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Further.
Faster.
Away from them.
The only thoughts occupying her mind while running. The blood-red moon stands high above the trees, illuminating the young woman scrambling through the thickest part of the woods in an eerie light. She has to outrun them. She can't be caught.
Adrenaline pumps through her veins, something she had now learned to fear. Her breath stops when the hem at the bottom of her nightdress gets caught in some roots. Panic surges through her as she reaches for the dress. She is able to free herself by ripping the fabric, but the men had already spotted her.
Her eyes widen and she turns around again, sprinting for her life. She thanks God that she fits between the dark trees. If you had told her she would be doing that only a few hours before she would have scoffed at the idea.
Further!
Faster!
Her limbs feel heavy, but she presses on. Tears sting in her eyes when she trips, but she forces herself to ignore the piercing pain in her leg.
Low voices come from the left. They are close. She turns to the right and continues to run. Her lungs sting from the lack of oxygen, her arms hurt from the scrapes when she slipped through the trees before.
Everything comes to an abrupt stop at the edge of a cliff. Her mind screams to get out of there! They would have a free range to get to her here. Her body, however, betrays her as she slowly sinks to her knees. Her dress had become heavy from the snow, she shivers as she breathes heavily.
The voices are becoming louder each passing moment. Her head is hung low as her breath calms. Like a frightened animal she cowers in the snow. They can't catch her. She won't let them.
Only one way to escape. The crashing waves and her own heartbeat swallow the sounds around her. With shaking limbs she slowly crawls to the edge and looks down. From the fall alone she knows she wouldn't survive. She needs to turn back.
"I found 'er, boys!"
The woman's eyes widen when, soon enough, the edge of the woods is lined up by several men carrying guns or knives. She fully turns towards them. Her hands ball up into fists as she looks into the faces she once trusted. Tears threaten to spill, but she remembers to not show weakness. She takes a deep breath...
Only one way out.
...and leaps backward.
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Meanwhile in London, a young man clad in suit and tie sits on one of the darkened rooftops, watching mostly drunk people stumble through the narrow streets. He yawns while subconsciously thumbing through the pages of the small book in his hand. The other one is occupied with holding what seems to be a more modern version of a lawnmower.
His eyebrows quirk up when he finds the person he had been looking for. The old woman's body racks with gut-wrenching coughs. Not uncommon during this season. The thin blanket the woman wrapped around herself does not help against the cold and the wetness of the slushed snow piles around her feet. The man with chartreuse eyes and spectacles looks at his watch.
Three...
Two...
One.
The coughs stop with a soft thud. His eyes wander back to the woman. He jumps down the building with the grace of a cat. His lawnmower is raised above his head before he plummets it into the old woman's unconscious body.
Right then, filmstrips fly freely from her chest. Scenes from her long life can be seen only by the young man. He sighs and takes out his book again. These were the moments he was jealous of. An end. That's all he wanted before he became what he is now; a grim reaper.
"Grell owes me for this," he grumbles.
"Amanda Bates. 78. Cause of Death: Pneumonia. Special Remarks: None."
He rattles off the standard protocol of the to-die book in his hand and stamps the woman's profile. Ronald collects the Cinematic Record and sighs again.
Only one more for today. Ronald's attention shifts to his ideas of compensation he could get. Maybe Grell could get him the number of that cute girl up in the Management Department? What was her name again? Right, Mary. But, he could get that himself. He huffs. How he hates overtime.
"Ah," he realizes, "I sound jus' like Mr. Spears."
He shakes himself out of that notion and looks down to the list again as he leans against his death scythe, the lawnmower.
His eyes darken when he reads further on. A new recruit.
He turned his back on the lifeless body of Amanda Bates and jumps up. His leisure walk to the edge of the roof turns into an inhumanly fast run. To be fair, he wasn't exactly human; not anymore.
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Ronald arrives perfectly two minutes before it's supposed to happen. He stops at the edge of the cliff when he hears heavy breathing and a rustle of fabric.
A young woman breaks down only a few yards away from him. She couldn't see him, no one could. When her panicked gaze looks toward the woods he is able to identify her as the woman he's meant to pick up. Now he only has to wait.
Gruff voices could be heard behind them before the woman turns around. She's on the verge of tears.
Ronald pushes his hand through his hair and leans against his scythe as he continues to watch. The woman shakes her head and her expression hardens as she faces the men fully. She takes a deep breath before falling backward off the cliff. Ronald didn't even flinch, other than her persecutors. A big splash is heard and the men come back to their senses, running to the edge and looking down, searching for the woman.
That is Ronald's cue. Anger swells in him at the laughter the men howl after seeing her at the bottom, her body unconscious floating on the waves towards the shore. He would absolutely love to kick one or two of them off the cliff as well. However, that would go against protocol and he already was under the watchful eyes of his superiors. He huffs, stuffs his hand in his pocket, and makes his way to the bottom of the cliff.
He may not know her motive, apart from her running from those men, but he knows the pain that drives you to this outcome.
Lost in thought, the reaper arrives on the bottom and finds her washed up on the shore.
He frowns, and just like before, plunges his death scythe into the smaller woman's body. He doesn't watch her Cinematic Records. What would it matter? He doesn't have to decide if she should continue to live or not. She is an exception.
"Hannah Sinclair. 25. Cause of Death: drowned due to a broken spine after jumping off a cliff. Special Remarks: self-inflicted death, new grim reaper recruit."
