Rose Valley Shenanigans

Snow

It appeared to be snowing.

 Nine-hundred ninety-nine souls were drifting down, spreading a pale blue light. Strong enough to be visible even to the human boy, he and the demon were staring in wonder. It was a beautiful sight, to them.

To William T. Spears, it was a terrible, sad sight. His lips thinned in grief. Unnoticeable to all but his team collecting the souls, he stood behind the demon, looking at the two bodies. They laid against each other, blood covering the larger, black-blue marks the smaller. The marks mirrored a branching, climbing plant. Where they branched out like wide river deltas bruises appeared, covering the brunet. The blond man had a lot of blood covering him, still trickling out of his wounds.

The first thing William had done was casting a spell preventing them from rotting immediately- if they were dead. When a reaper lost their soul, the body nearly instantly disappeared... but the reaper manager had work to do, first. 

He came closer, watching. He waited. He waited for nearly twenty minutes, watching as close as he could- any sign of life. The tiniest flicker, the smallest gasp would make his job that much harder. As he waited, the fluttering strips of cinematic record died down and disappeared. One time he thought the brunette moved, but it was just the wind pulling on his stained collar.

Finally, William was sure. Both subjects terminated. His pen scratched the notebook in the silence. He sighed quietly. Confirming cause of death. 

The bigger man was heavy, hard to move. His face was sunken in, looking very tired. Bruises covered him, wounds similar to burns from the souls escaping him framing the blue and purple blotches. The once-green eyes, gone white with the absence of the magic keeping reapers running, were staring at the stars with grief in them. His glittering tie was ripped up, his barely buttoned shirt ripped up and bloody. "Such devotion," Willaim murmured, turning the man over to his belly. The wound was clean, nearly surgical. It severed the neck precisely and nothing more. William knew the demon had done this. He had seen it happen, running up to stop the criminal. By then, the brunet had been on the ground, and that was the more important thing to confirm.

The smaller man was light, barely more than skin over bones. The wound on his back was enormous, all the way from his shoulders to his belt. "Gods," Will said, seeing the bloody, ragged mess where a spine would have been. From how bloody the wound was he had been alive after, at least for a little bit. It must've killed him. Before he investigated the wound further, William turned the brunet back over, staring at the black marks. They looked angry and painful, inflamed around the edges. They really did look like a thorn bush, William reflected, gripping and twisting around the smaller reaper. The manager shivered at the idea of something so rotten, so painful writhing their way up under the skin, itching, burning, with no way to get them out apart from a fairytale. Tears came to his eyes. He swallowed them away, picking up the scythe that resembled a saw. It had to be it... it meant one had killed the other, proving the bigger reaper's insanity.

The wound was the same width as the blade. When William inserted it back in, it fit perfectly. He dropped the weapon, dropping to his knees himself. His tears flowed from his lowered face, running down his cheeks. "Why," he mourned, the sound of crunching leather accompanying his balled fists. "Why, why..." his voice died down, replaced by quiet sobs. 

The words he spoke next were heavy. They named the bodies, gave them an identity. An end to lives with meaning, an end to suffering. 

"Rest well, Eric, Alan."

Snow, cold and wet, started to cover the bodies. Before long, everything was quiet and white. Somewhere in the distance, a church bell rang.