My Soul to Reap (Archived)

The Shining

At some point in our descent out of the building, I'd glanced at a clock that announced it was three in the morning. I didn't feel nearly as tired as I should, although the general lack of people, even in this part of town, was enough to tell me that I hadn't read the time wrong.

"Okay, now where are we going?" I didn't know if I could handle any more surprise corpses.

"Relax, we're heading to my place." I stumbled a little and hoped she didn't notice. Somehow that didn't quite make me relax. I kept my head down as we walked, but it turned out we didn't have to go far. The girls lining the streets with painted-on youth slunk back when we walked past. Not even five minutes from the dead girl's- Isabelle's- apartment, we stopped and entered another building. This one was cleaner, a narrow thing wedged between a bar and an all but innocent-looking store. It stood two storeys tall, with long, thin windows glowering at the streets below. The door was unlocked.

Brie walked inside easily, but I found myself following a little more slowly. This was a grim reaper's house, and from the girl's own appearance I expected to find antique pianos and skulls. But I didn't. Instead there was only a pale green foyer, with a coat rack that she quickly took advantage of. I stood awkwardly, grasping my right forearm with my left hand, and curling into myself. The house seemed normal so far, but I wasn't taking any chances. I slid off my flats as she kicked off her heels, and the silence of the house was deafening. She regarded me for a second before turning and padding up the stairs that I hadn't even bothered noticing before. When she'd faced me I'd finally seen the skull pattern on her shirt, and I wasn't entirely sure if it was a joke or not. I almost slipped on the laminated wood, my thin tights not doing much for my traction. When we crested the stairs I again expected a macabre scene I didn't get. It was just more of the same, a short hallway that was punctuated by three wooden doors. It seemed a little impossible for this thin house to have that many rooms going one way, but then again if she lived alone she wouldn't really need a large house. Brie walked towards the one on the farthest to the right. I followed, again worried about what was happening. But I didn't let it stop me from walking into the room.

It felt almost good to know that the image I had of Brie would match up with the image of her house at some point.

The room was spacious enough, taking up more space than I thought possible in the narrow building. It looked like two different time periods had exploded all over her walls. The lights were low, so I couldn't quite tell if the walls were brown or red. But what I could see was a blooming black flower pattern repeated over the walls, the elegance broken up by frankly disturbing and bloody modern art pieces framed like the work of old masters. Although it surprised me that a grim reaper would need to sleep at all, she did have an impressive white canopy bed, the actual sheets a rich purple trimmed with gold. The rest of the room was a mess of dark wood tables and doors, scattered with knives and glass jars. There were books and papers everywhere, ranging from yellowing and leather-bound tomes to sheets that looked like they'd been printed off yesterday. It was probably fair to say that it looked like the Victorian era had vomited on a punk's room. It felt very Brie. When the girl walked into the room, the lights flared to reveal that they walls were brown and that there were at least a hundred candles scattered around the room. I wanted to roll my eyes, but the casual way she flicked off the bracelets and propped the scythe up against her bed made me realize with a jolt exactly how screwed I was if she wanted to turn on me. Brie stopped at the bed and jumped onto it, rolling on her stomach to face me. She eyed me up and down, and I suddenly felt like a lamb being led to the slaughter.

"You tired?" She asked, and after a second of self-evaluation I shook my head. "Good. You can sleep when you're dead." She rolled over again and slid off the bed, walking towards one of the five doors in the room and leaving me to trail behind. "Then we can start training now. You'll need new cloths though, since it's pretty hard to fight in a dress." I frowned and stopped dead.