There are five thousand and one Grim Reapers responsible for collecting and escorting souls between the two known realms of existence: life and the afterlife.
Griffin knew his curiosity set him apart from all the other Grim Reapers, but he never und...
This is an ongoing story. If it's your first time reading the novel I suggest you start from Episode 1. If this episode is not where you last left off, then please check the Table of contents of all episodes released so far and find the last episode you read and continue from there.
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Kingdom of the Red Rose (Episode 53 of 62) Chapter Twenty-One: A Deal with the Devil (Part 2 of 2)
Bug Demons carried Nathaniel's soul out through the Ant Hills, flew him to Hell's first gate and left him there. Time began moving forward, and Griffin witnessed his soul wander aimlessly above Hell. Gradually turning mad, partly from guilt for what he had done and partly from being all alone in the middle of nowhere. It was pitch black, and even after years had gone by, he could hardly make anything out. Eventually the soul lost all sense of direction, then of purpose, and finally of existence, resetting back to its spherical form. One day a patrol of Cherubs passed over Hell, on their way to inspect Hell's first gate, and came across Griffin's soul. They collected it and delivered it to the Council of Twelve. After a short meeting, Archangel Michael arrived at the Council's chamber and delivered an information package. As soon as it was injected into Griffin's soul he took form, that of Nathaniel, and screamed in pain. He rejected the information package and regressed back to a seemingly undeveloped soul. The Council attempted to merge Griffin's soul with the information package again, and again, and yet again. Each time Griffin screamed louder than the last as his torment worsened and the torture seemed endless. The suffering Nathaniel experienced was so intense his soul ran the risk of receiving permanent damage, yet the Council never stopped trying. Eventually the soul started taking shapes that were not complete. The form of Nathaniel's body began to change little by little, until eventually the soul accepted the information package but did not form a body. It was as a brand new, or recently reset, soul would have reacted to receiving an information package. As Griffin watched this scene, he understood something the Council of Twelve never did. How he managed to survive and accept the information package. He blocked his own memories. It was a decision he made, his choice, to bury all the memories of his past life. At the time it was the only way he could go on existing; by forgetting who he was, by trying to remove Emma from his thoughts. He then saw himself introduced to Haron for the first time, still a soul without a body.
The last memory ended and with it the sensation of falling. Griffin felt a strong jolt and jumped up; scythe held tight in his hand. He had returned to present day, in Nathaniel's apartment, the painting of Emma and him on the wall across. But it wasn't only Griffin that returned from this journey to the past. Nathaniel and the Demon of Fear had come back with him, along with the memories of Emma. A short internal struggle ensued between Nathaniel, the Demon of Fear and Griffin. The Grim Reaper tried to hold on to his sanity and restrain the pain that once again threatened to tear him apart. None of them expected the weapon, Emma, who shared all of Griffin's visions, to take action and change the outcome of this conflict, by merging the three different identities into one. She glowed yellow and linked to Heaven's main server, searching for specific information. She wanted the last sentence from the Grim Reaper's manual; the one thing that would force Griffin to let go and be overpowered by the others.
