The Grim Reaper
To Tessa, Death was nothing like she had imagined, when she was human. She had imagined a horribly deformed, bent creature with skin made of charcoal and a leather cowl that covered soulless eyes. In reality, Death was Power, perhaps the most powerful Being she had ever met, capable of doling out death and fear without conscience. He was older than God, or so some claimed, and thought Lucifer a petty nuisance. The world over feared him, and he was a cold bastard, besides, numb to the thousands of deaths he doled out each day.
But he hated the job, though Tessa could never figure out why. Dean was not the first to fall victim to one of his deals; a day in the shoes of Death, literally, while Death himself ran off to a pizzeria or a coffee shop.
Death told her, when she asked, that even he needed a reprieve from the burden of taking and granting life. That food was tasteless in his mouth so long as he wore the ring, and nothing brought him pleasure like a day of being free of it.
He did not tell her much else; he was a very private man, and she suspected this to be part of the reason why he was so powerful, so respected.
If Dean had always been Death, Tessa suspected she would not have made a Deal to keep out of Hell in favor of working for him, after all.
For that was what she had done; made a deal, just as Dean had, but hers was to save her own skin, rather than her brother's. She supposed that this was what irritated her so about Dean; that he cared so deeply about someone else, while she was just...numb.
She could remember the day of her deal, her death, quite clearly; could remember the car filled with people, all talking and laughing amongst themselves as the shrill whistle of the train announced a soon arrival into the town. She could remember a little boy, sitting across the aisle, hands stuffed into deep pockets as he stared forlornly out the frost-covered window. She could barely remember the taste of crispy chips against her tongue, of fresh wine washing it down.
She could remember the screeching sound of the engine failing, the scream that ripped past her throat as she flew out a broken window, glass cutting into her skin.
Could remember the impact of the sharp pole as it slammed into her fragile body, and the cold kiss of Death awoke her to the spirit realm.
He had leaned over her, one gloved hand clutching that intimidating cane, the other spinning the Ring around his bony index finger.
The train that had killed her as she lay across its tracks, tied down by her captors, sped past them, or through them, and that was the first time Tessa saw her Reaper, standing awkwardly behind Death with one bony hand extended towards her in greeting. He was not like Death; his eyes were worn, the green tinged skin sagging around the edges, compassionate and sad, at the same time.
Something about him frightened her far more than the sight of Death, looming over her, though she could not explain why.
Death stood then, straightening so tall that Tessa thought he would never stop, and his emotionless face stared down at her, scrutinizing.
The Reaper, who appeared like an old man, reached for her, and Tessa let out a scream, scrambling back in fear.
"No!" she cried, turning supplicating eyes to Death. "No, I'm not ready. Please."
Death's pale eyes blinked down at her, and then he turned his back, black waistcoat spinning around his body. The Reaper started towards her, eyes almost compassionate. Almost. Death's eyes were not, and for some reason, she preferred this.
"Come," the Reaper spoke, and something about his voice sent shivers down Tessa's spine.
She turned back to Death, pleading. "Why? Why do I have to die? I'm not ready."
Death stiffened then, turning slowly. "Do you think any are? All who face Me fear Me in some way or another, but none ever escape Me."
Tessa swallowed hard, somehow finding Death's personage more comforting than the Reaper. Perhaps because he was so cold about it, as if this were merely a delivery. And, in a way, she supposed it was; a delivery of her soul to the realm beyond death.
"Then what is the point of it all?" she couldn't resist asking, marveling that she could be so calm in the face of Death. "Why live if we are all to die someday?"
Death squinted, and then shrugged. "All must die. Not all of those live, however," he answered cryptically, sounding bored by this conversation, as if he had already had it a thousand times today.
Tessa paled. Perhaps he had.
"Do you know...where I end up?" she asked, hesitantly. "Do I...go to Heaven or Hell?"
Death quirked an eyebrow at her, the first sign of an emotion on his face since she met him. "Does it matter?"
Something about the way he asked the question made her freeze. Her father was a priest, after all, and such things as one's immortal soul concerned her dearly, even if she had let on very little about this while...living. "Yes."
"If you refuse to go with my Reaper, you will be forced to walk the Earth as an unsatisfied soul, a ghost, as I believe they are called these days, hunted by those intent on putting your soul to rest. Permanently," Death shrugged his lean shoulders. "Or, you could go with my Reaper, and find peace now."
"There must be another choice," she demanded, but Death was silent to her unspoken request. "Please."
She glanced toward the Reaper, saw the shadow in his eyes, and knew. "There is another choice," she insisted, after studying the Reaper's face intently, and turned back to Death.
"Not for you," Death stated calmly, eying her with something akin to annoyance.
"I'll do anything," she tried, sitting up and ignoring the weightlessness of her body after death.
"You do not even know where your destination lies," Death said, eyebrows knitting together. "And yet you would choose to do anything for me to avoid what could, quite possibly, be an eternity in paradise?"
"Or an eternity in brimstone and fire," Tessa whispered.
Death laughed, actually laughed, at that proclamation. "Believe me, my dear, your place in Hell will not be one of fire and brimstone. I have been there, to where they send the ones as unimportant as yourself. No fire, I'm afraid. Just darkness."
"Please," Tessa begged, shivering at his words.
A pause. "You mortals are so odd. Very well. Should you choose to do this," Death finally spoke up, "You will be binding your soul to me for an eternity, forever at My bidding. You will not die, and you will not live, but exist in a state in between. Your soul shall become your only existence, and this shell that is currently your body will soon fall away to something far more...distasteful. But you will not go to Hell."
"All right," Tessa spoke hesitantly.
"You misunderstand," Death said. "You will not be at my bidding, but at the bidding of Death; just another one of my loyal servants, a Reaper. It will be your duty to Reap the souls that I harvest."
"I'll do it," Tessa insisted, voice a little stronger now as she struggled to her feet on the train tracks without the help of the Reaper, who now kept his distance.
Death's eyes lit with amusement. "And so you will." Then he twisted the ring on his finger, and an agonizing pain split through Tessa's shaking form, a pain unlike any she had ever experienced before. It was white hot, yet cold and dark at the same time, and she found herself simultaneously shivering and shaking. "Know that this will not be a choice available to all of the souls you must Reap."
"Then why...me?" Tessa demanded, between gasps. Her body jerked spastically, and a few tears leaked down her cheeks. The world seemed to fade away for a moment, and all she could see was Death's face, framed in white light.
Death smirked, the first time his mouth moved in anything other than a frown. "Perhaps I enjoy the way you eat your dinner, Tessa."
She did not hear the words, too distracted by the pain bubbling up inside her, twisting her soul into something cruel and strange; that of a Reaper. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and one that she was not certain she liked. There was a lack of emotion to this new soul, this Reaper inside her. Death seemed to pale in comparison.
And that was how Tessa was reborn as a Reaper of Death, one of Death's many children, formed in his image.
The first soul she reaped was that of a child, freshly torn from his mother's arms in the dead of night, and Tessa felt tears burning her eyes when she took him from Death's cold grasp.
Death remained silent, not remarking on Tessa's tears as she comforted the little boy, and explained to him that his time had come, and he must now continue on, to the realm of the dead.
She held the boy's hand as she led him there, wondering why Death could not grant her first reaped soul that of someone truly deserving of their fate.
Death stood abreast to her afterwards, scanning the list, the predestined script, with narrow eyes before ordering them off to the next soul without so much as a word spoken between Death and the Reaper.
It was not until night fell, and Tessa felt truly bone-weary, that Death spoke to her again.
"You cannot save everyone," he said calmly, rubbing at the cane with his thumb.
"You could," she countered softly, unsure why she bothered to speak at all.
Death shrugged, as if it were inconsequential. "If I allowed that little boy to live, or any of the countless others that are Reaped today, there would be...consequences. Innocents would die on their behalf. Such is the way of Life and Death."
Tessa found that Death did not become any more emotional than this, and endeavored to do the same, for she found that if she distanced herself from the souls she took, and focused only on the work itself, and the fact that she was saving others a cruel fate by taking the souls meant to be reaped, all was well.
"Then why did you allow me to live?" she could not help but ask, after a few more days by his side. The answer alluded her, every time she took a soul. They begged Death to allow them some other option, and Death never relented.
Death turned on her, amused. "Do you think yourself alive, Tessa?"
She could not answer that. In truth, she didn't know the answer.
Her body was as strong as it had ever been, perhaps stronger, but in infinitely different ways. She was never ill, as were those she reaped, and could change forms to appear however she wished to those whose souls she gathered. Her eternal youthfulness made her feel more alive, in some ways, than she had ever been while living.
And yet...And yet she did not know the taste of food, nor the pleasure that came of satisfaction, nor the sensation of pain. In many ways, she was far more dead than those whose souls she reaped.
She simply gave up caring.
It was not many years after this, her first reaping, that Death was thrown back in his cell, having been bound by the angels of Heaven. They claimed that his power was simply too great. They said that he could not be allowed to roam the Earth freely, reeking more Death and Destruction upon the Earth than had been seen since the time of Noah.
In fact, it was not until he was taken back that Tessa learned that he had ever been in that cell at all, placed there by God himself long ago. He had escaped some years ago, to collect the lives of those lost during the Great War, and the angels had only caught up with him now, at the cusp of another.
And Tessa continued to Reap, because that was her duty to Death, although her soul cried out for her father and master to return to Earth as the years crawled by in his absence.
It was the closest she had come to real emotion since the day of her death.
The angels still refused to release him, but there were tales of a war in heaven, and it gave the Reapers hope.
She lost count of the hundreds of souls that passed through her hands in the short time since she had become a Reaper, souls which she led to the realm of the dead.
Lost count of how many of them demanded to know why they must be taken, begged and pleaded for just a few minutes to say goodbye.
And she lost count of the many times she had to explain that there was simply no returning from death, and that they must go on with their journey now, though she knew it to be a lie.
There were those who refused to come with her, either afraid of the afterlife or of leaving this world, though this was far less often, and these wandered the earth as spirits, forever in a state of unrest.
They always seemed so confused, so burdened by their time haunting what had once been their homes, but after the decision was made, Tessa knew that she could not unmake it for them.
Even less frequent than this, they were found, not by Reapers, but by Hunters, souls finally put to rest as they burned.
Sometimes she wondered if this would have been her fate as well, had she refused Death's offer. She was not certain, after standing at the Gates of Hell and delivering the souls of the dead, that she would have chosen that same route.
The years passed.
There were rumors, whispered amongst the Reapers, that Lucifer was preparing for the Apocalypse, that he planned to unleash Death along with the other Four Horseman.
Some of the Reapers were gladdened by this news, that their father was returning to Earth to walk amongst them once more. Some were frightened, knowing that Death was a harsh taskmaster, and that, along with his return, millions would die and thus make their task more arduous.
Tessa continued to Reap her souls, numb to their emotional pain as they found themselves dead by her touch.
She met Dean Winchester, the older of the two Hunters, when she attempted to Reap his soul as he lay in a coma. He was frightened of her true form, twisted and gnarled as it had become after a century of age, and so she made herself more presentable for him, all for the purpose of reaping his soul.
She was supposed to take his soul; she knew that, even though the demon threw her off him at the last possible moment. Azazel.
She didn't like demons. Especially when they made deals for souls that were meant for her to reap.
Other Reapers explained to her, later, that Death had not wanted Dean's soul, at that time. There were other plans for him, important ones, and had he died then, the world might have been thrown into chaos.
That did not relieve Tessa's guilt, at failing to Reap a soul which had called to her, but Death's words, kindly passed down to one of his youngest children even while he languished in a cell, calmed her significantly.
When he was released, many years later, by Lucifer, to be used as his puppet, she did not expect Death to walk forth on the Earth so unscathed. He summoned her, because he had a very important duty for her to perform, and she met him in a Chicago pizzeria.
"You were locked away for several hundred years," she protested as he walked into the pizzeria, calm and outwardly cold as ice, surrounded by fools who did not know how close they came to Death-literally. "And yet you wear no marks of pain from the experience."
Death shrugged, unaffected, and set his cane and scarf down at the table. "What is a hundred years but a blink of the eye to one such as me, one who has lived since the dawn of time, or perhaps earlier? Why do you think God finds the battles of angels and demons so insignificant as to not be worthy of his attention?"
Tessa swallowed. "Of course," she said, though she could tell by the look he gave her that he knew she still did not understand.
"Very good," he twisted that devilish silver ring. "Now, I believe we have work to do, for that irritating archangel who fancies himself greater than God. Work...in Chicago. At least for now. Are you hungry, because I suddenly find myself quite...famished."