Grim

Chapter Eight

After going home to change I went straight to headquarters and grabbed my agenda. Now that I had Kellen's blessing, I intended to sleep the day away. My client was an elderly man dying from a collapsed lung. I found him in a nursing home at the edge of the city and extracted his soul with no problems at all.

On my way home I thought about what Kellen had told me about his past; about how his daughter had died in a fire. I wondered if maybe there was some way I could alter the past, save his daughter's life.

I arrived home and being totally exhausted, went straight to bed. A flash of a man, then a young girl came into view. Lucy, she had grown more and was probably around 2 years old now. By the time I was fully immersed in my dream, I realized I was laying on a table. I hopped off and sighed, why didn't I just end up upright in a normal position? I decided to search the house for Lucy's mother, Kellen's past self, but I couldn't find her anywhere. Perhaps Kellen had become a reaper by this point?

I went back into the dining room where Lucy and her father ate dinner. A young woman stood in the kitchen washing dishes. I walked up to her and placed my hand on her shoulder, she shuddered and turned to look behind her, looking right through me.

"Elizabeth? What is it, what's the matter?" The woman gasped and continued washing dishes.

"Nothing Sir, sorry Sir." She began washing the dishes faster, periodically looking around. I had established that my presence here was more than just illusion and that I actually could alter things.

Knowing this scared me, in every book or movie you see about time travel you never alter the past. Bad things always happen. I thought better of it and continued exploring the house. I went upstairs to the bedrooms and began to tour each one of them. The first was large and well furnished, most likely Lucy's father's room.

The second room was much smaller and had minimal furniture. A weak looking bed and a dresser that was missing a leg, propped up by some old books. This was probably the maid's room, but I'm making assumptions.

The third door was chained and locked shut, it was the room that Lucy's mother had died in. I walked through the wall without hesitation and decided to see what it looked like. The bed was neatly made, with a dead bouquet of flowers laid down in the middle. A painting of her and her husband sat on the mantle above the fireplace in the corner. With some effort, I opened the wardrobe and found several dresses, all bland in colour.

She was so young. She didn't deserve to die. I walked back through the wall. And looked in the fourth and final room, smaller than her father's room, but bigger than the maid's; Lucy's room was painted pink with a border of white rabbits. Her toy collection was larger than mine had ever been, and that was saying something.

As I made my way back downstairs the walls began to fade, and the stairs began to disappear. Had I done something wrong? I started to worry that by snooping I had done something I wasn't supposed to, but I soon came to realize that I was waking up. All in all, I'd say that's the best dream I've had in quite a while.

***

When I got to headquarters Kellen was waiting for me in my office. He closed the door behind me and sat down. "We need to talk." He crossed his arms and leaned back.

"We've been doing a lot of talking lately. What about this time?" I sat down behind my desk and crossed my legs. He smiled.

"It's about us. I'd like to take you on a proper date. It's been almost 100 years since I courted anyone, I want to do this right." Courted? It was started to become evident that I was falling for someone much, much older than me.

"I'll give you a date, if you promise not to act like you're 100 years old." I teased, he laughed.

"113, actually. And no promises." He held my hand delicately and kissed it before turning to the door. "And for heaven's sake woman cover your shoulders, you may attract a man's attention." He winked and left me standing there. Kellen just winked at me. My face burned hot and I knew I was blushing.

I stood there a moment, forgetting what I was doing. Then I looked down and saw my agenda, a new name freshly burned into it. Right. Reaping.

I grabbed my agenda and made my way to a high school where a middle-aged science teacher was about to have a heart attack. I found his classroom easily during lunch break and saw him sleeping at his desk. I woke him up, introduced myself, and extracted his soul. Before the start of next period, he was going to die.

It's strange how death used to seem so different to me. I had always thought that when you died, that was it. That was the end. Now that I know what really happens it all seems more real now.

I thought about how I was cursed, that it must be a mistake. There must be a few Reapers that were cursed without breaking rule one. There's no way I could ever take someone's life.

On my way home, I decided I should talk to Kellen about it. I made my way over to his house, but he wasn't there yet. I thought I'd wait outside, but my mind had plans of its own and I jumped inside. My car was outside, at least Kellen would know that I'm here. I sat down on the couch and waited for him to return.

Around 20 minutes later, Kellen returned with bags of groceries. "I knew you'd be here. Help me unpack?" We unpacked the groceries and then sat down to talk.

"So, about this curse..." He looked at me with apologetic eyes.

"It's not a mistake, Vea. He doesn't make these kinds of mistakes. If you haven't already, then at some point in your life you're going to cause the death of a human. There's nothing we can do about that." He grabbed my hand gently stroked it with his thumb.

I nodded, in slight disbelief, but I also trusted Kellen to know what he was talking about. He invited me to stay for dinner, we dined, watched a movie and fell asleep leaning on each other. Maybe it was because I was with Kellen, but that night I didn't dream at all.