

It was only midday, but the sky’s threatening clouds destroyed all the light. Hell was in the sky trying to take root.

Anxiety still shooting through me, I barged straight through the school’s double doors. I was so hostile I didn’t think twice before I slammed my heel against the wood. My actions reflected that of an escape convict, frantic and unpredictable.

The boom of the double doors opening caught everyone’s attention in the hallways. Something was off though, they stiffly stood against the hall walls. Some scattered in the rotunda, but all with the same blank expression.

My shoulders tensed as the student body remained staring at me. Teachers and students alike, just staring. I hesitantly shuffled to the eye of this storm that was brewing around me. Their stares never broke, heads turned to follow me as I walked.

I felt like a lamb walking to the slaughter, the severity of their stillness haunted a judgement upon me that stepped on my heels. Hundreds of eyes bewitched by Lilli’s ribbon smile. 

As I crossed to the center of the rotunda there was surging chill within my flat veins. A small pulsation of energy and ice that brought out the beasts within me. All I kept thinking was that they were judging me, that they were looking at my body and tracing the imperfections with their eyes. 

This was all something Lilli forced these people to do but I felt like this was their honest selves. That within each of them was the desire to do what is right but at the end of it all their stories were just a blank page of thoughtless cruelty. Their true selves were no longer covered and protected by the actions of their past or the falsification of self to hide that… in the end… we all prefer to inflict rather than endure. 

From behind me someone spoke, “You think anyone misses you, Edith?”

I turned around to discover the students had all flooded in front of the doors. Crowded together with Jessie and Camilla in the front. 

Camilla spoke, repeating herself, “You think anyone misses you, Edith?”

My tongue tensed in my mouth, barely able to speak but avoiding the question, “My name is Noa.”

Jessie responded but acted like she didn’t hear me, “Such a burden you were to your family.”

“Stop it.”

Camilla stepped forward, “No matter what size you were you never felt good in your own skin.”

I felt my throat knot, “Stop-“

“Edith,” Lilli ascended from the students, approaching me with a smile tilting her face, “You miss that name? Edith. Do you actually miss being worthless?”

“Make this stop, Lilli.”

She clicked her heels together and nodded, “Oh, but we’re not finished with our game yet. See, you made your move. Now I get to make mine. What I’m offering you is the world, to be more than Edith, to be more than Noa.” 

And with the snap of her bony fingers, dozens of hands grabbed at my backside. Pulling my hair back and forcing me to my knees. All the hands that could reach found a piece of clothing or hair to pull down. I roared as I struggled from their grasps but there were too many. 

The weight of the students held me down, my head pulled back by my hair, exposing my neck for anyone to slit. 

I roared, “You can’t kill me!”

Lilli tiptoed to me and placed her free hand on my neck, “But I can condemn you.”

My throat burned as I begged, “Please, stop! Why are you doing this to me?!”

She took her hand from my neck and seemed almost shocked at my question, “I’m not trying to blind you, Noa, I’m trying to make you see.”

Almost screaming, “See what?”

“See that these people deserve to be punished. That the human race is defined by its evils and should pay for them.”

I mumbled, “That’s not true.”

Lilli looked at me disappointed, “I was murdered, Noa! Murdered! My whole life ripped away from me because of these people and their idea of God! I didn’t expect you to be so naive. You were chosen because you see the world the way we do.” She turned slowly and gestured to the students and teachers that surrounded us. Her tone became harsher and angrier, “Noa, these people are why you’re here!” She started to raise her voice, “They’re why you’re dead! They took everything away from you! Do you honestly believe they deserve your mercy?! Don’t tell me you didn’t look at these people when you walked in and didn’t see what I brought out of them!”

“These people have done nothing to me!”

She shrilly barked, “No one is innocent!” 

Her voice echoed in the rotunda, bouncing off the tile and brick, bringing out the voices of the students pinning me down. 

Combinations of whispers and shouts from every person, 

 

“Your body will never be good enough!”

“Why is your hair cut like a boys?”

“Your parents divorce is easier now that you’re gone!”

“Why don’t you ever speak?”

“What a waste of breath!”

“Who would ever love you?”

 

Their words weighed heavier than their hands, as they continued it’s almost as if they were reading my mind as I remembered ever phrase slung at me. Every word picked at the whole in my heart from where I shot myself. Getting a little bigger and a little more infected.

 

“What is there to love?”

“Such a burden!”

“No one ever cared!”

“Get over it!”

“Why do you cry so much?!”

“Attention seeker!”

 

The ice in my blood inflated my veins and started a pulse in my temple. The heat and chill rushing through my body. Prepping for a release of the monsters in my soul that had been waiting to escape.

 

“Why are you so dramatic over everything?!”

“You’re the reason your parents divorced!”

“I liked you better when you were fat!”

 

“STOP!”

 

It became silent and Lilli’s snake eyes said she had gotten what she wanted. 

I asked with control in my tone, “So you just kill to make the world a better place? You think that will fix it?”

“Who said anything about fixing?” Lilli snickered, “You misunderstand, Noa, we’re not trying to fix anything.”

I interrupted, “‘We’re?’”

She continued, as if not hearing me, “This world is beyond fixing but I can’t stand being stuck in the middle world any longer. For too long I’ve watched human life be wasted,” She charged forward at me, her free hand gripping my neck again, “They don’t deserve to be alive! I do!”

She pushed at my neck as she released, “I can’t be dead any more. I will be alive again. Flawlessly and indestructibly immortal. I had to kill those people so that I could finish the deal I made.”

I asked, still struggling with the constant pulling at my body, “A deal with who?”

The answer locked within her lips made a smile rip across her face, “Samel.”

Samel stepped out from behind a pillar, cloaked in his blood stained wings. 

He spoke officially, “Accept our proposal, we’re trying to give you this as a choice but we can take away that privilege if you do not comply.”

I yelled hoarsely, “You’ve had help all this time from the Cardinals? You-,”

Samel, “No! Senoi and Senson, they’re too weak and inadequate to comprehend what I have to offer. They’re simply repellent so I can do my business in secrecy. I sought after Lilli when she died, knowing she was among the few that could do this service. Fate has brought you here, Noa, you’ve been wanting purpose to your suicide and now you can have it! So take it!”

Aggressively, I barked, “What do you want from me?”

Samel stepped to me, slightly leaning forward, “I need souls, Noa. I need broken souls. Come with us to gather our last soul! Or else we will reap this school of as many souls to find one that is broken!”

Still, I barely understood why they needed me to help them. My eyes frantically scanned the crowd of students and in the midst of faces I saw Salvatore. He stood solitarily from the students, leaning on a pillar, looking like a standing corpse.

“Salvatore! Salvatore!” He avoided looking at me, “Salvatore they killed your spirit!” He looked up startled. Lilli cut her stare to him and shook her head. I shouted, “Yes, Salvatore, they did! I’m sorry I didn’t listen before! Lilli killed your spirit!”

Lilli barked, “You knew you’d have to make sacrifices Salvatore. You knew what you were getting yourself into! You belong to me!”

Salvatore’s eyes looked glaze, he walked backwards and sunk into the shadows cast by the pillars. 

Lilli grew louder, speaking to the crowd, “Fine! The time of reckoning has come! I have broken many souls in my death and all I need is one more,” She looked to me with rabid eyes, “One last broken soul and you can’t imagine how difficult it’s been to break him.”

“Don’t you touch Jonah!”

“I didn’t want Aaron to die, Noa, but his death was the only way I could break Jonah.”

Samel spoke almost sweetly, almost endearing, “You are so special, Noa, help us bring Jonah to peace. Help us bring this world to peace.”

Lilli twisted a match between her fingers, she held it up, “The revenge you seek is like perfume to me. No one will ever understand you like I do.”

“Revenge,” this spark of an odd desire had me wanting to join her. I understood her choices, I understood her reasoning and how to her and me it made so much sense. Revenge was this language that sounded sweet, it sounded like music. It’s what made the beasts inside of me sing, it carried this purpose within me that drove me deeper into my sea of wrath. 

But so many had to pay with their lives in the pursuit of revenge and that’s what’s so misguiding about it. You hurt so much more than your target, you blindly destroy everything in your path thinking vengeance will give you sight.

I gave them my answer, “Never.”

Samel folded his arms, “Fine, then we will cleanse this school.” 

The mood quickly became even darker as Samel sunk into his shadow. The majority of students began to scatter back to the halls, a couple dozen students remained still pinning me down. Hastily the student body divided itself into each hall and closed the doors behind them, one person remained in the front, tightening the handles with twine. And other students remained in front of each of the five hall doors, carrying a red jug in one and hand a match in the other. 

Lilli sighed dissatisfied, “You could have been a god.” 

“I could have been many things.”

She scrunched her face in confusion and gave a signal with the match in her hand. The students spilled the jugs as, what smelt like gasoline, cloaked the floor. They all held up their matches. She held up the match in front of my face as the liquid from the jugs touched my knees. 

“This is all your fault.” 

She struck the match against her jeans, it lit, she then dropped the match, setting the school ablaze.