The basement is pitch-black—the kind of darkness that doesn’t feel empty, but full. Full of damp air, mildew, and something else. Something wrong.
Blood. There's a lot of blood in here.
The pull hums in my bones, stronger now, like it’s driving me straight into the heart of my destination.
Pain materializes beside me, dropping the scythe into my hand. I reach up, fingers curling around the cool handle before it hits the ground. The moment I touch it, the miniature form extends—unfolding into a sleek, curved blade with a lantern hanging from its back edge.
Power floods through me instantly.
My grip tightens, and just like that, the veil of the living peels away in layers, like water sliding off glass. The world is the same—but not. It’s different. The edges blur, colors dull, shapes shift just a fraction. Sounds go muffled, distant, like I’m hearing them through thick fog.
All except one.
The sound of a soul.
Breathing.
Ragged. Shallow. Wet.
Breathing…? Does that mean the human is still alive?
Weird. The pull only ever calls me when a soul has already left its body—or when it’s just about to slip free. But this one… this one is hanging on.
The pull has never been wrong before. That’s rule number one of being a Grim Reaper: you listen to the pull. You don’t fight it. You don’t question it. Because it’sneverwrong.
I might bend the rules now and then, but the pull is still my guide. My most important power.
I start walking.
And sure enough, the deeper I go, the scent of blood thickens. It clings to my throat, thick and metallic, like breathing in copper-laced tar. My fingers tighten instinctively around the scythe’s handle.
The breathing grows louder. I feel it inside my own head, like I’m the one gasping for air. Like it’smylungs struggling for breath.
This soul isn’t supposed to be alive.
But hell if it doesn’tsoundalive.
Pain perches on a rusted pipe jutting from the far wall, its beady black eyes unblinking. Watching. Waiting.
I exhale slowly. The lantern on my scythe flickers, casting light over the room.
And what I see?
Let’s just say, after five years of witnessing death after death, this scene is brutal enough tostillleave an impact.
Blood is everywhere. The floor, the ceiling, the walls. It’s pooled in the corners, seeping deep into the cracks in the grimy flooring. Thick. Dark. Some of it fresh, some of it old—flaking in places, smeared across the walls in deep, rust-colored streaks.
The room is small, maybe six feet across. Concrete walls, I think, with a plastic sheet separating a portion of the space from whatever’s on the other side. In the center, there’s a table. A middle-aged man lies stiff on top of it. Right beside him, a syringe sits half-filled with a liquid I don’t even want to name.
I know death. I know its scent, its weight, the way it sinks into a place and never really leaves.
And this room?
This room has seen a lot of death.
But right now, the only thing that matters is the man on the table.
His chest rises in shallow, stuttering breaths—every inhale a battle. It doesn’t look normal, nothing like when someone’s heart gives out or their lungs collapse. This is different. Man-made. Most likely caused by whatever’s in that syringe lying next to him.
