Meeting Mr. Reaper

The Intention

"You know kid, I don't have the whole night to entertain you. In fact, I'm almost done here. So, whatever you wanna tell me earlier, tell it now."

Kid breathed heavily. Reaper was now shoveling up the grave to get the soul of her sleeping grandma 6 feet under. Kid grew a lump in her throat as she tried to tell what she had been meaning to ask from the very start.

"No need to beat around the bush kid you can just say it." She's just a child, Grim Reaper thought.

"Mr. Reaper..." She called his attention as scraped off the skin near her nails.

"Hmm?"

"...can I join you?"

"You're joining me now kid."

"I mean" Kid fidgeted her thumb "...can you take me with you?"

"Woah, woah, woah." Reaper stopped what he was doing and went to Kid.

"Why?"

"Too young okay. You are too young for this." Grim Reaper was seemingly angry yet confused.

"But you also take people who are younger than me. Those who aren't even born yet, you also take."

"They're different cases kid." Reaper groaned as he massaged his temple.

"What's the difference?" The eagerness to join Reaper was seen in Kid's eyes that they started to build up clumps of water.

"Listen closely kid." He said as if he was looking inside her soul. "I," he pointed to himself, "Grim Reaper, do not mindlessly take the souls of human beings. Because I work with an agenda, not with quotas. So, if you think I can just randomly take souls for quantity then no kid, that's not how I work." He spoke with his voice deeper than before, with wind sweeping down the grass where he stood.

Kid just bit her lip and looked at the ground, like a child being scolded by a parent.

"In short," Reaper continued, "you are too young for this, not in comparison to other people but to yourself. Because it's not your time yet."

"Then when will you take me? Can it be tomorrow? The next next day? When?"

"You are miserable." He said jokingly, shaking his head.

"I am miserable." She looks at him with river of tears rolling down her cheeks, to which the Grim Reaper was taken aback. Yet he must maintain his composure.

"Look, I am not even gonna bother to know the minute details of your misery because obviously, that ain't my job. Heck, I shouldn't even be talking to you in the first place."

"Can you just take me with you please?"

"No. It is not I who decides but my Master."

Kid just pulled her hair and hit her head with her fist to ease the headache. Reaper went close to her and sat in front of her to level with her.

"Kid. Like what I've said earlier, you have a bright future in you. So don't be too enthusiastic about being taken by me." Reaper shifts his tone to calm Kid down. Still deep. Yet concerned. Caring. However, Kid strongly disagreed with what he said about her future. She just shook her head as he spoke.

"When your time comes, I hope you will see me and tell me to my face that you have defeated me. That it is not I whom you look forward to meeting."

"I don't understand Mr. Reaper." She finally stopped crying and looked at Grim Reaper in front of her. But he then stood up and went back to the soul.

"Bright future kid. You will know in your bright future."

Grim Reaper then placed the soul of her sleeping grandmother in a black sack. Tied it and put it on his shoulder.

"Ah, seem like it ain't your fear that I smelled. Your excitement. Your anticipation." He said as he prepared his way to his Master.

"Well," Reaper took a final look at Kid. "see you again kid. And hopefully, that'll be the last time."

Before she could even reply, Grim Reaper was eaten by the fog, leaving no evidence that he had come. Kid was left there in the middle of the graveyard, more confused and lost than before she went. She stood alone in ambiguity.

The light of the cathedral turned off on her.