Daughter of the Night

Part 1

Everybody dies. It's the only sure thing in life.

Well that and taxes.

And even though death is a surety, you never know how or when it is going to come for you.

But I know more than the average Joe does about what comes next. What I can tell you is that when mortals die, there is a twenty-four hour transitionary period, which I suppose is a kind of 'limbo', although that term isn't entirely accurate. During the twenty-four hours, each soul must await and undergo a process of judgement called The Weighing, where a judiciary body determines where you will spend the afterlife. Though a large majority of humans would perceive the two domains of the afterlife as Heaven and Hell, the supernatural community refers to them simply as Above and Below. This way, issues of religion amongst humans are avoided.

The final judgement is called the Resolution, and once a soul's fate has been Resolved, they are ferried to either Above, Below or even to Asphodel by a Reaper. And I've been a Reaper for nine generations now.

"NOOOO! I won't go down there! Please! PLEASE?! Don't send me down there!" A man to my left screamed, frantically trying to escape the grip of the two escorts who were transporting him Below. Two men, almost as wide as they were tall, held the screaming man's upper arms, their hands constricting him like a boa. I refused to make eye contact with the man I'd reaped today, not wanting to acknowledge his futile pleas for help. His fate had been Resolved by three independent judges who had performed The Weighing, and they had decided he was destined for Below. The Weighing had taken place in one of many, and by many I mean thousands, of adjudication rooms, simply furnished with a long, rectangular white marble table matched with three identical throne-like chairs for the judges, a small lounge chair for the Reaper at the back of the room, and an even smaller single white chair in the centre of the room for the reaped soul. I had sat up immediately after the verdict had been reached and the judges had hastily left the room. The second they'd made their way out the white door at the very far end of the room, the man I'd reaped had initiated screaming at me and pleading.

Though the room we were in wasn't particularly frightening (except for its extremely bland colour scheme of white, white and more white), when a soul finds out they're heading Below, things tend to get pretty scary, pretty fast. All the souls I've tended to that have been Resolved for Below always have intense reactions when they learn that's where they're going. But this guy was being ridiculous.

My most recent reaping was turning into a melodramatic scene from a mortal soap opera. Richard Morten, a motorcycle mechanic from Wilmington, Delaware, was being especially difficult, and was pleading with me to save him from Hell. But his pleas for help were falling on deaf ears. Even if I wanted to do something for him, there was no way I could. This man was a despicable specimen of humanity and he deserved every bit of punishment he was going to get. And as a neutral agent, I couldn't do anything, anyway – I'd be breaking every rule in the Reaper book. And this guy was not worth even thinking about helping let alone doing.

Next to me, Richard continued his pleading, while I leant against the white wall (surprise, surprise), inspecting my fingernails for dirt.

"I'll do anything! Please?" he begged. There wasn't going to be any dirt under my nails. Adjudication rooms were clean as clean can be. Besides, I was ruthless about hygiene. Bored, I turned to Richard, deciding to mess with him a little before he was taken downstairs. He was already destined for an afterlife of eternal punishment, so why not start now?

"Anything?" I asked him. I see a look of desperation in his eyes and a smirk cross the face of one of his escorts. He knew as well as I did there was nothing he could do that would save him now. His fate and been decided and it wasn't going to change.

"Yes," Richard proclaims. "Please, I don't want to go to Hell." Relief flushed his features, thinking he may have saved himself. Fat chance.

"It's called Below, sweetie," I said, reminding him that we don't use the word Hell, "and stealing money from charities that is meant for kids with cancer earns you a nice little spot down there." I looked to his two burly escorts. "Get him out of here," I instructed them. They escorted Richard out of the room, kicking and screaming. I walked forward a few steps so I could watch the three of them enter the elevator across the hallway. As the elevator door closed, I saw a dejected look on Richard's face.

That's right, I thought, accept your fate.

Acceptance makes the journey to Below much easier. You don't want to spend your last moments before an eternity of punishment throwing a tantrum like a two-year old in a supermarket, because that'd be just sad, really.