Moonlight Rising

by Linski, Megan

  They had been lucky to have his father in the picture at all. He was killed not even a week after the portrait had been finished.

  Oliver sighed as he remembered his family. It was the only picture he had of them, and though he was thankful it included his father, he wished he had a more recent picture to remember them by.

  He laid back in his bed, throwing the blankets over his face. That night had been stirred up in his mind, and he knew better than to fight. The memory of his family’s deaths played behind his closed eyelids.

  The storm raged, powerful and angry with the world. They lived too far from the village to seek shelter in time, and they huddled together in the center of their home. Raven cried against his chest while their mother clung to them. She tried to tell a story to calm Raven, but the screeching wind drowned out all other noise. Oliver had been frozen stiff, staring at the swirling gray clouds outside. He was unable to do anything, not even hope.

  The tornado was headed straight for their home.

  With a whoosh, the house was swallowed up into a suffocating vortex of wind. Raven and Cordenia were ripped from his grasp, and he stared in terror as everything was whipped around him violently. His muscles were strained, every inch of his body shredded by debris. He tried to scream, to call out, but nothing could be heard over the rushing in his ears.

  Just as quickly as it had sucked him up, the tornado cast him aside. He landed heavily, most of his bones breaking on impact. He watched the tornado charge away from him through blurred vision, before falling unconscious from the pain.

  He didn’t wake until the Reapers had already arrived. There were two of them, and they had gathered his family together. He stared blankly at them, begging for death. Their pitch black cloaks clung to them, outlining the figures of a man and a woman. Wooden masks painted with skulls covered their faces. Each gripped their own weapon tightly, an iconic scythe from myths and lore of the Reapers for the man, and a thin longsword with a bone shaped handle for the woman. Small vials of glowing liquid hung from their wastes, one with light pink, and one with pure white.

  He knew it was too late for his sister and mother, the Reapers had already taken their lives. Their souls had been locked away inside the bottles, just as the rumors had said. Now all that was left was for them to kill him as well, and he would be free.

  A spike plunged into his chest, piercing his heart, but it did not kill him. There was a pull in his chest, tugging at his very existence, but it quickly stopped. The weapon was removed, and he let out a yelp. The Reapers standing above him murmured in concern, but he couldn’t make out the words.

  He lifted his hand to his chest, and found a gaping hole where is heart should be. He felt inside of his chest, and the heat of his beating heart made him gasp. There was no blood in the wound, only his heart, pounding against the sheer wind blowing over him.

  He glanced to his side, and met the lifeless eyes of his mother. His stomach flipped when he saw her body bent at impossible angles. Tears spilled from his eyes, and he forced himself to look away before he got sick.

  Before he could locate his sister, the Reapers hauled him to his feet. Though he was weak, he showed no signs of the damage that the tornado had done. There’s wasn’t a single broken bone remaining, and every cut had sealed.

  He leaned against the Reapers, and sobbed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his sister. Her body had been torn worse than his own, and there wasn’t a scrap of cloth left on her battered body. Bloodied tears had stained her cheeks, and a look of utter horror could still be seen in her eyes.

  She was completely missing her lower half, and her entrails were spilling from her middle.

  Oliver fell to his knees and emptied his stomach. Tears flowed freely as he begged, “Kill me. Please, don’t make me see this. Just kill me.”

  The female Reaper removed her mask, revealing the smooth face of a youth. She had thick lips, and dark green eyes. She spoke with a gentle, soothing tone. “Not now, Oliver. It is not your time.”

  “What is that supposed to mean? I should be dead! I should be with them, with my family. You’re supposed to end it, that’s what everyone says. You’re here for the killing blow, so just do it,” Oliver screamed. He pulled on the hem of the woman’s cloak, but she didn’t respond.

  “We don’t kill people, Oliver. We collect the souls of those that are lost. Without us, and the Bringers as our partners, the world would cease to exist. You might not understand it all right now, but you will, soon. We will teach you,” she said.

  She knelt down beside him, and brushed his messy hair from his eyes. He pulled from her and scrubbed away the tears on his cheeks.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about! Teach me what? Nevermind, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to learn anything, I just want peace!” Oliver lunged forward and swiped up a jagged piece of debris. He drove it into his stomach, gasping through the pain.

  But he did not bleed. His pulse quickened, and his breathing was labored. The pain remained, but the wood had no other effect on his body.

  Oliver sat back, leaving the piece of debris jutting from his middle. The woman leaned over to him, and gently pried it from his stomach, and set it on the ground next to him. His face twisted in discomfort as his skin knotted itself back together. The woman patted his hand as he cried silently.

  The man spoke for the first time, his voice muffled behind his mask, “You have been chosen, Oliver Grimor. From this moment on, you are a Reaper.”

  Oliver jerked himself out of his memories, sitting abruptly. His gaze immediately fell on his cloak tucked into a corner. His weapon, confined within itself, hung out of a pouch on the inside of his cloak. He took a ragged breath to calm himself, a stray tear gliding down his cheek.

  Wiping his face, he dared a glance out the window. The moon had nearly reached its peak. It was almost time.

  Chapter Two

  Oliver traversed the winding streets of his city in silence, moving as though he were gliding over the stone. He tucked his hands into the sleeves of his cloak, gripping his weapon. His gaze raked over everything around him, looking for his victim. “It would’ve been so much easier if the dream had told me where he would be,” he whispered.

  In his complaining, Oliver tripped over a hole in the road. He stumbled forward onto his hands and knees. The wooden mask of a Reaper clattered to the ground, and the black eyes of the skull stared back at him. He swiped it up and fit it to his face quickly, knowing the risks if any human were to see his face. He pushed himself to his feet and shook the dirt from his cloak.

  He passed by the building he had seen in his dream. He rounded the corner to the back, and let out a sigh. The body wasn't here. The only sign his dream had been an assignment was a splatter of blood on the ground. But that only meant he had to search for the body, and the longer it took him to find it, the more time it gave humans to find it first.

  “Alright, hunter, where did you take him to finish him off? You don't have an obsession, so you ought to have just dropped him off somewhere,” Oliver muttered to himself as he searched the surrounding area for any sign of the body.

  A gust of wind blew past him, filling his nostrils with the stench of blood. Oliver gagged, and whirled his head away from the smell. There was a rounded building about ten feet from him, a small streak of blood on the wall leading away. Putting his hand over the nose of his mask, he took a deep breath.

  Around the edge of the next building was his body. Oliver swiftly turned away as soon as he laid eyes on the corpse. He lifted his mask onto his head and covered his mouth to keep from emptying his stomach.

  “It's your job. Just do your job, and get out of here,” he told himself.

  He glanced back at the body. The man he had seen in his dream was in four pieces on the ground before him. Most of his torso had been propped against the building, his left arm thrown a good distance away. His legs had been separated and pulled far from the body. His innards were strewn along the ground betw
een the legs and torso.

  Oliver knew there wasn't enough intestines remaining, but it didn't concern him. In fact, he was grateful. If there had been more, it would’ve only made it more difficult for him.

  Looking away from the body, Oliver pulled out his weapon. With a flick of his wrist, his weapon slid and bent into its full length. Its handle wasn't as long as other Reapers' weapons, only standing as tall as Oliver's eye level, but it fit well in Oliver's hands. Two thick, curved blades sprung out at the top, making his scythe ax-shaped. He had named it Gemini, after the constellation of twins.

  He prepared himself to face the body again, talking to himself to break the ominous silence. “Focus on the point of entry. That’s what they teach the beginners. The spot over the heart, hit it perfectly and there won’t be any problems.”

  His eyes picked out the place easily on the man’s chest, and he breathed deeply through his mouth. He could taste the death on his tongue, a bitter mix of blood and fear.

  He twisted his hands over the handle, and a small spike shot out from the bottom. He studied the man's chest, and plunged the spike expertly into his heart. The blades of his scythe began to glow a soft white as his weapon filled with the man's life force…his soul.

  When Gemini had completed collecting the life from the man, thick black letters appeared on the dominant blade. Origin.

  Oliver ripped his weapon from the man's chest. Though he had been a Reaper for a year, it still astonished him that his weapon left no marks on the humans he gathered from.

  Now that the hard part was finished, Oliver wandered away from the body until the air was clear of his stench. He retrieved a small, tear-shaped vial from his cloak. Pressing one hand to the side of his dominant blade, he poured the life force into the vial from the point of his scythe.

  “You were blue, huh? That's a nice, calm soul. You must’ve lived a pretty good life to come out with a blue soul. Shame you had to go out that way, though.” Oliver swirled the liquid-like contents of the bottle as he mused aloud. “I wonder what color I'll be when another Reaper takes me? Not that I'll ever get to know, so I guess there's no point in worrying about it.”

  Oliver pocketed the bottled soul. Without fully realizing what he was doing, he glanced back to the body behind him. His mind betrayed him, and instead of a grown man lying dead against the building, he saw his sister. Her injuries had been nearly identical to the man, and it was torture to see it again. In his moment of shock, he fell to his knees and vomited onto the ground.

  “Shit!” he growled in between heaves. He pressed his forehead to the area between his blades, hoping the coldness of his weapon would halt his profuse sweating. “I was so close, too.”

  His cases had been increasing in difficulty for him, growing more morbid and gruesome with each death. He knew Gigi had to have some part in what assignments he was given, but he couldn’t prove it. She had wanted a new partner from the beginning, and would do anything to make it happen. He was sure she was choosing these specifically to test him.

  He scurried away from the vomit and leaned against a building further into the darkness. He felt like he was suffocating, and he threw his hood off of him violently. He ripped the mask from his head and tossed it to the ground. “I hate this job. Who in the hell ever though I was cut out for this?”

  Oliver pressed his palm to his chest over his heart, sinking into the hole that was left there. “The Bringers have it so much easier. No gore, no death. They don't even have to interact with humans, since they're still dead. Not me. I have to stay alive until they're done with me, and hide among the humans that hate us. They always blame us, always. It's not my fault. It's not. I don't want to do this. I can't do it anymore,” Oliver whined, fighting against the tears that threatened to leak from his eyes. He shook his head clear of his self-pity.

  I have no choice, he reminded himself with a sigh. He looked up at his weapon. A calming warmth spread through it. I might not be right for the job, but my weapon is perfect for me.

  Oliver spun his hands around the handle, and the length of the staff shortened so that it was level with him. He moved to press his flushed cheek against the cold blade of his scythe, and breathed deeply through his mouth. “Calm down. I still have to get this to the C.L.D. If I go back there all shaken up like this again, they'll never let me live it down!”

  He settled himself adequately, and his heart returned to it's subtle, rhythmic pattern in his chest. Just as he was working himself up to report to the Council of Life and Death, his heart was sent back into a panic.

  “Oliver?” a frantic voice asked from behind him. He whirled away, terror burning in his eyes.

  Oliver's stomach did flips, and his heart ached as it broke. “Coron,” he breathed, unable to look away from the young man. Standing only a few feet from him and staring at the discarded Reaper mask was Oliver's best friend, and unspoken love.

  Coron had seen. He knew what must be done. Oliver lunged at his friend. The sharpened edges of his blade glinted in the moonlight as they swung closer to the other boy's heart.

  Chapter Three

  The blue liquid sloshed back and forth in the small vial as Jeyyal, the head of the C.L.D., examined it. Memories of the man's life played in the opaqueness of the soul, caught in the eerie light emanating from above.

  Oliver stood in the center of the large room nervously. The black curtains covered every inch of the walls, but Oliver had never seen what laid behind them. He didn’t believe it would be windows if they were never opened, but perhaps they could be remnants from a time before Reapers were hated. Against the back wall sat a large circular desk raised on a dais. Jeyyal sat in the center of this desk on a black oak throne, who’s back reached to the pointed ceiling. He found his eyes wandering the length of the chair to stare at the intricate painting of a beautiful kingdom resting upon black storm clouds. A chandelier in the shape of a glorious castle hung from the ceiling, reflecting light in gorgeous rainbows in the otherwise dreary room.

  Jeyyal herself looked nothing short of royalty. She wore a simple, yet magnificent crown made of pearlescent white. Each piece of the crown was shaped like a bone. A spine wrapped around her forehead and small pieces like that of hands formed the top half of a star. Her dress was reminiscent of a Reaper’s cloak, only with much more detail put into it. Shining silver thread looped the hems of her sleeves, and a skull was embroidered over her heart. It billowed out around her in waves, her large sleeves collecting on top of her desk as she folded her hands. Her slim fingers were covered in calluses from extensive use of her weapon, but it made her no less graceful in appearance.

  Looking at her soft features pulled into a stern glance, Oliver was reminded of the rumor he had been told after his first meeting with her. Many guessed that she had been turned into the first Reaper when her child had been born stillborn, and she had given its soul to another infant that was near death.

  Her decision to save a mother from her heartbreak had allowed her to become immortal, though her heart still beat, but it prevented her from having any other children. So she had the resolve to recruit others who were close to death on a personal level, so that none of them would be left alone. Oliver himself had noticed that she took to those that became Reapers after their mother’s death. She seemed to have a special fondness for him, treating him gently and protectively.

  “Oliver, are you daydreaming?” Jeyyal scolded, pulling him from his reverie. He blinked the story from his mind, and flashed an apologetic smile. He bowed quickly. It’s just a story. We have no answers about our beginnings, someone just made some up for themselves.

  He lifted his head to find her gazing at him curiously. He squirmed under the gaze of his superior, clutching his confined weapon until his knuckles blanched whiter than he thought possible. His heart was beating heavily from the suspense.

  Jeyyal's eyes looked him up and down, and Oliver held his breath. “Oliver,” she breathed, a hint of irritation in her normally warm voice. “Did you h
ave an accident at the scene again?”

  Oliver's eyes went wide as he thought immediately of the human that had found him. Coron. A cold sweat broke out on his face. His mind went into a panic, and he stammered out, “W-what do you mean?” He avoided her gaze, praying that his thoughts would remain his own.

  She lifted a hand and pointed a long finger down towards the ground. He looked down sharply, and found that he had made a mess of his shoes and cloak when he had vomited.

  Oliver let out a sigh, and looked at Jeyyal sheepishly. “In my defense, it was after I retrieved the soul. I almost made it through.”

  Jeyyal chuckled under her breath, but quickly regained her professional resolve. “You know you must be careful to not give us away to the humans, Oliver. You cannot leave traces of our existence for them to so easily find. On that note, I don't understand why such a case was given to you. You have a weakness known to all.”

  Oliver cast his eyes to the ground, embarrassed.

  Jeyyal continued. “Not that I blame you, Oliver. Of all the Reapers, you are the least experienced. This job has never been easy, not even for me. Keep trying, and I'm sure you will become an excellent Reaper.”

  “Thank you, Lady Jeyyal. It's an honor to hear such support from you.” Oliver bowed low to the ground.

  “But you will have to report this to your partner. I'll send Gigi to your home later today to retrieve the soul.”

  Oliver raised himself just in time to catch the vial Jeyyal had tossed to him. Oliver grimaced at the thought of his Bringer partner. The higher-ups swore they were a perfect match, but it seemed ever since they had met, Gigi viewed Oliver as a Reaper would a corpse. She longed to take his life, for any reason she could conjure at the moment.