I. The Grim Reaper's Promise and a Dead Man's Choice
There is a mask that I hide behind, worn out, with the paint chipped and the edges smooth.
It doesn't protect me from what I see, the gouged eyes staring blank and empty, blood splattered and oozing, bodies crumpled, stepped on, faces craved with knives, angry red lines against wax paper skin. From cold-blooded murders, to accidental crimes, to peaceful deaths and half-spoken lies before the final breath- I've seen it all. The mask doesn't protect me from the piercing screams either, or the helpless pleas that begged for me to spare them. My mask doesn't protect me, but protects them from seeing what is past death. What's on the other side.
So as I bow down to press my bony fingers against their pale faces, cold as stone, frozen and still like ice, I whisper a single promise into their ears. As I wait for their choice, time seeping by, before I take my mask off and cut their souls out, fold it carefully like an origami crane, then break it like glass, into a thousand shimmering pieces.
I am the Grim Reaper, and my promise is simple.
If I let you live, one last chance to survive, to push you back into the world of the living, I want one favour in exchange.
One heart, a body killed with three knife wounds, unharmed in any other way, and three litres of thick blood.
II. Red: The Colour of the Beast
I remember the first time I made a promise, to a woman named Emilie Beaurigarde that was as beautiful as a silent angel, graceful as a ballet dancer and as quiet as death, with jewels that twinkled as brightly as the blanket of stars in the night sky.
It was on a cold autumn night, the 6th October, 1992.
Fire licked and tasted everything, from the dead bodies to the ones that ran.
It leapt and danced, leering at its victims, snarling and laughing. It was always one step ahead, moving ever so quickly, like the beast it was. The fire was starving, hungry for meat, lusting for death as smoke rose, thick and dark, seeping stealthily across the village, cloaking everything in a mist of darkness.
The fire turned the corpses to ashes; they withered and crippled and ceased to exist. Burnt hands grabbed desperately to those around them, lashing out like whips to anyone running past. Cries of pain and weeping, muffled by the sound of crackling wood and bodies, every plea was worthless, every prayer unanswered. Mouths gaping open, blue lips cracked and peeling as scarlet and black wounds blossomed, blackened flesh burnt to the bone. The bodies littered the ground, some dead, all agonized. Their lifeless eyes bore into the fire; the enemy, the beast, the monster. Screams pierced the crackling air that tore the night sky apart, singing of pure pain.
A body was dragged out into a clearing, and a heart was cut out and stolen.
In the distance, mad eyes glistened in the shadows, pearly white teeth gleaming, blank faces grinning like a thousand devils, as jewels, reflecting the warm glow of the humming fire sparkled around a woman's neck. Fur coats slick with blood, men with gold teeth and tattoos of devil horns. Laughter echoed, clear and crisp, as the flames nibbled and bit until all that was left was ash and bone.
III. As Easy as 1, 2, 3
Nine days later on the 15th October, 1992, there was another death.
Thunder boomed in the distant, lightening flashed amidst the dark sky. The rain had stopped. The flame of a torch blazed, flickering and illuminating menacing pine trees, turning the ice and snow scarlet red. Skeletons of trees quivered and shook as the winter exhaled a cold breath, throwing dark shadows that stretched and bent. Black crows squawked as there was a wolf cry in the forest.
