Page 16 of Reaper's Ruin
The weapon flowed from beneath my skin, its purple glow gleaming in the marketplace’s fading light.
She lifted her head from her knees, those terrified, pleading eyes meeting mine. She didn’t try to run again. She just sat there, staring at me, those eyes doing something strange to my insides.
“Please,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Please don’t do this. I just need more time to find my door. I want my mom. I just... I want my mom. Please.”
Driven by eight centuries of duty, I reached out, my hand hovering at the edge of the Veil separating us, ready to grab this lingering soul and end this quickly.
But as I looked down at her—this human girl with her tear-streaked face and pleading eyes—something inside me fractured.
I saw her humanity. I saw her innocence. I saw the way she twisted her fingers together nervously as she waited for my judgment, the way she bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling, the way she kept her eyes leveled with mine despite her fear—small acts of dignity in the face of the end.
And beneath it all, I felt a pull toward her that I couldn’t explain—something beyond her beauty, beyond our shared humanity. Something deeper and more inexplicable, like a recognition that transcended our brief acquaintance.
My hand trembled, unmoving. My scythe glowed, its pull to end her calling to me, begging me to bring her to us so it could fulfill its mission.
Mymission.
But slowly, I retracted my hand, lowering my scythe as I stared at her.
This wasn’t right. She hadn’t been given her chance—the chance all soulsdeserved.
My scythe dissolved back into shadow beneath my skin.
“You truly just realized you were dead?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
She nodded, her eyes wide with fragile hope. “I saw our bodies. Mine and my mom’s. Just like, an hour ago.”
I ran a hand through my hair, an old human gesture I’d thought long forgotten. “That’s not how this works. Souls are supposed to have time to find peace.”
“Then why were you sent after me? Those other shadows were Reapers too, right? They came for me right away. Why didn’t I get time to find a door?”
A question I couldn’t answer.
“It must have been a mistake,” I said, as much to myself as to her. “A glitch in the system. Perhaps because of how your soul transitioned from the Mortal Realm.”
She was watching me now, fear giving way to cautious curiosity. “What’s your name?”
The question caught me off guard. No one had asked for my name in centuries. I was Death to the other reapers. Nothing more.
“Rhyker,” I said, the sound of it strange on my tongue after so long.
“I’m Soraya,” she offered, a small, tentative smile appearing despite her tears. “Soraya Peterman.”
The simple exchange of names shouldn’t have affected me. But something about it—this basic human connection—struck me with unexpected force.
“You said you reap souls who refuse to move on,” she continued, her voice steadier now. “I’m not refusing. I want to find my door. I want to see my mom again.”
It was the perfect justification. The perfect excuse to avoid confronting the wrongness I felt in my gut about ending her existence.
“You haven’t had your chance,” I agreed. “It wouldn’t be...” I searched for a word I hadn’t used in centuries. “Fair.”
She exhaled shakily, relief softening her features. “So, you’re not going to... reap me?”
I should have. Every instinct honed over eight hundred years of service demanded it. But looking into those blue eyes, I couldn’t bring myself to extinguish the light within them.
“Not yet,” I said finally. “You deserve your chance to find peace.”
“Thank you,” she whispered, the gratitude in her voice almost painful to hear.
