The sound of crying fills the air. No other sound could be heard but the loud sobs of the blond child stuck in the upturned blue van.
The wreck was horrible, one of the worst he'd ever seen. The van was practically a box, no glass left unshattered, the front and back completely crushed in, the top smashed so only a small slit was left as means of entrance or escape. The wheels were all bent except for one that had completely flown off on the trip down the cliff. Smoke rose in large plumes from the car he knew was going to explode any moment.
Sigh. Another day at work.
He walked over to the car kneeling down to peek inside at the sobbing boy. His face was red from the tears and the blood rushing to it, his body was littered with cuts and bruises, and he had the most ridiculous busted sunglasses on his face. He was scrambling and flailing trying to escape his seat belt. The paperwork said he would die in the explosion of the crash.
The reaper looked over at the mangled mess that was the boys parents. They were lucky to have died almost instantly on the way down. The boy would not be so lucky. He turned again to look at the boy, shocked when his red eyes met with the bloodshot red of the whimpering child's eyes.
The boy blinked sniffling and stared at the upside down gray face looking back at him. The face was shadowed by a black cloak crisscrossed in red. Black sunglasses covered his eyes but the boy could still read the shock in his face. He whimpered and slowly held his arms out.
The reaper chewed on his lower lip. His insides warring with him. With a strew of curses he reached his sickle into the car and sliced the seat belt. The boy fell to the roof of the car with a loud crack. He slowly clambered out of the wreckage and shaking and dizzy pushed himself into standing. The reaper quickly grabbed the souls of the dead parents and stood up.
A small hand settled into his own. The reaper looked down at the tearstained freckled face. He sighed again, he could loose his job for this. He walked the boy over to a tree a safe distance from the car just before the loud explosion of flames.
The reaper knelt down pulling the broken shades off of the boy's face. He pulled his own sunglasses away from his eyes and placed them on the boy's. "Don't fuck this up." he muttered and pat the boy on the head. Then he stood, two souls in his hand and waved his sickle.
The boy watched as a crack split open in the air, dark swirling abyss on the other side. The reaper stepped into the crack and with a final wave over his shoulder, the rift closed as if it were never there.
Holding his broken shades tightly in his hands he stared wide eyed at the burning car and sniffled. Remembering a quote he often heard his father say he looked back to the spot figure disappeared from. "Striders don't fuck up." he mumbled, wiping the tears off his face with arm.