Step Children

2.

The Market Square was bustling. Patrons were moving in every direction, each one stubbornly determined to purchase their share of the market's goods.

Scott couldn't help but to notice that their faces were blank, featureless placeholders. It looked as if mannequins had somehow escaped their stores to convene in the market.

A young man had locked eyes with him. He, unlike all the others, had a distinguished set of eyes to go with his mouth and nose.

They were only separated by the patrons of the market, but the divide was vast.

Through the foot traffic, he caught only glimpses of the young man. At first, the man was standing still, but then he saw flashes of him sprinting through the crowd in his direction.

At first, Scott was merely curious; it only occurred to him after som thought that the man might mean to harm him.

That thought, however, was fleeting. The man was waving through his sporadic sightings to warn that he meant no harm. It was enough to convince Scott to hear what he had to say.

The man finally waded through the bog of the crowd and crashed into him. He slammed shoulder first into Scott's hip and tackled him to the ground.

"You have to wake up! You're not ready!"

Scott shook his head, confused by his words. Wake up? He wasn't sleeping, how could he wake up?

Beyond the man, and past the crowd, Scott laid eyes on the Reaper. He didn't understand how he knew what it was, but he knew.

He wasn't dressed as one would likely picture him, in the dark hood with the scythe and all that. Instead, he sported a black open crown hat, tattered and wore by decades of use. His silhouette was shrouded in some sort of dark cloud. The frayed hem of his long trench coat was lost in the dense plume. His face was mostly covered by a black handkerchief, leaving only his eyes exposed.

Those eyes. As amber as embers. They scanned the crowd of faceless people for someone more noteworthy.

The man smacked him across the face. "I said wake up!"

Scott's heavy eyelids opened. He rolled over and looked at the clock. 6:43.

He spent five days every week loathing his alarm clock and yet here he was waking up all on his own, only forty-three minutes later than normal.

He got out of bed, brewed a pot of coffee, and lit up.

His phone vibrated. He looked at the near-blinding bright screen and swiped right immediately.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Nothin', just heard about your grandpa. Wanted to see that you're OK."

"I'm fine. How's my little girl?" He poured himself a cup of coffee.

"She's OK. Misses her daddy."

"She can see me whenever she likes, you know that."

"Not until you complete the twelve steps, you know that."

"...So I'm going out to the hunting lodge today."

"Really? In the spring? You turkey hunting?"

"I wasn't planning on it, but I will if you're lookin' to join."

"Scott, you know I can't...."

"Since when do you call me 'Scott'?"

"Black eyes create formalities."

Scott stopped midway through pouring the rest of the coffee into his thermos.

"How many times do you want me to tell you that—"