I’m just one of his entities. A Grim Reaper. A being neither fully gone from the human world nor truly a part of it. Stuck in limbo with a single purpose: collecting souls and ferrying them to the afterlife. And yet, instead of doing my job, instead of leaving the tree and marching off to reap the soul I should go for, I’m still sitting here, watching my ex-husband live a life that should’ve been mine.
Pain shifts closer, talons digging into the bark. It stares at me differently now. Sharper. More intense. Then, it squawks so loud it rattles inside my skull, my head throbs in protest.
“Fuck,” I hiss, pressing my fingers to my temple. “You’re such a pain.”
See? No wonder I named him that.
Still, this isn’t even the worst of it. Pain can do worse. And sure enough, he hops onto his bony little feet and jabs his beak straight into my arm.
The pain is sharp, searing. Almost real.Almost.
Many things are almost real when you’re almost real yourself.
I jerk my arm back, rubbing the phantom ache as I shoot it a glare.
“Itoldyou. Just. One. Minute,” I repeat like a broken record.
Pain blinks at me, unimpressed.
We’ve been at this for five years now, the same routine playing out daily. I come here, sit on this goddamn tree like a lunatic, and Pain finds me when there’s a job to do. Always. If I were him, I’d be sick of my bullshit, too.
But Pain doesn’t know what it’s like—to be murdered and then watch the person you once loved just… move on.
Very few beings do.
The pull tightens—an invisible chain wrapping around my ribs, squeezing so hard I feel like I’m suffocating. I dig my nails into the bark, my spine bending backward until all I can do is stare up at the gray sky.
“Agh.” I grit my teeth and shut my eyes, bracing myself. It usually comes in waves, one stronger than the last. But this... Pain must really be sick of me sitting here, because I can't remember the last time it hit this hard right away.
“Fuck,” I choke out.
The raven croaks again, its voice clawing through my skull, splitting my brain open with one unbearable wave of suffering after another. Just when I think I can’t take it anymore, the pain lets up.
The pull vanishes as fast as it came, leaving me gasping, raw, and frayed at the edges. My grip on the bark loosens, my body tilting forward before I steady myself.
Pain settles beside me, ruffling its feathers with something eerily close to satisfaction.
“You enjoy this way too much,” I mutter, still catching my nonexistent breath. Breathing is just like grasping the bark stronger. Of course, I don’t need to. But I always forget I don’t.
The raven doesn’t answer—obviously. But the way it clicks its beak, just once, says enough.
Time to go. For real, this time. The next wave of the pull will make me wish death was the end, it’s going to wreck me so hard.
Gritting my teeth, I push off the willow tree and drop to the ground. And just as I start searching for the soul I need to collect—something unusual happens.
Something I haven’t seen in the five years I’ve been coming here.
Someone else is here.
At the edge of the garden, where the path meets the fence, a figure stands.
Tall. Dark. A silhouette blurred by distance and the early morning haze. But it’s definitely a man. There’s a shovel in his hands, and he lookspissed. I can feel the emotion rolling off him, even from here, even in my astral form. And that’s saying something. Most of the time, I barely feel myself, let alone other people.Livingpeople.
Because this man—without a doubt—is very much alive, and just as angry.
“What the fuck…?” I whisper.
The next wave of the pull is just around the corner. I can feel it twisting beneath my skin, coiling, waiting to strike. But suddenly, I don’t care about the pull anymore.
