Manitou
They kept the scythe in an unlit corner of the least visited gallery in the museum. It was hard to find, had little of interest to anyone, and was only on the old museum maps. The only reason Maka had found it was because she had become terribly lost while looking for the Korean Cermaics exhibit. She'd gone down an unfamiliar staircase, through an odd hallway filled with old war posters and stumbled into the gallery down a step they hadn't had a sign for.
The room was old and she could smell the thick layer of dust that had settled over everything, even though she couldn't see it in the dim lighting. One bulb was dead and the other flickered in and out, casting eerie shadows onto the walls. The lights in the glass cases hummed with electricity, illuminating strange and almost abstract relics.
She took a few moments to walk around admiring the strange pieces before the shadowed corner caught her eye. There was no wall text, no labels, there was nothing at all to identify what she was looking at. The scythe was much too large and too ornamented be just a farm tool. The blade was gorgeous, even in the strange light.
She stood in front of it for longer than she had expected. There was no glass protecting it, it was just hung on the wall to collect dust. The only word she could think of was manitou, something she'd read once years ago while studying for an English test.
Maka shifted her weight to her right foot and then blinked. The strange almost eye-like detail had moved to follow her. She shifted to her left foot, and the eye definitely followed her. Maka stared and the scythe stared back.
All the horror movie logic told her that she should run in the other direction, but Maka couldn't walk away. She even found herself reaching forward to touch the steely grey shaft, and the eye followed her hand. It blinked when she snatched her hand back, she'd just been about to touch a museum piece!
Except it moved, well maybe it was a video piece, or a performance piece? But, this gallery wasn't listed anywhere in the museum as having a special exhibit, and the scythe looked almost…sad.
Maka took a deep breath to gather her wits and then bravely reached forward again to brush her fingers against the scythe. It was much warmer than the lukewarm museum air, and she could almost feel a pulse running through the metal. She looked at it, perplexed, when it closed its eye and sighed.
There was a flash and Maka was knocked to the floor by what felt like a body. She was seeing stars when the person on top of her groaned. They had been kind enough to cushion her head from hitting the floor, but she still felt a little winded and the person on top of her was heavy.
A Thank you, was rasped in her ear, his voice was deep but dry from disuse. Maka blinked until she could see, but was surprised when all she could see was white. The man groaned again and shoved himself off of her to lie on the gallery floor while keeping his hand under her head. "So fucking sore"
Maka sat up now that the white, that was apparently his hair, was gone to actually look at him. His leather jacket was old, but he at least seemed to be dressed in clothing from her century. She'd never seen such wild white hair though, or such sharp teeth; Maka wondered what color his eyes were but they were closed as he took deep heaving breathes of air.
"Are..are you alright?" She was tempted to poke him. The man cracked one eye open to look at her and grinned.
"Never better, doll. Thanks."
Maka shivered, unsure of what she'd just unleashed, but she was excited to find out.