A Dance With Death

|| Chapter 42 - Death ||

           

"You thought those chains would be enough to contain me?"

How is it that a voice can be so calm, so smooth, so soothing, yet so terrifying? Why is it that the air around me is gloomy and dull, yet so welcoming? Why is one part of me wanting to stay while the other is screaming, begging for me to run away? Something is holding on to me, something dangerous, but very important.

He's here. He's in this room. He's very near me.

I stand on my spot, my gaze fixated downwards, not daring to look up. My body is trembling and my thoughts are in chaos. Everything and everyone in this room has his aura; the aura of obscurity. I can feel a numbing pain because of my soul. It seems to be burning wildly inside me, opposing the iciness in the air. It is attracted to him. It wants me to let myself go.

This feeling of absolute terror is a lot worse than what I felt when Caius was around. I shouldn't be scared of him, but I am. Remember why we called him here. Don't forget the objective.

I can feel Dawn shaking beside me. I don't hear anything from the reapers. Through the corner of my eye, I can still see Althea kneeling, her body weak and wobbly.

"Millions of years of existence and never have I been summoned." His placid voice brings shivers to me yet again. I can't recognise the accent; I can't even recognise the tone. It's not human. Even his voice brings about his darkness.

I realise that there's no way I'll be getting out of this. I need to know more. With all the courage that is left in me, I look up. The reapers are in their place and everything is where it was before. Except, all of them are facing towards a bench behind Althea. Rather, they are looking at the person – or being – who is seated on the bench.

He's in front of me.

Every time that I'd hear of the Reaper, back when my life wasn't in the hands of a rogue power, I'd simply shrug it off, not thinking of the personified version of the end of life to be real. I thought of it to be nonsensical, really. It's supposed to be simple – you're born, you live your life, you die. There's no in-between, no soul-reaping . . . nothing. Yes, I believed in an afterlife, but I considered all stories about reapers to be . . . well, stories. Death was just a story.

And now realisation has hit me. All this time, he was just a myth to me. Even though the reapers talked of him, even though they were talking about him and Caius, even though they were preparing for the summon, a part of me didn't know whether to believe in his existence or not.

But now he's here. And one look can tell me that he is, in absolute truth, Death, the Grim Reaper.

It's not in the way he looks, with the face of a man well around forty dressed in a dark red suit and a tie. It's not in the way a few strands of his dark hair falls on his face. It's not in his thoughtful grey eyes and the light stubble over his concrete jawline. It's not in the way how his appearance is just like any other human being. But it's in the way his face carries an unmoving paleness. It's the way he sits, how his body is upright, in an authoritative manner. It's difficult to read his face. There's neither a smile, nor a frown.

He is nothing like what I imagined Death to be like.

Letting out a long sigh and shaking his head at the lack of response, he stands up to his massive height, his large frame making me even more intimidated. As soon as he does, the air around us changes yet again. Something stirs in the reapers and they kneel down, their knees thudding softly against the floor, their heads low, as if showing respect to him. Not wanting to be the only one standing, I do the same.