The Seven Faces of Death

The Grim Reaper

The Grim ReaperHad it worked? Was I dead?

I blinked, staring at the steps of white stone that had suddenly appeared beneath my feet – steps of… a church? I raised my gaze to the big, nondescript building that looked plain and lifeless, and yet intimidating. Big, wooden doors sat on top of the stairs I was on – and swung open soundlessly, though I hadn’t even moved.

Okay.

Where was I? I hovered on the stairs, not sure what I was supposed to do, but then I heard it – a sound. No, not a sound, music! A few notes trilled, then more, calling out to me, soothing me, inviting me into the building. It was one of these typical church songs, I noticed, played by an organ. Only there was more to it though, a strange, fascinating quality that I just couldn’t pinpoint...

Slowly, curiously, I drifted closer, then followed the music into the building, through another set of doors, past the bookshelves, and into the nave.

My chest fell at the sight of the interior. Because it was just as lifeless as it looked on the outside. The walls were grey stone, the wooden benches bare, and the cross behind the altar the only decoration… other than the pitch-black drapes that were hung around it. As if someone had died.

I shook my head, letting out a gust of air that turned into a cloud of mist. Churches. I didn’t even want to guess at how many hours I’d spent in those bare, ice-cold places like this, clinging to the preachers’ words, to anything that could help me find closure. Comfort. To find the reason behind this. But I hadn’t found either. That was why I was here.

I frowned, noticing for the first time that my breath… wasn’t supposed to puffed in the air. Because I wasn’t supposed to have a breath. Right? When I was dead?

I was dead, wasn’t I?

My frown deepened. But if I was dead, then this was obviously the afterlife – it did exist. But if so, then where was Amanda?

But if this isn’t the afterlife, a little voice whispered in my head. Then where am I?

The organ struck a new chord, and at least my least pressing question got an answer: the music.

I realized why it was so strange – there was compassion in it. Real, honest, raw emotion. And on top of that, the heart-shredding grief that had haunted me, the leaden resignation, the acidic, scorching bitterness that had shaped my life for the past year… But there was also a quiet joy in the play, and even worse, soaring hope.

Hearing this beautiful melody was a revelation, a hug when I needed one, an ode to humanity. And it brought tears to my eyes.

Suddenly, something shifted in my field of vision, and I blinked – there was a dark shape, right in front of the white stone block that was the altar, and it hadn’t been there a second before.

What the…

I stepped closer – since curiosity kills the cat – and from nowhere, new pain sliced through my chest like a knife in my heart.

Surrounded by wreaths of flowers and miniature toys lay a tiny coffin, the lid opened… to reveal the little boy on silks as black as starless nights. His hair was brown, close to mine, actually, and his face tense. He was pale… and young. Really young, he couldn’t be older than five. But even worse, the suit he was in was just a hint too big. As if his parents had bought it for him to grow into… And now he never would.

Anger slammed into me like a burning freight train, and I gritted my teeth to keep from screaming. I hated Death. I really, really hated Death, always had, always would. But right now, it was more intense than ever.

Why in the world would he rip this sweet, innocent child away from his family? Why?! This boy was supposed to grow up, to go to school and whine over Math exams, to get his driver’s license and take girls to prom! He was supposed to have a life – get a job, a nice house with a fence, tons of mortgages to worry about… he was supposed to build a family. With a dog who chased the mailman, children who bugged him for ice cream, and a wife who had him take out the trash.

He was not supposed to die when he was five – before he could ever experience what life was all about! What love and happiness even were!

“Why?!” I whispered, and suddenly, the organ’s music died mid-play.

“Because it was necessary.” The voice was like bones grinding on stone, edged with a dark cruelty that made shivers roll down my spine. I spun around to see…

My breath caught.

Sitting in the first row of the banks, he was just like pop culture described him: a grotesque accumulation by loose bones and naked joints held together by a billowing black cloak. Even sitting, the figure was huge – larger than life, I thought sarcastically – but the scythe in his left was even bigger than that.

Curved, chipped, and sharp enough to slice silk on water, there was a wicked, cruel glint to the blade that seemed to taunt me.

I’d once heard a story about the Grim Reaper, and though I barely remembered it, one detail had stuck with me: that one brush of his gigantic scythe alone ripped a soul straight from its body. A blow and it was shattered – so much that even hell had no use for it any longer. I’d never believed in that. But then, I’d never believed Death was a person – and look who was sitting right in front of me…

Icy coolness seemed to radiate from the scythe’s silver handle, and I dimly wondered whether that was a temperature thing or the chill to the bones you got when you realized you were going to die. But that was not by far the most terrifying thing about him.

No. The thing that scared the s**t out of me – was his eyes. Because he didn’t have any. His eyeholes were empty all except for two glowing orbs of blood-red fire that, though not having a pupil, seemed to burn themselves straight into my soul… with an icy, detached, analytical glance that seemed to see everything: my life. My death. My soul. And the life, deaths, and souls of everyone I’d ever met.

I couldn’t stop the shiver. And I couldn’t shut up the voice inside of me yelling to run, run, now!

But I didn’t come to flee from him – or to cower.

“H-how…,” I began huskily, somehow managing to make my voice work, though it sounded like sandpaper.

But the Grim Reaper didn’t answer. He just rose in one swift motion, until he towered a good foot over me, the billowing cloak parting to reveal his body. Or rather, the yellowed arcs of his hollow ribcage, the thin, harsh vertebrae of his spine, and the sharply cut pelvic cradle of bones that I never wanted to see on a moving being again.

I shuddered.

And the fabric of his cloak did, too, rippling in unsettling whispers long after he’d stilled. It was almost like it moved with a life of its own…

Sharp pain and bitterness flashed through me. Of course, I thought. Death steals life. The fucker destroys everything and everyone… the souls of these people are likely making that thing move.

Suddenly, my fear was replaced by anger.

“Why?” the words broke out of me. “WHY?!”

Thirteen months. I’d followed him, stalked him really, for thirteen months, all because he’d taken her from me. He’d taken my Amanda! And he hadn’t even let me follow her for thirteen terrible months!

The Grim Reaper didn’t seem to need me to say all of that out loud. Maybe he could read thoughts as well. Or maybe it was just obvious for him.

“I said it before,” the voice boomed again, rippling through the thick stones and echoing from the high, vaulted ceiling. But what really made me back off was seeing his naked, fleshless jaws – completely unattached to one another – move up and down in a clumsy dance.

You saw this kind of thing on TV all the time, but … yeah, in reality… different story. Way different story.

I snorted, only it came out as a whimper. “Because it was necessary, right?” I tried to taunt, not even knowing where I took the courage from – but then, I’d always been reckless. And right now, I wasn’t just reckless, I was angry.

“How in the world is THIS,” I pointed at the child’s body in its coffin. “Necessary? How is it FAIR? How,” I continued, my voice getting louder and louder with every new word as the Grim Reaper stood silently before me, as unmovable as a mountain and as cold as a grave. “Is it fair to rip the people we love away from us way before they’re ready to go? WHY?! How can you be so cruel?! Why do you even exist? WHY!” I drew in a shaky breath. “ANSWER ME!”

For a moment, those terrible, red holes of eyes fixed me as Death stayed quiet. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was giving me a chance to vent some more. But that couldn’t be the reason – that sort of thing required empathy, and a being like him simply didn’t possess that.

“WELL?” I demanded after another moment of silence.

“You’re not dead,” the Grim Reaper said finally. And his words ripped the cold and shiny ground from under my feet.

The church with all its spaciousness seemed to constrict around me, sucking out all oxygen. My knees buckled, and I hit the floor with a thud…

“But I can change that for you,” he continued, and just like that, I could breathe again. “You’re here, Mitch Jordan, to learn.”

My brows furrowed.

“Your entire life, you have ignored what’s right in front of you. You have made your existence a nightmare for you and your loved ones. You ignored the joy and the beauty you were given and threw all of life’s lesson back in her face.” The Reaper didn’t give me a chance to even think that through. “I’m disappointed in you.”

He? I almost laughed out loud. He was disappointed in me?

“So you will follow me to the site of seven deaths,” he continued, oblivious to my thoughts – or purposely ignoring them. “You will meet seven people, intimately, and learn the things you turned a blind eye to. And after that, I will fulfill your biggest wish: give you back the…” He paused, and I swore I heard mockery in the next groan of bones. “Love of your life.”

He giggled, pressing his free hand on the gap between his jaws in a gesture that was so out-of-place that I could just stare at him in horror. “If you only knew, Mitch, how ridiculous that term is. But you’ll learn.” With that, the Grim Reaper c****d his head to the side in a deliberate, predatory movement – and somehow, that was a relief. At least this fit to the way he looked. “What do you say, Mitch Jordan? Do you accept?”

I coughed, the sound echoing sharply as it was reflected from the cool walls. “I wasn’t aware I had a choice!” He sure hadn’t made it sound like it.

“You do.” The bloody red in his eyeholes flickered. “There is a lot more choices in death than people realize. In your case, you can choose to say No. Then I’ll send you back into the world – where you’ll try to kill yourself some more, end up in a padded cell, and die decades later of heart failure. Or…” he lifted his collarbone in a weird, deranged shrug that made me clutch my own shoulder protectively. “You can choose to be ready for what comes next for you.”

I swallowed. “That doesn’t sound much like a choice.”

Death sighed, the sound like wind whipping through hollow, rusty pipes. “Just get it over with.”

That, again, was… weirdly out of character. But I didn’t have the time to contemplate that. This offer he made… giving me Amanda back if I watched seven people die? That seemed macabre, but… it also seemed too easy. There had to be a catch somewhere. But what was the alternative? I’d tried to end it myself and failed – four times – so someone must be hell-bent on keeping me alive. So…

Wait a second, I corrected myself, It’s been five times. Not four, but five times... And with that, the memory I’d forgotten crashed into my mind again: cars honking, bodies flying through the air, the little boy…

Panic clutched my chest, and I couldn’t breathe. What had I done? What had I done! “The boy?” I croaked, horrified. “Did he follow me on the lane? Is he… is he alive?”

The Grim Reaper looked at me with dead, glowing eyes. “No matter what choice you make, Mitch Jordan, know that any and all answers you will get in this place you’ll have to earn.”

“Tell me if he’s alive and healthy, and then I’ll make a choice,” I breathed, begged, really.

But Death, naturally, didn’t care. “There are no negotiations in these realms,” he gave back indifferently. “There is just the truth. And the choice that I already gave you. Take it.” The Grim Reaper c****d his head back, the undying smile of his skull’s teeth gleaming in the red light of his eyes. “Or leave it.”

“Fine.” I croaked out. “But only…”

A loud BANG filled the air, and a gust of wind ripped at my scalp, blowing the Reaper’s cloak up like a set of midnight wings. “There is no but,” he interrupted, his voice snarling, and I could swear there was a smile on his face. “You said Yes.” His glowing abysses of eyes gleamed hungrily. “Time for your lessons to begin.”

And with that, he turned on his bony heel, the cloak shadowing his movement in a way no textile should be able to do according to physics.

“Come,” his command boomed as he strolled down the aisle. “And earn your answers.”

With shaky legs, I hurried to comply.

The First Death:

The Price You Pay