The Reaper's Mission- 2013

Prologue- The Ilibris Hall

"Where are you headed next?" Harken asked from behind me. I shrugged, scanning through the list of deaths taking place in the next three months. Harken looked over my shoulder as I read the names and locations listed in front of me. I'd been everywhere in my three hundred years of reaping, and the only hard part of the job anymore was choosing the next location to go for each assignment.

"You choose for me," I said with an irritated groan. "There are downsides of having this ranking you know." I was a Fell Reaper, the highest ranking of Reapers in the Underworld, and one of Death's personal favorites, which meant that I only had to reap one soul every two years and that I got to choose my own assignments. As prestigious as it was though, it lost its splendor over time.

"You're mad because you get to choose?" Harken asked. "I have to go and spend three weeks on an assignment in the middle of the Sahara desert, only to have to reap some old geezer to Hell, and you get to choose wherever you want to go and settle down for two years if you choose."

I shrugged, scanning through more possible assignments.

"Whatever," was all I replied with as I adjusted the knobs on the Ilibris. Harken was one of my better friends in the Underworld, but sometimes his insistence that I was the luckiest Reaper around drove me up the wall. If he'd seen the things I had seen...

Ignoring my bout of irritation, I narrowed down my searches to a female going to heaven in the next five months and hit the list button. The sand inside the Ilibris, a giant glass dome containing all reaping information for all of time, cleared, and then swirled and shifted to form words fitting my search.

"Always the girls..." Harken mumbled. I grinned crookedly as I read my new, refined list of possibilities. "You're nuts, Donovan."

"They're much more of a challenge," I explained, watching the sands shift when I requested another page of names.

"Why in the next five months though, when you could settle down for two years?"

I glanced at Harken for a moment before returning my gaze to the Ilibris.

"I get stir crazy," I said honestly, though there was more I wasn't sharing. Harken didn't need to know all about my fear of getting attached to places though; he had enough on his mind with his upcoming Rank Trials. "What about her?" I pointed to a name, Nicoma or something, a little ways down the list. Harken shrugged.

"Death by allergy attack? That seems dreadful." I agreed and continued scanning before refining my search one last time.

"Her?" I asked again, motioning to a new choice.

"Karolyn Grace Winters, Burlington, Vermont, death at age eighteen by suffocation, Reaper death," he read off, pausing at the last. "You prefer Reaper deaths?"

"I don't mind them," I told him nonchalantly. "You have to watch them die anyways. Why not be sure that their death was a painless one?" Reaper deaths, in truth, weren't actually my favorites, but most Reapers didn't have the heart to kill their assignments themselves and still be able to sleep at night, so I tried to take on one about every three assignments I picked.

"I just don't get why we have to do them at all," Harken said, and I glanced at him sideways, remembering that he was still very new to Reaping, having only been on the job for about thirty-six years.

"Because the worlds are overflowing as it is, remember? If we didn't do it some of the time, bad things would happen. And you know if we don't carry them out, people that should have died according to Fate could change things for the worse." I recited to him what I'd been reciting to myself for centuries to justify the practice, hoping it'd do him some good. "Plus, Fate knows what's best for the general well-being of the universe, and we have to trust her whether we like it or not. You know this."

Harken shrugged and looked away, but said nothing else on the matter.

"Have it your way," he said, and reached over my shoulder to turn a knob on the Ilibris. The sands shifted and moved to form the shape of a girl of around eighteen with curly hair slung up into a long ponytail and slightly pointed, yet elegant features. She seemed to be sculpting something out of clay, but it was hard to tell with the sand. Harken turned the knob again to show a mark of her location on the map of the US.

"Why high school?" Harken wondered aloud, referring to the undercover position I would be holding in the time leading up to my assignment's death.

"It's amusing," I spoke honestly as I read about where I'd be going to school in the Ilibris sands. "High school and college both. It's amusing to see how wrong the teachers and professors get history. Plus, it's just easier than working a job. I can screw off and skip if I want this way. You can't so easily slack off with a job you're supposed to keep as a cover, but students are expected to skip class."

My friend rolled his eyes at this and let out an amused snort of laughter.

"It's nice that you became a Reaper young enough to have that option," Harken noted. "I didn't start reaping until I was thirty-two, so unless I was undercover as a substitute teacher..." He trailed off with a chuckle, most likely trying to imagine himself himself as a teacher and failing to find it plausible. "Anyway, it just seems funny, going to school when you've lived three-hundred odd years."

"I enjoy the irony," I joked, and Harken laughed.

"Like I said before; you're nuts." We were both quiet for a moments then, watching the gentle flow of the sand in the Ilibris as it shaped itself to show the earth. The sand showed the shape clearly, but it was always shifting and flowing in an oddly soothing manner.

"Well, her it is then," I said after a moment of watching. I spun a knob to mark that the assignment was taken, and turned around. "Karolyn Winters, here I come."

"I hope Vermont is ready," murmured Harken, who was still leaned against the Ilibris. I grinned wickedly and headed towards the arched doorway leading from the Ilibris Hall.

"Oh come on," I called over my shoulder. "Who wouldn't be ready for all of this?" Harken snorted but didn't otherwise respond, and I rolled my eyes. "I see how it is. See you in a few months."

"See you around," Harken called back, before turning to the Ilibris himself. I smiled at my energetic friend before turning to exit the Ilibris Hall.

Another day, another mission.

---

So for those who have read my other books, you'll find this one is very different (and for those who haven't, welcome to my books!). For starters, this one will be shorter. It is being written in four parts about 20k words each (between a third and fourth the length of a standard novel). It is also paranormal romance, and a tad bit younger aged than my others (I recommend ages 12 and up for this, as opposed to around 17 and up for the Rough Love Novels). It's got a very different feel, and the characters are uniquely different as well. But it's fun all the same :)

This was initially a test run of the series to see if I wanted to publish it, but idk if I ever will, after reading through it again. It may just be a fun little thing on Wattpad. Still, please please please let me know what you think, and if you have any criticism (I promise I can take it). With that being said...

Thanks all :)

-Haybails

PS. I wrote this book (at least the first two parts of it) in 2013, so the writing and characters will reflect a much younger version of my writing style. I will mention that it is a bit (very) cringey at times, but isn't gonna be riddled with mistakes or anything. I just had a less developed style then, and was writing it in early high school. So be warned! It's not going to be anything close to the Rough Love Novels, but it probably won't be the worst thing you've read on Wattpad either.