Nearafter (D.E.A.T.H. bk. 1)

Chapter Eleven: [Ethan]

Warning! This chapter includes sensitive content related to the topic of self-harm. Please be careful and be advised.

Ethan, JT, and Gretchen all arrived at a small apartment complex in downtown Alliston City just as the sun was coming up. Early morning light spilled out over the tops of buildings and down into the already congested avenues, bathing the entire city in a celestial glow. Ethan stared directly into the sun, unblinking, because technically he did not really exist. Now he was a ghost. He held his hand up and the beams of light passed completely through him, reminding him of the fact that he was no longer alive. He missed the feeling of heat on his skin. Already, he missed the taste of food, the feel of the wind in his hair and the smell of breakfast in the morning.

"It's the small things that you start to miss," JT said. He was standing next to Ethan on the sidewalk, and Ethan wondered, not for the first time, if the young reaper was reading his mind. He smiled at Ethan. It was not too often that he saw a reaper smile. Until then, Ethan had thought that all reapers were glum, joyless paper pushers, bogged down by an eternity of bureaucracy and protocol. The smile was some meaningful measure of reassurance.

"There's something I don't see very often anymore," Ethan said.

"What?" JT asked.

"A smile," Ethan said. "A laugh. Anything remotely happy."

JT shrugged.

"What can I say - reaping is a crap gig. We're the janitors of the afterlife, bro," he said.

"We...?" Ethan checked. "I'm not a reaper," he said.

"Not yet," JT replied. He looked to the sky one last time before catching up with Gretchen, who'd been waiting impatiently near the front steps, inside the building.

Ethan followed or tried to, anyway. The door, which was closed, refused somehow to let him through. And then a hand, JT's hand, passed through the door to grab Ethan by the elbow and pull him inside. Passing through was only slightly less jarring than it had been the first time. Ethan's head still spun. He'd been meaning to ask what all that was about, but first he had other questions. JT and Gretchen were already making their way to the second floor, when Ethan caught up them.

"What do you mean, 'not yet'?" he asked JT.

"As in not now, but soon," JT replied. "Why do you think Aiden sent you along with us?" he asked him. Ethan didn't know. He hadn't really thought about it until now.

"He said he wanted me out of the Department while they- the higher-ups, I guess- until they decide what to do with me," he said.

JT suppressed a snort of laughter, and Gretchen shook her head.

"What?" Ethan demanded. But they didn't say anything.

They were now making their way down a depressing hallway on the second floor. The lights in the hall were dim and flickering. A few had already gone out, casting the entire floor under a sad blanket of gloom.

"This is the kind of place that breeds the krawl," JT said to Gretchen. She just nodded. "Thank God it's morning," he said.

They turned a corner down a similar hall; dim, flickering lights, off-colored yellow paint peeling from the walls, with the thin carpet covered in dark stains and torn in places. Ethan wondered what or who they were here for.

"They wanted you to see how the job's done," JT told Ethan, while they traversed the gloom of the miserable hallways. "That's why they sent you along," he said. Ethan shook his head. It didn't make sense. Well... it made sense, but it didn't.