Jamie Dale - The Eleven Kingdoms

Chapter 51: Death A Grim Reminder

A smile from Grim herself, or himself, or whatever she is exactly. A smile might mean much but, I wasn't the smile that made me feel odd it was the psychotic way she portrayed it. I wasn't uneasy, in fact her smile made me smile. I felt relief from it, I felt relief from Death.

"So you understand why I am here?" I asked her, her eyes still gazed into mine as if she hasn't been more amused in her life.

"Wait a minute." She said, "The Kingdom is still on standby mode."

"Standby?" I asked, what is this a computer? Grim pressed the emblem hanging around her neck, making it glow hot pink. The glow radiated around her and the entire training yard. Revealing not just a fragment of the same glow from every single emblem, but also the crowd that had been gathered to watch a fight between doppelgangers.

"And our winner is!" Grim smiled lifting up my right arm as if a wrestling match had just finished, "The one, the only Gnatus."

I've never heard a louder crowd in my life, I only saw like twenty people, and they sounded like an entire army of cheering. The cheering quickly dispersed. And the figures in the crowd left... none of them distinctly the same, all just seemed like ordinary people.

"Wow what a crowd." I laughed almost forgetting why I was here. My laughter turned stone cold as I turned to face the Grim besides me.

"I know that face." She whispered seriously, "It's one of a furious hope, who would do whatever it takes to get what they want back. I've seen it plenty of times down here before so many people."

"So many?" I asked, "So you know why I'm here?"

"Yes because you're Gnatus," the serious tone in her voice grew deeper, "But you also want your loved ones back."

"Yes, it's the only thing keeping me together at the moment." I cried out in desperation.

"It's selfish."

"What do you mean it's selfish?" I yelled out, "Three souls other than my own! Doesn't that show how much I care?"

"How much you care?" Grim laughed sarcastically. She turned to me and punched me in the stomach, an unrecognizable blow. She began to sit on her throne, and shift dramatically from her tracksuit to a cloak of despair. Her eyes dead with anger. From the ground I fell too she seemed to be ten times the size she was previously.

"A person who'd care, would cater for everyone not just himself." She spat out, "Misty, Ben your Mother Mary, these aren't everyone you've seen lost to the likes of Death."

I stood up, and within a fluid motion her face was already up close and personal with my own.

"What about, everyone else you've seen die? Not just the ones you care about. Carl Jay. Hayley Braus. Wendy Valentine. Jake Faerieman. Edward and Pauli Jones. Pearl Reeve's. Helen Kindle. Terry Bates. Tell Jamie, have you even thought about bringing these people back?"

"No, but I will always remember who they use to be." I yelled at her. Grim swiftly moved above me.

"And what may that be young Jamie Dale?"

"People."

"People that's what you consider them? Is that why you write them inside your little notebook because they're people? Do you realise what you are? You're more than a person, you're a selfish person, who would do anything for personal gain. In a way you and your copy were the same, both selfish... he however was more desperate on one goal, romantic love."