“I’m a student at Grim Reaper Academy. I’m in the Merciful Death Cabal, but I missed the field trip with them, so I had to come with the Righteous Death Cabal.” I sighed deeply. “I shouldn’t have come. Who cares about field trips? I won’t be a Grim Reaper anyway. I don’t even want to graduate.”
He stole a glance at me. It didn’t look like he was necessarily curious about my story, but more like he was concerned about me.
“Don’t worry, it’s not what you think.” I smiled. “It’s not that I’m insecure or I believe I’m not good enough to be a Grim Reaper. It’s just…” I paused. How could I put this? “You said your life’s work is to make sure the cosmos moves in perfect order. My life’s work isn’t reaping. It’s something else.” I stopped to see if he was going to say something. He hummed and nodded to let me know that he was still listening, that he was still here for me. I felt a warm wave of energy envelop me. I’d never had a grandfather, but I was sure this was what it would’ve felt like if I’d had one to listen and care for me, to encourage me to open my heart and unburden my soul. “I don’t know why,” I whispered, “But I feel like I can tell you anything.”
He smiled. “You can, angel.” He cleaned my wound with plenty of water, disinfected it, and then proceeded to stitch my skin back together. He used a curved needle and thread that was as transparent as his wings. “If reaping is not your mission, then tell me what your mission is. You have never stated it out loud, have you? That’s why you don’t fully believe that you’ll accomplish it.”
“How did you know?” So, I was insecure, after all.
“I don’t. It’s a feeling.”
“Hm.”
I was silent for a while, and he was busy putting my arm back together. After he finished stitching, he put plenty of ointment on the wound, washed his hands, and then started making a kind of rose-colored mixture in a bowl.
“It’s for the cast. Don’t worry, though. The bone won’t take long to heal. What we have in Heaven is ten times more potent that what your doctors use on Earth. The thread, the medicine, the cast… You’ll heal in no time.”
“Thank you.”
As I watched him work, I decided that he wasn’t going to ask me about my mission again, so I might as well tell him. He was harmless, and for the first time, I felt like I could talk about everything that was on my mind. Sure, I could talk to Aunt Katia, but she was Mila’s mother, and she was concerned about her daughter, so she couldn’t empathize with me the way I needed her to. And I could talk to Adrian, who was on my side, but the ailment of his own daughter weighed heavily on him. I realized that all this time, I’d needed to confess to someone who could listen without having an agenda of his or her own at the back of their mind.
“There are monsters on Earth.” When he didn’t flinch, I went on. “They live under the ground, in the oceans, probably in lakes, too. They are asleep for now, but once, they were awake, and they devoured entire communities before going into hibernation. They’re not from this world. They’re from a parallel universe that’s very different from ours, and they came here when a great cataclysm triggered by mages opened portals all over the world. People call them the Great Old Ones and consider them gods. But they are not false gods, like Thor, or Jupiter, or Aphrodite. They are abominable creatures who have been poisoning us since they got here. My mission is to banish them. I haven’t found a way yet, but I will. So, I don’t care about being a Grim Reaper. All I care about is sending these monsters back to where they belong. I can’t kill them, because where they come from, life and death don’t exist, but I’m sure I can open the portals once more and send them back to their world.”
By this time, Lucien had put my arm in a cast. It was still soft for now, so I had to wait for it to dry. I tried not to move. As it hardened, I saw that the material turned transparent with gentle shades of pink and orange. Through it, my arm was perfectly visible.
“Feels good to say it out loud, doesn’t it?” He washed his hands one last time, then gathered all his supplies and stuffed them back inside their cabinets. “I do more than supervise the movement of the heavenly bodies. I read and interpret their positions in the sky.”
“You’re an astrologer, then.”
“I am many things. Including very, very old. I was a child when my great-grandfather told me about the day our world shook. Hell, Earth, Heaven, and all the pocket universes around us. The day we, the divine creatures made in the image and likeness of God, got… genitals.” He laughed. I didn’t.
I couldn’t believe what was happening! I knew the story from Mila, who’d heard it from someone in GC’s family. Her boyfriend, Golden Calf Apis, came from a long line of false gods, and it was known that false gods were among the few supernaturals who were truly immortal.
“Tell me,” I demanded, my curiosity spiking, my heart beating faster.
“Angels were immortal once, and also unable to procreate or experience physical pleasure. God created them that way, while Satan made his demons mortal and allowed them to multiply. In the long run, it turned out to be a smart decision. Hell got crowded fast, so Satan had to send his demons to Earth to get some peace and quiet. God didn’t have this problem. His angels were beautiful, perfect, eternal, and in exactly the right numbers. What could go wrong?”
“So many things,” I whispered.
“Yes. The heavenly beings saw the daughters of man and were fascinated. They descended from Heaven, married them, and soon realized they couldn’t offer them what they desired. The women craved to have children as much as they craved the pleasures of the flesh. The angels went before God and asked Him to… well… fix them. Everyone on Earth and below it had a different anatomy, an anatomy that allowed them to live normal lives. They couldn’t understand how their Creator had gotten such an important detail wrong, but no matter… They thought now it would all be solved. God refused. Of course.”
“And that was the first time the angels cursed.”
Lucien chuckled. “They’d learned some good ones from their mortal wives.”
“They went to the mages. They didn’t need God at all when there were powerful mages on Earth who could give them what they wanted.”
“Yes. And that’s where it all went downhill. Five mages gathered under the stars and performed a ritual like the world had never seen before. The Earth shook, the pocket universes trembled, God’s perfect, innocent servants lost their immortality, and the fabric of the universe itself was damaged beyond repair. Portals opened all over, and cosmic creatures cruised through, swallowing entire villages in their path. When they had enough, they hid under the ground to better digest their food. To close the portals, God, Satan, mages, and false gods had to work together. But even though the portals were closed, the cosmic spawns that had found their way into our world remained. It is said that as long as the portals stay closed, they will sleep. But that’s only an assumption, isn’t it? How could we know for sure?”