Sam Walker and the Grim Reaper Services (ONC 2021)

1 - The GRS

Sam was having a bad day before he got the letter.

After a long day of struggling through math and engineering classes, he headed to the parking garage, grumbling to himself. Between what he regarded as his abject failure to master differential equations and a quiz in his statics class looming tomorrow afternoon, Sam was tired and annoyed and fed up. It was time to go home and forget the day with some sitcom droning in the background while he tried to understand the life choices he had made that had got him to this point.

Sam glanced up, reading the floor number on the parking garage and headed up to the spot where he had left his car. The old blue Volvo sat there, looking as dejected as Sam felt, but there was nothing for it; the car was the only thing he had to get him back and forth to school.

Tossing his backpack into the passenger seat, Sam slumped into the car and jammed his keys into the ignition. He hoped Jake, his roommate, had remembered to go grocery shopping today. With only one class in the afternoon on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Jake had plenty of time to get his work done and pick up something frozen for dinner before Sam got out of his last class of the day at five thirty. Besides, he owed Sam for the last time he had done his shopping for him.

Sam hit the dial for the radio as he pulled out of his parking space, but flipping through the channels revealed all of them had decided to go to commercial at the same time. Typical, Sam groused as he reached for one of the CD cases he kept in his car. Popping open the case and retrieving the CD for Billy Joel's Turnstiles, Sam carefully slid the disc into the radio as his car rolled down the ramp, turning for the exit.

The disc clicked in the radio before sliding back out. Annoyed, Sam pushed the disc back in before pulling out of the garage and onto the road. The radio only spat the disc out again.

"Really?" Sam questioned, steering with one hand as he pulled the disc out and secured it back in its case. Tossing it onto the floor, he picked up the closest case at hand and groaned when he saw the cover. "Damn you, Jake!"

Jake, a self-proclaimed emo who Sam suspected was only faking, had left his Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge album in the car after their recent weekend trip to watch an away game for their football team. Their team had lost and, to make matters worse, Sam had had to endure My Chemical Romance for the entire drive back to their apartment.

But it was either that or the radio commercials, so Sam slid in the CD.

Ten minutes later, Sam pulled into the parking lot of his apartment complex and parked his Volvo, pulling the CD out of the slot and taking the case with him when he got out of his car. Jake probably hadn't even missed the CD – he only listened to his music on Spotify, but due to Sam's car being too old for Bluetooth, Jake had grumblingly purchased a couple secondhand CDs for road trips, since he refused to listen to Sam's music the entire way. Their other roommates didn't care, either way.

"Your music tastes are those of an old man," Jake had told him insultingly.

"Better than those of an imposter emo," Sam had shot back.

Slinging his heavy backpack over his shoulder, Sam trudged down the sidewalk and scanned his card at the door, letting himself into the foyer of the apartment building. Two flights of stairs and much internal grumbling later, Sam found himself standing before his door, apartment 302, home to him, Jake, Marcus, and Raj.

"Hey," Marcus greeted as Sam trudged in, tossing his backpack on the floor by the couch and placing Jake's CD on the coffee table as the tall athletic guy looked up at him, a video game controller in his dark hands. "How're those differential equations treating you?"