A Reapers Purpose

Restless.

I was always restless.

The blaring of my internal clock stirred me from the sleep that I desperately needed, all to remind me of a duty I never desired to fulfill. A twelve hour shift in the ER met by an unwanted and unplanned spiritual curse was not something I sought for my resume. To understand what I’m talking about, I think I should explain something. I am Doctor Liam Whitlock and three months ago, I made the fatal error of doing my job.

I should clarify: not fatal for me, but for every soul that is ready to be reaped. Three months ago, it was like any normally chaotic ER shift. The brave soldiers I call my colleagues were as tired as ever, and a young woman had come in from a drug overdose. With everyone else’s hands already occupied in a full house, it was my responsibility to treat this patient. After assessing her: giving her Narcan and still not seeing any improvements, I began chest compressions; keeping a rhythm, administering breaths, trying my hardest to not fail this patient. She was no younger than 23, and a part of me didn’t want to let another person with so much life ahead of them slip away. I didn’t know this girl, but I knew everyone deserved a chance to live and make the most of their future and time. I’d fight Death for her to get another breath, even if I did terribly with loss.

After a while, I got her pulse back, and not too long after that, she was awake - albeit extremely tired and sore from the CPR, but alive. I didn’t know that there was some twisted cosmic force, or spiritual line severance that I had prevented, but I guess this girl was meant to die at that time, and I stopped it. Stopping that one domino from falling unlocked a door of miserable punishment for me. That girl didn’t cheat Death, I gave her the goddamn answer key and put a big fat red target on my back for the grim reaper.

I guess, in some sick and twisted way, I deserved this for getting in the way of divine intervention. Trying to play God never did look too great.

That night, on my walk home to my apartment I passed a homeless man holding a small can for money near a flickering street light . Immersed in shadows, he sat in dirty blankets and worn out clothes that didn’t fit his nearly skeletal frame. He reminded me of a patient I had treated in the past. Pausing my walk home, I dug into my wallet and pulled out a few twenties to put into his can.

As I reached to put the money inside, his spindly fingers wrapped around my forearm harshly, pulling me to my knee and closer to him. His hand was corpse-like, cold, thin, and bony. His thin lips and scruffy unkempt beard scratched at my ear as I felt a cold breath caress my cartilage. The shadow of the building he sat against enshrined us, leaving my vision to abandon me.

His voice was unlike anything I’d heard; a raspy layered speech, like multiple people were speaking at the same time, “You’re a fool for thinking that Death doesn’t finish its job. You should’ve let her die, you should’ve let go. You must learn Death to be free of it.”

The jarring words ceased my breathing, as I made the effort to pull my hand out of his grasp and lurched backwards . How this random man could’ve known I’d saved a woman's life today was beyond substance abuse, or a lucky guess. His words stuck. They were knowing, and carefully crafted for me to hear.

Perspiration coated my forehead and palms as I began to back away from the man finding solace in the flickering street light. Any and all possible reasons for our paths to cross drowned my brain as I looked at his shadow cloaked silhouette a few inches from my feet. He crawled from the shadows enough for me to see the face of a man I had resuscitated at work months ago.

Hairs on my neck rose as our eyes met, and with a painful gust of air from his mouth, flesh deteriorated off his body, his organs and muscles along with it, and the remains collapsed into a pile of bones and dust right in front of me.

At the time, all that left me was a blood curdling scream. I’d just watched a tangible man literally erode right in front of me, and there was no medical or scientific explanation behind this. The doctor in me was looking for anything reality based to cling to, but it was evading me. He was someone I’d treated before, I hadn’t known him long, but I’d saved his life. I prevented Death from his doorstep in the past, but he still died right in front of me.

It was like Death gave me a slap to the face for thinking that doing my job could really change people’s fate. Yeah I saved lives, but it only prolonged their waiting period before they returned to their maker. I was just a roadblock, not a savior.

Witnessing a death I’d never think was scientifically possible changed me. I tried telling the police what happened but when they got to the scene, already not believing me only to find absolutely nothing, they chalked it up to sleep deprivation from a long shift and escorted me home. I had to call out of work the next few days. I was spiraling.

One of the nights after that event was particularly painful to experience. I was sleeping and I felt that cold breath tickle my ear once again. The same one I’d felt nights ago. Recurring nightmares were flooding my sleep, and in this dream, the man was screaming at me for getting in the way, for making his death more painful. He was laying next to me, facing me, screaming in agony.

In a vicious sweat I woke up gasping for air, thirsting for clarity and ease from these dreams. Taking deep breaths to ease my racing heart, I went to look at the time to see how much sleep I’d managed to get and I felt my soul leave me body when I found a cloaked figure standing beside my bed, staring down at me from the empty void that hooded it.

Unable to move even a muscle, I stared in blatant fear, my breath taken away as I gaped into the abyss of the hood.

Dim street light cast through my apartment window, slightly illuminating the figure. Beneath this cloak was a ghostly white humanoid looking body with chasms for eyes. Sweat beaded at my forehead as I was swallowed thickly.

A voice echoed from the hood as it continued its scrutiny of me, and that voice was all too familiar to one I’d heard nights ago. The layered speech filled my body as it cut through the silence of my room, chaining me to my bed like I was a prisoner.

“The more you save, the more pain they feel. You must learn that Death is not an enemy. It’s a gift. Death calls you, Liam. Death beckons you to finish what you prevented. Only when that is done, and you've learned what Death does, will you be free from this lesson. Free those enslaved souls you trapped in this life, and you too, will be free.”

When it finished speaking, its stark white hand rose from its sleeve, and palmed my head. A cold I’d never felt before rushed into my lungs, as if I were drowning, and I watched as the clock passed 1 in the morning, my body turned ghostly white, dark robes enveloped my skin, and my vision became stronger. I could see the essence of every living thing around me. Small balls of light beckoned me, a painful thrum ran through my head. My now colorless hands clutched at my head as I groaned, crouching in pain on the floor. The cloaked figure watched silently as this new body of mine contorted in torment. I screamed out and heard a voice that I did not recognize as my own leaving my lips.

“What is this? Who are you? What’s going on!” echoed my newfound voice. Confusion continued to swirl in my mind along with the throbbing pain.

I felt its cold hand press itself onto my writhing back, almost as if to comfort me.

It knelt to my level, and spoke calmly, “You have often prevented Death, Liam. A lesson must be learned. Death cannot be prolonged, you must herald its message. You must reap the souls you’ve prevented from crossing into the next life. Once you learn what Death truly is, you shall be pardoned from this enlightenment.”

Continuing to crouch on the floor, the pain finally began to subside and its hand remained on my back. “What do you mean, I have to learn a lesson? I was saving lives! I was doing my job, I’m a doctor! Are you saying, I have to kill the people I’ve saved? Who even are you?!” the questions spilled in a confused anger as I rose to my knees, swatting its hand off of me.

“I too was like you, Liam. Blind to the truth. Blind to my humanity. There is more to a soul than this life, and when it is to be reaped, a doctor cannot save it from being taken back. This lesson is yours to learn Liam, I am but a warner. You must begin reaping tonight, or else that pain you experienced will torment you until you do.”

As this humanoid creature informed me of this divine punishment, the robes on my body grew darker, juxtaposing my bleached skin.

“I don’t want to kill- I can’t…how do I even do that? How does reaping even work?” disbelief clouded my thoughts as I witnessed what my body had turned into. There was no doubt that whatever this Reaper was spewing was the truth.

Though my appearance mirrored that creature, I still felt every bit as human in my mind and my morals. It’s abyss like eye sockets focused on me as it spoke again, “Your body will awaken this form at Twelve o’clock each night. In the daytime, you will remain human. Each soul you reap will draw you towards it, they will be the color blue, only reap the blue souls. Other souls are for other reapers. You will approach the souls and call to them, they will answer you and make their way to wherever they are destined to rely.”

After digesting what this thing had said, another question arose, “There’s more reapers? There’s more people like me?”

It nodded slowly, “I too am serving a debt for intervening in Death's way. We all share that path, Liam. This debt now falls to you as well. Reap these souls and you’ll be free.”

Familiar cold hands assisted me to my feet, and it guided me forward, walking through the walls of my apartment, like a ghost. For some reason, I held my breath. I expected to feel the wall block me, but it didn’t, it was like walking through nothing.

Releasing my hands, it glanced back at me before giving me parting words, “It is time now for you Liam to begin your reapings. I wish you the best of luck in paying your dues,” and with the wind, it vanished like dust.

~~~

Three months have passed since I adopted this ‘job’. Three months since I’d reaped my first soul. Three months, since I’d saved a life at work.

I had been out every night since then, releasing these souls from their mortal coil. Since then, I couldn’t find it in me to save lives in the ER. It was blurring lines for me, that I had drawn in permanent marker. I was a doctor, my job is to save lives, but that’s how I got into this mess to begin with. I had pissed off Death so much, that it sought me out to undo all my work, all my efforts, just to make its point.

It was hard enough to take these souls back from people I remembered saving, but one reaping stuck with me more than I’d like to admit.

She was a little girl I’d saved a year ago- drowned in her swimming pool. She made it just in time to the ER to be resuscitated, I was the one who saved her. Watching someone I’d saved sit with their family, spending the extended time I’d allotted them, knowing I’d have to take her back wasn’t easy to reconcile with.

I waited until she was alone in her room when I fazed through her bedroom wall. She was in her bed, reading a book with her bedside lamp just bright enough to make the room feel comfortable.

As I fazed through, the blaring blue color of her soul called to me and I cooed softly to get her attention, "Charlotte, it’s time to come home.”

I’d learned, though it was the hardest reaping I’d done, that when a soul is ready to be reaped, it embraces Death with a warm, familiar smile.

She looked up from her book, not in fear or shock, but fondness. Her smile, missing a few teeth, beamed at me as she got up from her bed and walked towards me, reaching for my outstretched hand despite my otherworldly appearance.

As Charlotte looked up at me, she spoke the words I’d heard time and time again, “I was waiting for you.”

Gently brushing her curly hair out of her eyes with a small smile, I led her soul out of her body softly and raised it upward, guiding her to her destination. I gently placed her body back into her bed, tucking her in, and cracking her bedroom door open just enough to alert her family.

I left quickly after that, making my way to reap others I’d forsaken.

Whichever Reaper had informed me of my new duties that fateful night, was right. I had learned a lesson. I thought that my purpose was cemented- that I was someone who changed and saved lives. I thought that death was preventable. I was arrogant to think that I had any effect whatsoever on someone’s timeline. Becoming a herald of Death, showed me that when a soul is being called, there’s nothing I can truly do to stop it. It will return regardless of my intervention. These souls I’d guided to the next life, all greeted me with familiarity. They were ready, even though I’d extended their time, they were waiting to go back.

I’d always been bad with loss and death, but this purpose that was forced upon me, made me realize that Death, though painful, is necessary. I’d learned the hard way, and I still learn that each time I facilitate someone's arrival to the next life.

This new purpose bestowed upon me is to be a guide; to relieve the countless souls I’d wrongfully pardoned.

The biggest lesson I’d learned is that Death wasn’t punishing me, it was showing me the beauty in life and gentle return to something your soul is waiting for patiently. I may not be saving lives in my human life anymore, but I know now, I’m saving these peoples souls. I guess in a way, my purpose didn’t change all that much.