My Soul to Reap (Archived)

Interview With A Reaper

In the silence, the sirens only got louder and closer. I took a gulp of breath.

"You're holding my soul hostage," I said, my mouth dry. The weight of it was almost unbearable.

"Well, not exactly," she brushed it off, like it was nothing. "Technically I can't help it. If I give you your soul back, what happened at that party tonight will only be the beginning." I stared at her in shock, watching her settle into the cushions and close her eyes against the assaulting noise of the police getting closer.

"Why the hell would that change anything? It's not like everyone with a soul gets attacked two times in one night!" I snapped. She shrugged.

"No, but souls that have been touched by reapers are different. More powerful, more desirable. Every single thing that has crawled out of hell in a fifty mile radius is going to gravitate towards your pretty. Little. Heart." she hissed, and I flinched. 

"Then why should I do anything for you? My life's just going to become a living hell either way." It was strange that, for all of humanity's self-preservation instincts, it was a lot easier to argue for my own death. "What good will it do?"

"Everything will be coming after you," she muttered. "So you learn how to kill the bastards." I ran my hand through my hair, not caring that the lingering hairspray was going to turn it into a wreck.

"I'll be a missing person." I said simply. I wasn't going to pretend no one would notice I was missing.

"Thousands of people go missing every day. What's adding one more to that number?" I blanched. "Those sirens aren't even for this one." She gestured vaguely to the girl on the floor. "'Isabelle Carter, nice girl, promising future, dead in some guy's apartment because she made a few bad moves. She's a missing person too." She said it so flippantly that I had to remind myself how very real the girl's life had been. "The world will keep turning, Camille." Hearing my full name sounded strange, but it made the point. I didn't really have a choice in this.

"So what do you want me to do?" I sighed, forcing the stiffness out of my limbs and lying back. 

"You're human, and in my world human means frail and breakable." I tried not to take it as an insult, but it stung a little anyways. "I want you to get close, make them trust you, and then rip them to shreds." A smile ghosted across her face. The sirens passed below us, oblivious to whatever crime had taken place here not too long ago.

"Why?" It was the only question left to answer at this point. She'd done everything to dispel my disbelief about the situation. But if she was a grim reaper, then why on earth was she sitting in some dingy apartment talking to a dead girl?

"Because," she said slowly, thoughtfully. "Hell is falling to shit, and Heaven isn't doing much better. Things that should be kept in line are running wild, and no one gives a shit because you humans die every day anyways."

"You don't seem to care much either," I muttered under my breath. She chose to ignore it.

"But karma is a heartless bitch. Trust me, I've felt it. If we leave you on your own, we're fucked ourselves."

"So you pick some random girl to go hunt monsters with you," I finished for her, momentarily forgetting the giant weapon she could expertly wield that was sitting unsheathed in the corner. 

"No." She shook her head, but she was grinning like a skull. "I picked you."