The Awakening of a Soul Reaper

Chapter 19. A transformation

POV Clarise

Its Saturday morning, the fresh morning sun rays chases away the darkness in Clarise's room.  She wakes up laying thinking in bed what she is going to do today, she wants to go and explore more of the abandoned part of the city but also the zoo.  She picks out a pair of loosely fitted jeans with a dark green t-shirt, with some comfortable sneakers.

She makes herself a nice breakfast with small port rushers, scrambled eggs with a couple of slices of toast, with some mango juice.  She also packs herself a lunch in her backpack expecting not to be back by that time with a couple of bottles of water.

On her way to the abandoned part of the city she decides that she is going to walk through the back allies, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention to her.  She wants to go and explore the zoo on her own for two reasons.  One she wants to go and investigate the ghost that she saw and maybe help him and tow she also need to find another place where Ignus can train her.

Reaching the metal fence gates that marks the border to the abandoned part of the city she stands still looking over her shoulder.  She can hear one of the metal plates banging against the fence as the wind plays with it, but that is all that see sees and hear, she steps through.  Am I going to take the same route as yesterday or am I going to try another route?  If I take the route, I took yesterday then I know plus minus where to go and where I can hide if something happens, however I’m in the open since it was the main road of this part of the city, if I take one of the lower streets, I might be less visible but I don’t know where to run to if something happens, she thought to herself.   She decides to go down one block and take the street, she is there to explore.  This street is much narrower but the layout is basically the same as the other street, old business offices and small shops lays side to side in ruins.  At one of the old buildings, she sees a guy with a hoody busy to spray paint some symbols on a wall, when he notices her, he disappears around another corner.  She feels a bit scared now, it feels like she is being watched, she keeps on looking over her shoulder and start to increase the pace at which she walks.  I know I can take anyone that tries to harm me but still… she thought to herself.

Reaching the end of a couple of blocks she sees a place where she can go through to the parking aria of the zoo, she climbs through the hole and makes her way to the entrance of the zoo.  The faster I get inside the faster I can disappear she thought to herself racing inside, her backpack catches a peach of metal of the gate, she pluck’s her backpack and the piece of metal breaks lying in the patch behind her.

She walks into the zoo and take the path on the right to go towards the bear enclosure.  She decides that she is first going to try and catch her breath sitting with her back against a wall taking a sip of water. She looks up at the sun’s rays dancing through the openings of the tree canopy as the wind passes between the leaves.  She hears a loud sound trembling through the zoo, it sounds like metal hitting metal.  She scatters towards a wall and peeks over it, after a while she can see what looks like a man running and hiding behind the wishing fountain.  Staring at it she decides to make a run for it, and if need be, to change into her reaper cloak “no one is going to mess with me” she whispers.  She turns around and starts to run deeper into the zoo.  She hears the sound of leaves cracking behind her, she concentrates and a cloak starts to form around her.  She runs and she suddenly out of the corner of her eye she can see a man’s, she feels the hand on her shoulder, at that moment she runs through a ripple into the veil…

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POV Tyler

Tyler decides to go and surprise Clarise, he discovered that she loves white creamy chocolate.  He bought her strawberries that is covered in white chocolate.  He feels bad for the previous day, something just dint feel right at the zoo.  When she stood there saying “I will come back for you” it made him feel unease and then it felt like she lied to him, what did she see, I didn’t see anything… On his way to her, he sees her coming out of her street not wanting to shout at her because he wants to surprise her, he keeps quiet, but then instead of walking into the city she turns away.  Now where is she going? He thought to himself.  She is walking the way to the abandoned part of the city; I hope she is not planning of going there alone he thought to himself.  He decides to follow her as inconspicuous as possible.

When she reaches the metal fence Tyler ducks behind a wall keeping an eye on her.  Doesn’t she know how dangerous this is to go alone in there; what is she thinking? He wonders.  He follows her down the street.  He tries to close the huge gap between them, running from wall to wall trying to keep out of sight.  He peeks around a corner and sees her looking at someone busy spray-painting some graffiti on a wall.  He gets ready to go and defend her buy he sees the person looking around and then disappearing round the corner of the wall and then up an alley.  He retreats, he can see she is now more aware of her surroundings, he starts limit his movement to the street and tries to move through open holes in the walls instead.

Reaching the end of the street he sees her going through a hole in a fence that must lead to the zoo.  He looks around “good no one is watching” he runs towards the fence and lies down on his stomach making a hole through the vegetation that has taken over the fence.  He can see her running into to zoo as she disappears behind the ticket booth.  He makes sure no one is watching and then he himself goes through the hole in the fence.

Sure, that she is hiding something from him, he follows her.  At the ticket booth he gives a quick peek around the corner and then he makes his way into the zoo.  At the gate he trips over a piece of metal lying in the path breaking it completely, it goes slamming against other pieces of metal of the metal fence lying at the side of the footpath.  “Well, she must have heard that!” he says disappointing to himself running and diving behind one of the old demolished shops.  Looking down at his foot that is now pulsing with pain he can see that the piece of metal punctured through his shoe and he can see a small amount of blood coming running from the opening.

He peeks around the corner and runs down behind the old demolished shops.  Leaning out from behind the wall he tries to peek but, there is no trace of her.  Crouched he lurks as he moves from shop to shop.  At the wishing fountain he dashes and hides behind it, the lush overgrown vegetation growing in the fountain provides decent cover for him.  As he looks through the vegetation, he catches a glance of Clarise who also tries to see who made the noise and took cover behind an old broken wall.  He sees she turns around and runs deeper into the zoo, he loses sight of her as she vanishes around a corner.  He gets up and starts to run in a crouched position into her direction.  Once he reached the wall where she took cover, he peeks over it, he only sees a person with a dark robe.  “Where did she go?” he whispers softly to himself.  Afraid that the person dressed in the cloak is going to harm her he runs towards the person, the person looks over their shoulder but he can’t make out a face.  The person starts to run, but he catches up to the person in no time, he reaches out and grabs hold of the person's shoulder.  Overwhelming pain shoots through his body as a huge amount of pressure and cold surrounds his body he falls to his knees.  He looks around him he sees the lush green environment turns dark, in an instant the trees have lost their leaves and they stand there planted in ashes.  The pain forces him to the ground.  He can hear what sounds like branches breaking but immediately realizes that it’s his own bones that he hears that is cracking and breaking in his body.  “WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME!” he calls out, looking up he sees a dark hooded figure standing in front of him, a dark red sky with swirling clouds creates an ominous background to the figure. He hears “What have I done?” and everything goes dark.

POV 3rd Person

Clarise stop and turns around she walks over to where the man that she dragged into the veil is lying on his stomach.  She can hear and see his bones braking as his body is changing.  The man looks up at her and she turns ice cold it’s Tyler! “What have I done?” she screams running to him and falling to her knees.  She tries to turn him around but he is very heavy and the way that his body is moving makes it impossible to move him.  “What is happening!” she asks out trying lift him again to see what is going on, but she can barely hold him.  Then everything goes quiet.  She can hear his breathing slowing down.  The skin on his arms turning rock-solid, it starts to crack open like dried mud they day after it has rained, his skin falls to the ground revealing underneath a light brown and light green reptilian like scales, his fingers narrowing and extending twice as long as they used to be with razor sharp talons. 

Her hand glide over his arms down to his hands, they are smooth and cold.

She looks at his face she can see it’s also transforming, tears rolling down her eyes “My love…” she does not know what else to say.  Looking at his face she can see his scull changing, it’s becoming more oval shape with a reptilian like mouth and nostrils at the front.  Small smoothed out scales running down his cheeks.  His eyes sitting higher up in his scull but more sunken in.

She sits there, knowing that the both of them are in danger bus she does not know what else to do.