"A vṛkaḥ..." The woman murmurs, kneeling beside the remains of the dog-like creature that attacked me. My eyes are fixed on her as the numbing tingle continues to spread through me, my whole body almost humming and vibrating now with the cold. I can't feel anything in my lungs or on my skin. The pain's gone, as the darkness in my line of sight continues to close in and pulse.
I saw a movie once where something like this happened to the main character. The man was having an out-of-body experience where he saw everything going on around him, discovering the lady he was dating was conspiring with his surgeon to steal all his money. I forget the name of the movie, but it was actually a really cool concept. It's the closest thing I can think of to compare to what I'm going through. Like my body was a once-lit up house of life, and now those lights are flickering out one by one.
Despite the woman in the weird get-up now crouching over me, all other words fail me as my memories begin fade and everything ceases to matter. She's wearing some corset thingy that looks like it's made of chain-mail, thick black, leather straps cris-cross her chest with lots of sharp looking knives. She's close enough that I can see each knife has ancient symbols carved into the metallic hilts. And maybe it's me dying, but I can almost see the things vibrating with energy - glowing white with unspoken power.
Her mouth moving as if she's talking to me. I can see now that her eyes are a shocking icy-blue, her ash-blonde hair done in an intricate assortment of braids with what looks like war paint on her face. Or some pretty badass tattoos. Three long, slightly angled lines stretch from her cheekbones to her jaw in identical black lines. What looks like black eyeshadow rests heavily under her eyes, bringing the color out so intensely, I feel they can see into my soul.
"-Nia," Her voice floats through the air, rough and smoke-ridden, but gentle all the same. I focus back on her, my eyelids blinking slowly to clear the slight haze that had settled over them. "Nia Garland, stand." She orders me in an almost bored tone, the raspy quality of her voice almost makes it sound like metal grating against cement. My body moves out of my control, slowly rising from the crumpled way I had landed and sitting up. Then I'm on my feet, head spinning as I stand straight and tall in front of the woman. Well as tall as I can - which isn't all that tall.
She towers over me by a whole two feet. Maybe 6'6, this woman is seriously built, strong muscles are visible under her pale skin - not bulky like a body-builders - but lithe. I feel strangely out-of-time against this warrior-lady before me, though it's clear from her outfit that she's the one out-of-time.
"Are you a Valkyrie?" I croak, my voice thin and full of air. And then I remember I shouldn't even be able to talk, that beast ripped through most of my organs. I should be dead. Maybe this is all just some elaborate death-flash? A hysterical giggle burbles from my chest as I consider this, the muscles quaking and spazzing out on me, making my whole body shiver.
"No. Not entirely." The woman smirks at me, her mouth moving tightly against the muscles in her cheeks - like she's trying not to smile. "You did put up an incredible effort against the vṛkaḥ." The woman gestures to the creature behind her, the foreign term sends chills along my spine.
"Vr-" I literally choke on the word as I try to think of it phonetically, my thoughts going fuzzy. I frown as I try, and fail, to replay the word in my mind and speak it - but the translation gets lost somewhere between my thoughts and my floundering lips.
"It's name isn't important," The woman sighs, her face smoothing as she looks over my shredded body. "What is important is that I escort you to the next phase of your existence."
"What, like heaven?" I rasp, the tiniest bit of hope entering my voice. I've never been a believer in much, but I'd be a liar to say I've never hoped there was something better after we die. Another phase to our lives, or afterlife. Something rather than nothing.
"No, not for you." The woman says slowly. It takes me a minute to realize what she's saying. No pearly-gates for me, then. My whirring mind flutters as it tries to grasp the gravity of her words...and maybe it's all in my head, but I swear I can feel the heat of fire behind me, the memory of my nightmares rising up to fill my ears with echoing screams. I choke on a gasp, horror and incredible fear paralyzing both my tongue and senses. I want to fall to my knees and scream for mercy, but nothing happens. I remain stock-still before the woman. "Or," She suddenly says, just as the world's starting to close in around me. The heat is extinguished and the screams fade as quickly as they'd come, breathing even more life into the fear that it wasn't all in my head. Hope surges in me as I wait for her to make me an offer. "You can join the Reaper Society."
"What's that?" I question, the words are vaguely familiar in my ears, striking against my heart like flint against steel. A flicker of heat at the spark her words in the back of my mind - and I'm not sure if I've heard the term before or if I'm just slowly loosing what's left of my sanity.
"It's a society where certain individuals are trained to do incredible things. That...creature you attempted to kill, there is a division in the Reaper Society that is trained to combat and dispatch them called the Śūra."
It's clear the way she says dispatch that she means kill. She wants me to come back from the dead and kill monsters. Again, my eyes flick to the handles of the blades visible along the leather straps along her torso. The pulsing symbols practically whispering for me to take her up on her offer. I can learn to combat the thing that is about to kill me - the alternative being my nightmares come true and I'm sent to hell. Hell. A place that has been haunting me like it knew I was on my way to it - and the reminder of what waits for me there - the screams, the heat, the endless pain and terror of those dead, black eyes- It's a no-brainer.
"Yes." I agree almost as soon as she ends the sentence, a spark of vengeance shuddering through me along with the will to live. "Yes, I'll do it. I want to learn to fight them." I cough as something wet chokes me. I sputter for a few minutes, the woman waiting patiently for me to finish before she closes the distance between us.
"This won't be an easy task, Nia." She warns me, her icy-blue eyes intense as she glares down at me. It's clear she doesn't want me to just agree out of a sense of self-preservation, but accept because I actually want to.
"Nothing worth doing ever is." I reply, hoping my tone conveys my resolve. I'm willing to do whatever I can to survive. It can't end like this, me going to Hell. It's can't be the end. I've seen it in my nightmares over and over and there's no way I'm going there without a fight. I'll do anything. Be anything.
There's a heavy silence for a beat that pulls at my body as the woman stares at me, her icy-blue eyes boring deep into the recesses of my being and seeing all that I am. But I don't hide from it. I accept it, staring back at her as my soul stretches out between us, every awful thing I've ever done to survive in this life bared. Every little fragment of deceit, envy, anger - all the ugly bits exposed and being judged by the woman before me. And then she blinks, her shoulders relaxing and the tiniest hint of a smile twitching at the corners of her pale lips.
"Good, now hold still." The woman nods in acceptance and reaches out to press her palm to my forehead. Her touch is light and cool at first, but the longer she has it pressed to my skin it burns. And then I smell something burning, trying hard not to cringe as she reaches around with her free hand to grasp the back of my neck and steady me. My body suddenly ignites with heat and power, energy like nothing I've ever felt before diving deep from the spot on my forehead and into the depths of my soul. "Welcome to the Reaper Society, Nia." Is the last thing I hear before the world goes dark.
YOU ARE READING
Reaper Society
خيال (فانتازيا)You've probably heard of Grim Reapers before, but even I never thought there was more to the typical 'harvesters of souls' until a week ago...
