A small blob of blue light appeared before the figure again. Drifting around the blade of a useless weapon before mixing its azure light into the being's halo. Another soul, another life, and a short one at that.
It had been long since he last held a soul so gently. Most were children, babies, lives that hadn't even started cut to early. Perhaps his creator's parental influence was bleeding in. Leaving that faint feeling of respite as he just started collecting those finished. The child who used to follow those at the end of their line like a little duckling was now freezing in the void. Diligently, but lazily awaiting for the souls to gravitate to him.
It was unusual today, only one soul within one human hour. He wasn't bound by time but it was his basis. Normally hundreds of those blue blobs would appear all at once, leaving him to sort them out later.
People, humans don't choose when they died, and neither does a reaper choose when they do. They are just there once the soul and the body separates. Once its done all what's left is to wait. So then why, is he standing in the white room of a hospital. A mother was crouch over the bed, crying out her sorrow while her child lay motionless in "sleep". A human's psyche was more peaceful dead than alive. Living, it breaks so easily with the death of one. None of those moments have ever been pleasant.
The kid's soul, innocent and meek was ringing in his halo, bringing him a pain that he shouldn't bare unless he wanted it to shatter. He let that blob manifest to form. Whatever their eye color was before was now replaced with nothing but a colorless ball. It "stared" at the adult's shaking form, poking and hugging as if it would do anything to catch her attention. They stopped soon enough to stare at their own body. Tears of the spirit flowed down their cheeks as the idea of death finally came upon them.
Samael sat on the edge of the hospital bed, watching as the humans sobbed over another life gone away. How odd, a tight string seemed to be binding around him and his heart. He lifted his fist, closed and blackened from the soot of handling the dead. Inside a moon butterfly emmerged, wings fluttering over to the child's soul.
"W-wha—?" the kid stammered. Backing away and circling around the cot towards Samael, the insect followed him regardless.
"It's yours… go get it," …it really has been such a long while…, for so long all he remembered reaping were people who couldn't wait for the hell prepared for them.
He watched the gruesome deaths of soldiers without an inch of empathy washing over him as their bodies were mutilated with explosives. Politicians riddled with disease after terrorising their own country. There was more bad than good lurking around, or the good was too overshadowed by the events that the bad brought. It was sickening to reap the good, and nauseating to reap the evil.
The kid's face was buried deep in his cloak while he kept the butterfly at arm's length. Did the kid have lepidopteraphobia? Most of the souls he collected had a temporary animal form until the day of judgement. And most picked butterflies and moths for some reason.
From the corner of his eye, a small clay figurine was sitting in the body’s cold hands.
I see now… he beckoned the butterfly to the palm of his hand, waiting until its wings closed that he covered it with his free hand. Tapping the kid’s white shoulder, the white spotted head of a slug decorated with purple fern-life ears popped out from the crevice between his fingers. The child’s blank eyes “lit up” at the sea bunny sitting in his hand. Little sea creature lover.28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvT7XXPSW6q
Hurriedly the kid scooped up the animal, a quiet awe making an O on their lips. “Ready to go?” he asked, standing up from the cot as the kid stayed by his side. 28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzG860ClWF6
“…Will I see them again?” Their eyes were filled with hope and uncertainty.28Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ94YnOyRt7d
Samael took the frail hand in his, “When it’s their time,” the child’s expression turned solemn. No, their guardian, their mother couldn’t follow them. It was too early, and Samael? He had a better waiting place for them for the time being.
Black wings unfolded in the cramped space, engulfing the reaper and the kid. The bright light of day spilling into the room dissolved around them, fading to the black void that Samael was in moments before. The void wasn’t really a void, but rather the end of the purgatory’s territory. He turned them around the cliff and pushed the kid forward, the sea bunny still in their hands emitting a soft purple glow. They stumbled forward, finding luminescent grass beneath their feet. A hunter’s spirit in the form of a deer pranced toward them, curious and lighthearted. He heard a laugh, joyous and innocent.
Sometimes he wondered why he gave some souls this special treatment. Whose heart was he trying to mend? The soul’s or his? He didn’t wish to know. Even as an angel there were things that he doesn’t wish to know the answer to.
He followed into the forest as it unraveled with every step of the soul. The form they would take was a sea creature, the accommodation must be appropriate. The kid chased after the deer. Six years cooped up in the hospital since birth with nothing but a tablet and a tv showing the blue world of the oceans deprived them of the physical world. It was their first time seeing a deer, even if it was just a human’s soul in its most “free” form. Samael followed from the skies, black wings pushing him into the spaceless area over the spiritual grounds.
The kid was left by the deer when they left the forest area, the trees were those who were cut down or dies naturally from diseases long ago. Soon after the grey area they were running in the plains, the mountains that fell or were split into cliffs towered behind them. Herons and waterfowl filled in the rivers and their irrigation paths. Alexis was the kid’s name apparently, Samael finally took the opportunity to look at the life’s file. Fitting name, "defender", someone who's spend their entire life fending off the disease and succumbed to it either way.
Alexis' spiritual body was full of the energy that they were made to tire out had they not been bedridden for life. They were running without a single speck of fatigue littering their figure. It was exhilirating to watch and exhilirating to do. Samael dove down to hover above the dark waters, and Alexis skid and rolled down the sand hill to a stop, splashing into the water with the biggest smile on their face. The sea bunny jumped out of their hands, and they rushed to catch it, and the reaper just watched.
That form full of energy disappeared into a cloud, the soul was now in sea bunny. Its rhinospores seemed to point upwards in Samael's direction, even following him as he descended into the water. The feathers of a bird of prey were not fit for diving deep depths, the feathers of a dipper would suffice for this delivery. He took the sea slug in hand, closing them around like an oyster with its pearl, and dove. He dove with the force of his wings "flapping" in the water pushing him down at unimaginable speeds. In a flurry of bubbles he pushed his wings open like a parachute, halting their descent.
Alexis squeezed out of his hands on their own, they floated scared and hesitant around the waters until it was filled with the same glow as the land, coral that had died or died out over the eons colored the reefs. Samael gave the little soul one last push to settle in their home before shooting himself out of the water. The impact of him breaking through the surface created a bubble so large that it shattered into rain.
He was refreshed, every once in a while he meets a soul so pure that he can't fathom to not indulge. It was a breath of fresh air from the harsh, cold, and unforgiving treatment he gives to the sin-bound souls. From the calucations he makes to be there for every peaceful death. A taste of such innocence is akin to water for a human on their last thread.
Just this once, he'll stay in this garden of death for a little longer. Soak up the silent energy of a souls waiting for their judgement and just breathe. And maybe have Azrael take over for just a few hours.
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