Unnatural// 5SOS & 1D

O' Death// part three

l.p: Death Comes In Many Forms

There are many ways to die. I had never really thought about it but there were. Drowning, suffocation, car crashes, plane crashes, heart disease, cancer. Hell, a bear could come out of nowhere and maul me to death. I could understand now why there were people too afraid to go outside because I was getting really anxious about it, I just tired not to show it.

Work, hospital, home. That's all I did for five days but I was running out of food. I had to go to the grocery store sometime. Then I thought about how I could be murdered in an alley or mugged and stabbed to death and it made me shudder. Natalie had really freaked me out despite being real or not.

If she wasn't real, then I was messed up in the head and should probably see a psychiatrist. If she was real, then I was a dead man, literally.

Nearly a week after seeing her, I began looking up information on reapers. A lot of it was the same stuff over and over. Reapers are angels of death. Reapers come to take your soul away. Reapers are there even when your family is not. There was only one interesting website that talked about reapers among us.

Reapers are said to walk among us, following their victims. Most people don't recognize them as supernatural beings though. But if you are dead or on the verge of death, reapers become more prominent in your life. You can often see them at hospitals and car accident sites. Reapers have no distinguishing features. They can look like anyone; man, women or child. If you encounter a reaper, just know that death isn't far behind.

That last part freaked me out enough to go to bed early with only two questions in mind. Had I really seen a reaper? And when was I going to die?

----

"Wake up sleepyhead." A voice sang out. I nearly crawled out of my skin hearing her voice. My eyes shot open and there Natalie was. Bending down next to my bed, her face inches from mine as she stared at me.

"Ah!" I exclaimed moving away from her. She laughed, straightening up and bringing her hand to her mouth. She nearly doubled over laughing. "What do you want!" I demanded.

"What do I want?" She asked with a cock of her head and a small smile on her face. "Not, who are you? What are you doing in here? You're not real! But a, what do I want?" I swallowed hard. I had a sinking feeling I knew what she wanted.

"Did you scare me to death? Is that how I die?" She burst out laughing again and I shook my head at her before tossing the covers off of myself and standing up.

"No you idiot I'm just here to follow you around see how things are going. As it gets closer to crunch time, you'll be seeing me more often." I ground my teeth as I went to my closet. I was still half convinced she was a figment of my imagination or that this was somehow a dream so I didn't think much of it as I grabbed some clothes for my workday.

"Well I'm still here, still alive. Can you leave now." Natalie just smiled.

"Nope." She popped the P of the word with a smile.

"Why not?" I muttered trying not to look at her as I pulled my shirt up over my head.

"Because if you're getting undressed then I want to watch." So part of my mind was mad at me for not having a lady in my life, typical. Was this how it was manifesting itself though, as some girl who wants to cause paranoia by telling me she's a reaper and I'm going to die soon.

"Get out perv." I muttered, throwing a pillow at her. She sighed and shook her head.

"Fine but I'll be right outside. Don't die on me or anything." She winked and just as she tossed the pillow back onto my bed, she disappeared. I shook my head, trying to clear it. She wasn't real. She was a figment of my imagination.

Yet, when I finished changing and headed to the kitchen for breakfast, she was sitting there on my kitchen counter reading a box of cereal. It was Frosted Flakes, something I used to eat a lot as a kid. I still hadn't kicked it to the curb. "You know, eating this much sugar could kill you." She said with a smile, looking up at me. I grabbed the box from her with a scowl and placed it back on top of the fridge before grabbing some bread and moving to the toaster.

"Why are you still here?" I asked, as if something I conjured up in my mind could leave anytime soon.

"Like I said, I came to check up on you and don't be so grumpy with me. We're going to get real close before you die and then we'll be even closer afterwards."

"No we won't because you're not real." I muttered as I took the butter out from the fridge.

"You know that stuff is bad for you right? And what do you mean not real. Of course I'm real! I'm as real as they come. I am as real as you are." She stopped. "If you don't think I'm real then what am I?"

"A figment of my imagination. Something my mind conjured up for me to cope with stress." Natalie laughed.

"You crack me up Liam but you can't really believe that I mean.." She reached out and touched my arm. Her hand was cold. "I'm right here, you can feel that right?" I stared down at her hand, willing my mind to make it disappear or better yet, not feel her touch.

"So what? Illusions have done worse things." Natalie scoffed and jumped down from the counter.

"Please, you don't even have a good enough imagination for that. Even your subconscious doesn't know how to form something as fake as me. Which I'm not.. I'm not fake!"

"You're not putting up a very convincing argument." Natalie rolled her eyes at me.

"Well it's not like I can exactly show you that I'm a reaper either. That's against the rules. Unless you're near some sort of accident site which.." She looked up and seemed to get this far away look in her eyes. "Isn't going to happen. None of the deaths cross your path today except..." She looked back over at me and smiled. "Except one."

"Uh-huh.. Sure." Natalie sighed.

"I'm real Liam and today, at the hospital you're going to see that I am." The toast popped up making me jump and look over at it. When I turned back around, Natalie was gone.

----

I buried myself in my work at the office. I didn't allow myself to think for even a second about what Natalie meant. Who was I going to watch die? Why did I do nothing to try to help them? What was she going to try to show me? As soon as I clocked out at the end of the day, I headed straight to the hospital to see my mom. She still wasn't in good shape, she was weak and tired and most of the times when I visited she was asleep but I just liked being there and being with her.

As I switched the flowers from one hand to the next, the elevator doors opened, revealing several doctors and nurses rushing past me shouting at each other. I immediately panicked as I stepped out of the elevator. Was the code blue for my mom? But just down the hallway someone was stopped on a gurney on the way to a room. The Doctors were going though all the same movements, getting a defibrillator, shouting out orders but the person was already dead, I could see that. Their soul was standing right next to their body.

I stare in awe at the man who was looking on in shock at his dead body. Someone else materialized next to him, a girl with short hair. Since I was too far away to hear what Natalie told him, I just assumed she was trying to comfort him about his death. "Time of death?" Someone called out. It was official, he was dead. Natalie put her hand on the man's shoulder before turning to look right at me. All I could see was her skull. I shuddered. They disappeared.