Memories of the Reaper

Chapter Two

Derek Grey opened his eyes to darkness, but as he blinked, light returned. With it came memories and fear. He stood in a house, his house, a place he hadn't been in years.

Derek felt the hardwood beneath his bare feet and scrunched his toes against the cracks between the panels. The front door was locked and bolted, fitted with beveled glass that created small rainbows across the floor at sunset. Wooden blinds to the right of the door were open, revealing nothing except the night beyond.

Derek didn't approach the window, knowing from nights past that there was nothing outside. No roads, no lamp posts, no cars. Not even the porch to his house. Only darkness.

Always darkness.

Cracking logs and popping knots turned his attention to the fireplace across the room, the embers glowing bright red with the heat. Above the fireplace was the mantel and several displayed pictures. Derek walked to it, picking up his favorite: an overhead picture of him and his parents lying in the grass; his parents were upside down at the top of the screen while he was lying opposite them at the bottom of the frame. His mother, with her blue eyes, had a wild smile on her face and all-too-present wrinkles around her eyes. His father smiled, looking at Derek's mother instead of the camera. Derek's own eyes had been shut, too busy laughing to pose for the camera.

It'd felt like a lifetime since he'd laughed.

Why'd you have to go? Derek thought as he put the frame down and brushed away a tear. Why'd you have to leave me alone?

"You aren't alone," a voice whispered from behind him. Ageless. Timeless—as old as darkness itself. "You haven't been alone a day in your life, Derek. I've always been here. Right here. Waiting for you."

The words alone froze his spine.

Don't turn around, Derek thought even as his legs betrayed him and turned.

A shadow stood at his front door, wearing a cloak darker than darkness. A cowl covered its head, obscuring its face. Where there should have been hands, Derek could only see cold metal gauntlets veined with rivulets of frost blue light.

"Every night. Every time I close my eyes, you come back. What do you want from me?" Derek asked, his voice pitiful and plaintive. He backed up, but his back slammed into the wooden support pole. Tonight, he didn't run. Partly because he knew that the shadow always caught him, partly because he was tired of fighting—too exhausted. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"Because I need you, Derek," the shadow said, its words distorted and tinny, deep but also high, quiet but loud, a chorus of voices and pitches yet unified. Its black robes gliding silently over the floor as the shadow approached, standing only an inch away. Still, it was too dark for Derek to see its face.

"I need you to wake up, Derek."

The world shook around him, and Derek felt blood seep between his toes, though he didn't dare look down at the corpses that he knew were there. The room grew as he shrank, feeling smaller and younger as the world became bigger, scarier.

"I don't want to die," Derek said. "Please. Don't make me die again."

"You need to wake up, Derek," the shadow replied, its voice shaking the world. It emanated from the fireplace, the floor, the ceiling, the walls—even Derek's his own mind. "You need to remember."

The shadow pushed him backward, and instead of feeling the wooden beam at his back, Derek fell into darkness.

Each moment was a lifetime of falling. No wind, no light, nothing. It wasn't warm, but it wasn't cold, either. But still he traveled farther down even as he reached up, grasping for life only to find nothing.

Don't make me remember, he thought before a crack of white light dispelled the darkness, and Derek passed through it. A flood of images came to him, layers of a broken labyrinth, scenes of too many discarded landscapes that he'd forgotten. Too many deaths to count.

Derek ran across the desert sands, wearing the shadow's cloak and gauntlets as winds of fire drifted through the air and the sand sifted underneath. The ground in front of him exploded as a monstrous worm reared its ugly head. Before he could turn, the worm crashed down on him, rows of teeth shredding his flesh before he was devoured—

Derek died, and the scene changed.

Derek swam through an icy lake, looking for an opening to resurface. His lungs burned as he dragged himself farther downstream, looking for a way out even as the last bubble of breath left his nostrils. Shadows slithered at the corners of his vision, monsters with several sets of eyes and long bodies. They latched on to his body, dragging him deeper beneath the surface, draining him of life as he drowned—

Derek died, and the scene changed.

Derek stood atop a cragged mountain. Arrows were embedded in his shoulders and chest, but he still clung to the swords in his hands. Blades that matched his gauntlets, veined with blue light. Warriors with long, white hair charged through the snow to meet him, wielding axes and shields. Derek slashed at them, kicking two off the mountain before an arrow ripped through his neck. So, too, did Derek fall from the summit, unable to scream as his legs smashed into the rocks far below. Then his spine, his ribs, and his neck—

Derek died, and the scene changed.

A flaming sword ran through his back and jutted out through his chest—

Derek died, and the scene changed.

A horn ripped through his armor, shattered his ribs, and impaled his heart—

Derek died, and the scene changed.

Fire consumed his cloak, and his armor fused to his skin as it melted—

Derek died, and the scene changed.

A monster with nine heads ripped off his legs and then his head—

Derek died, and the scene changed.

Blades. Arrows. Teeth. Rocks. Heights. Fire. Water.

Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead.

Derek felt the death and cold seep into his bones, was numbed by it.

When he died the last time, Derek saw the faces that he longed to meet but didn't know, didn't remember.

But I do know them, Derek thought. But how do I know them?

A final face, the one he longed for the most. A girl whose eyes should have belonged to a cat. Her skin was olive, hair a chestnut-red. Her lips neither smiled nor frowned, but she always was sad, her face carrying a haunted expression.

I know you most of all, he thought, before the face disappeared into the darkness and the shadow emerged, touching his shoulders.

"I need you to wake up, Derek. I need you to remember."

Then Derek's body became so cold that it burned.