What Lurks in Her Eyes

Chapter One: Donovan

He nods.

"Okay, here it goes."

A black mist swirls around the boy. He laughs as it tickles his skin and curls around his body. He looks up at me in awe before the black mist surrounds him completely. When the mist vanishes, he is gone.

I'm glad that's over with.

I turn my eyes to the scene once more, and I see that the girl who caused all of this has been taken away in the ambulance. Shame that two lives had to be taken tonight for her careless mistake. What a waste of good life.

I watch as the paramedics perform CPR on the other woman they pulled out of the burning car. Her name is next on my list, so I know that she is too far gone to save. Her body is battered and bloody, too. Glass is everywhere and shards of it protrudes from her skin.

I stand there and watch as she takes her last breath. Her heart slows and eventually comes to a stop, and amidst the chaos, her soul appears next to her body. She looks around, and unlike her grandson, she is able to comprehend what has happened.

When she sees me, her eyes widen.

But she does not move.

Instead, she stands still as she lets me approach her.

She doesn't say anything but continues to look at the scene with sad eyes.

"It is time to leave." I say quietly.

"I understand. Did you take my grandson, too?" She asks.

All I do is nod, and she understands. I let the mist take over her body, and she continues to stare at the mass destruction in front of her until she disappears with the mist.

I sigh and pull the hood back over my head. But then I hear slow clapping and I roll my eyes. I don't even have to look to know who it is.

"You're cute when you talk to the dead, you know that?" Greyson, the goofy reaper who has been with me since day one. He also happens to be serving as a reaper the same months as I.

So we run into each other from time to time.

He's also my best friend.

I turn around to meet him and he flips some tendrils of his dark grey hair out of his face. He smirks at me and approaches me.

"Don't you have a job to do?" I ask, bored of this conversation.

Greyson shrugs. "It's lunch break. You went overtime here," He says, looking around at the carnage and destruction around him, "I knew you were still doing a job. You always take a long time."

Oh....

Even though it is very late at night in the human world, reapers run on a different clock. Lunch depends on what time it is in Hades, not what time it is in the human realm.

And the lunch isn't atual food. Since we are reapers, we are in our spirit forms, which don't need food. We do, however, need energy to keep our abilities intact.

So we eat and drink a special protein called Thulous. It looks like meat but it's more bland and boring.

"Shouldn't everyone be respectful to the souls we collect?" I ask.

Greyson nods. "Yes, they should. But you're over there whispering sweet things to that kid. Not that there's anything bad about that, though. It's cute." He says, chuckling.

"Shut up."

He laughs and we eat lunch that is served by the Hades council. Hundreds of reapers gather about, eating wherever they choose to. Everyone knows the rules so they all know to go back and collect souls once they're finished.