The Scythe-Bearer

Chapter 1: Dear Old Granny

I can’t breathe, smoke thick smothers the air. The heat melts everything around me; my blood boils within my veins, my undefined tears evaporate from my eyes. Everything is so painful but my screams echo into the darkness without reaching anyone’s ears. Then the pain stops and I see walls of red, orange flames, in the middle of the inferno stands a woman with hair of fire. She looks sad and out stretches her arms towards me, my body erupts with a sense of longing and my arms desperately reaches towards her but something forcibly pulls me away. An unfamiliar face unveils, I feel intense dark feelings rise up from the pit of my stomach. Then nothing…the darkness covers my sight, cold and lonely without a sound. Safe and secure darkness…

I open my eyes to the familiar night sky speckled with white stars that infinitely glow a bright beacon towards the Earth almost like a buoy out in the vast ocean of space, a comforting sight to my awakened state. I sighed, “The same dream again...”

I sit up and stretched, feeling my back pop back into place

“Sleeping under a tree does wonders for a back” I thought sarcastically.

I ran a hand through my unruly dark hair which is now knotted with twigs from my adventurous sleep. I look up at the sky which now, from the east, started to brighten with the rising of the sun. I watched the dark being chased from the sky by the impending light and thought, “Another long day…”

As I stood up and ruffled my black jacket and jeans to clear some of the dirt, I felt a painful familiar tug at my frontal lobe. I sighed, “Time for work”

I summoned my Grim with a wave of a hand and watched as a new name materialized on the page, Margaret Torbolt. I read the name and dissolved the Grim with a flick of my wrist. I thought about ditching this one but before I could even make a mind-dominated decision, a screech announced the arrival of Saku. My unwanted red-eyed strynx messenger looked at me expectantly.

“Well? You have a job to do, don’t you?”

He c****d his head for effect. I rolled my eyes and groaned.

“Can’t I just miss this one? I mean it’s an old woman, I am sure she is going up not down anyways.”

Saku fluffed up his blackened brown feathers, causing a few to fall to the damp grass, and sighed in irritation

“How many times must I tell you, Sy? If we don’t do our jobs then…”

I put up my hand and matched his irritation

“Yeah, Yeah, the souls won’t go in the right direction and get lost in Limbo. The sinners might stay amongst the living and cause death and destruction, etc, etc. Fine I get it, let’s just go and get it done.”

I turned and summoned a maroon portal by placing my palm on the olive tree’s trunk. Saku perched himself on my left shoulder, I grabbed a last look at the vastness of this landscape before disappearing into the portal.

Darkness enveloped me, safe and cold; the dark always put me at ease though I don’t know why exactly. My footsteps echoed through the passage way between portals, this place is a labyrinth riddled with lost souls and smokies. A smokie is a soul that hungers for other souls and other beings alike, they are not very particular about their eating habits as long it has a soul it will eat it. It’s name comes from their blacken hue that with every soul it ingests goes darker. Even now as I walk my memorized path, I hear the growls and grunts of smokies feasting on sinner souls that tried to escape hell into Limbo. I reached the portal in record time, not wanting to be next on the menu.

The white light blinded me for a few moments. As I adjusted my eyes I noticed that I was in a stupid hospital.

“What a surprise…” I thought glumly.

I hate hospitals because for one; I am always called here and the other is that there is always this pungent smell of chemicals that tries to hide the smell of death. Unfortunately it doesn’t, in fact for me, it enhances it. I pulled my jacket closer to my body and noticed I was in the lobby where there was a waiting room with families awaiting news of the loved ones and nurses with stacks of files, probably patient files. Everyone hustled and bustled around me, not noticing me standing in the middle of the lobby. This is due to cloaking magic I used earlier; I don’t want people asking questions that I can’t answer or quite frankly don’t want to answer. I picked up a file off a stack one of the nurses were carrying and opened it to read the status of my target. “Margaret Torbolt, age 75, Lung cancer” It seems to be a simple GPS job. Saku hooted in impatience, I placed the file on the desk and walked through the hallways to room 666, “Now that is quite ironic”. I opened the door to find dear old granny puffing on a cigarette without a care in the world, her hacking and sputtering between puffs echoed painfully through the room. I sighed and closed the door behind me; she noticed my presence and narrowed her tired eyes at me.

“Who’re you?”

I removed my hood as a sign of respect.

“I am the one who will pass judgment upon you once you leave this world.”

She blinked at my bluntness and laughed a hoarse laugh that shook her tiny frail frame.

“Yea sure hon and I am actually a singer.”

She lit another cigarette and took a long drag. I watched the grey smoke swirl from her lips into the air where it disappeared from sight before looking to the clock above her bed, “5 more minutes” A few moments went by and I found her looking intensely on my face which was kind of creepy even for someone like me.

“You know, hun, your eyes are somethin’ else. It’s like I can see right through them and see nothing but emptiness. They are so clear and blue just like the summer sky.” I just looked at her, stunned. I didn’t get ask what she meant because she began to sputter painfully, I moved into the corner to let the doctors and nurses rush to help the woman.

“It’s futile…2 minutes to go”

A bright flash to my right signaled the arrival of Michael Auras, an angel. I groaned outwardly.

“Out of all the angels they could have sent, they choose Michael?”

“Well now. If it isn’t Sy, still alive I see. Haven’t given up, have we?”

I looked at him, we stood at the same height but while he projected light from his body, I stood with a cloud of darkness surrounding me. We are polar opposites; he had golden locks while I had straight black hair with rivers of red shown only in sunlight. He walked towards me, fluttering his glowing wings as he did. I spared him no words and watched the predictable scene unfold.

Alarms beeping, panicking and the rough gasping of air from the woman on the bed, “5, 4, 3, 2…1” The doctors called it and the dear old granny’s soul appeared in front of us, confused. I took the position I always do and began the mundane procedure.

“Margaret Torbolt, it is time to pass judgment upon you. We will weigh your sins and good deeds in order to decide whether you are going to be rewarded or damned for your life spent on Earth.”

With that Michael stepped forward and placed a gentle hand upon her brow. The air stirred and glowed as he analyses her good deeds by flicking through her memories. He stepped back and I stepped forward. I out stretched my arm and with the shifting of dark energy through my body, a long metallic scythe about the same height as me appeared in my right hand. When she noticed what I held in my hand her aura shifted to that of the colour of fear. I placed a comforting hand on her to show that wasn’t going to hurt her, she slackened and the colour resided back to normal.

“I, Sy, will now summon a circle of truth to assess your sins and according to that as the Scythe-Bearer will pass judgment upon your soul. May the scales of justice appear and begin the judgment.”

I lifted my scythe and smashed the end of it against the ground to open the grey circle which extended around the three of us. The circle began to glow then it harmonized with graceful sounds which meant dear old granny had atoned for her sins before she died, meaning I lose a soul… “Lucas is going to be pissed…”