Tales from the Reapers Scythe

Birth and Death

Reapers. They roam this world to do one job, take the souls of the dead and send them onto the afterlife. No one knows what they look like, unless you somehow defy death and manage to tell the tale.

Yet the assumption of what they look like is very much ingrained into the human psyche. The stereotype of a skeletal figure with burning red eyes, draped in black robes and holding a rickety Scythe, is the image that most mortal beings perceive death. It is one reason why many people fear the inevitable, the idea that they soon would have to face this being that is straight out of a horror novel, however as gothic and as sinister as the image of death seems, it couldn't be any further away from the truth.

The narrative of a reaper being skeletal was far fetched and impossible. The basic rules of human biology states that in order for limbs to move, muscles would need to contract and relax in order to move tendons and ligaments and all the working mechanisms needed to move, say an arm. Without those fundamental elements the skeletal structure could not physically function and so the mythical depiction of a reaper is absurd, illogical and false. In fact the whole narrative is false.

Reapers are in fact quite the opposite to what we have been told, they are living breathing beings with exceptional skills and powers. Their life spans far exceed that of our own and there is more than just one. They hide in plain sight, blending in with their surroundings. You wouldn't know who they are or what they look like because we're so used to keeping our eyes open for the image that has been drilled into us for hundreds of years. A reaper could be sitting next to you right now, they could be on the train, on the bus or even in the taxi, they could be anywhere but you won't know it until it's your time.

Because of mankind's lack of knowledge, little is known about the world of reapers, there are only stories told around campfires to scare children and many interpretations created by authors who are fixated with the world of fantasy.

So how is it this author knows so much about reapers? Through research? Through events in history? Through an experience?

No.

Try being one.

Now, with that Bombshell aside, let's focus on telling the story of one Reaper in particular.

On the 6th of August 1945 an Atomic bomb known as the "Little Boy" was dropped over Hiroshima, Japan. It killed a hundred and twenty six thousand civilians, three days later another atomic bomb known as the "Fat Man" was dropped over Nagasaki, killing eighty thousand civillians. Most people remember Hiroshima due to the number of deaths and the devastating impact of the "Little Boy" but not everyone tends to remember Nagasaki, ironic really as this is where the tale of our reaper begins.

No one could have prepared for the devastation that hit, no one was informed and no one was evacuated. Life continued as it was on the 9th August, schools continued to teach, businessmen continued to work and hospitals continued to treat patients. All of that changed at one minute past eleven that morning. The fat man dropped over Nagasaki industrial valley and the island of Kyushu was thrown into chaos, people were killed almost instantly, those who managed to survive suffered horrific injuries. Medical facilities were badly dislocated due to the bombings and a makeshift hospital was set up in a primary school in order to treat the scores of casualties that were being rushed in for treatment. The medical staff worked tirelessly through the night, trying to save lives despite their own exhaustion. They had seen everything. Every gruesome and gory case that was wheeled through the doors.

All but one.

It was one in the morning when a family of villagers pulled up at the school, they arrived on a horse and cart and what lay in the cart was covered in blood stained potato sacks. The noises coming from the sacks were otherworldly and frightening to the family that wheeled this apparent patient in. The father walked round to the cart, nervously unhinged the tailgate and allowed two nurses to slide out the makeshift stretcher.