Warning: Bullying, Assault, suicide and Death Mentions
Chapter 29: That Reaper's Record, Inhuman
Erican's POV
Mara's POV
Darkness was the first thing I could remember, along with silence surrounding me.
Is this what death feels like? Is this where I go when I die?
Where is my mother?
"Erican Jennan." A voice called out to me. Well, it was more of a collective of lifeless, strict voices, like a deathly choir. A spotlight shined on me as I stood alone in the black room.
"How do you know my name? Where am I? What happened?" I asked, my voice echoing throughout the room.
"You were born at half past two in the morning on the sixth of March in 1889 in London to Stace and Ellis Jennan. At sixteen years of age, you died due to willingly ingesting poisonous chemicals. You committed suicide on the twenty-third of April in 1905, at thirty-seven minutes past eleven at night."
"He killed himself on the same night that I tried to…" I thought. I didn't want to make this about me, but I found that the only difference in the outcomes of our suicide attempts was not only that he died, but he he died alone because no one would save him, nor would anyone miss him. It broke my heart, because as much as I didn't feel any sympathy for Erican before, I knew that he didn't deserve to die alone without anyone missing him, especially on the same night that I was saved by someone that cared, and made the mistake of hating that for the next month.
"Yes. I killed myself a few minutes ago, after my mother died. Where is she?" I asked with my heart in my throat.
"Stace Jennan's soul was taken by a demon. It consumed her soul, so she is neither in heaven nor hell. Her soul has likely been destroyed."
Anger rose in my throat like bile as tears welled in my eyes. After what my mother had gone through, she deserved to be in heaven, and a demon ripped that from her.
"Where would I find that demon?" I growled, feeling anger consume my heart.
"What must be discussed now is you, not the demon."
"What about me?! I'm dead, aren't I? Where am I?" I shouted.
"Calm yourself, Erican Jennan."
"Calm myself? I just killed myself!" I shouted, spreading my arms for emphasis.
"Yes. That is why you are here. You are a grim reaper now."
"...What?"
"You took your own life, which you were blessed with. Many have not been so blessed to live as long as you. As punishment for bringing your own death, you will watch others die every day, working to collect the souls of the deceased until you are forgiven."
"...Blessed? I was blessed to have that life?"
"Many children die of deaths forced upon them before even reaching half of your age, when you brought your own death."
"I wish I died when I was half my age! No, I wish my father killed me in rage the day he changed in that crash, so I wouldn't live a live where I was beaten and screamed at every fucking day, or where I would hear my father rape and beat my mother almost every fucking night! If I was "blessed" to live a life where I'm my own father's punching bag, and where all I could do about my mother's cries was block it out with white noise and hope he hurts me more than he hurts her, then what the hell have I been damned to for getting away from that life in a way that you all mighty death bastards don't approve of?"
"Regardless of what circumstances motivated your suicide, any human who commits suicide will become a grim reaper. You will work hard to collect souls until the day you are forgiven." the echoic voice said, monotonous. There was no anger, or any feeling for that matter. It sounded as if it was just stating a fact, not damning me to work until who knows how long until I was "forgiven".
"First, you will be enrolled in the Grim Reaper Academy for Youth. Since the final exam for the class is in May, you can either wait another year to take the exam, or learn as much as you can in the next month and take the exam then. If you pass, you will become a full grim reaper and choose which part of the London dispatch you want to go into." the voice explained as empty as ever.
"...Is there any way I can hunt demons?"
"What?"
"I may find the one that killed my mother, and I'll be able to make him feel the pain that I did."
"Erican Jennan, bringing emotions into this job will only cause trouble. In order to be an intermediary between life and death, you must be unbiased. Death doesn't discriminate between good and bad people. Grim reapers only collect the souls of people on the to-die list, and should you find a demon, alert higher authorities."
A spotlight shined on a pedestal. On that pedestal was a basic pair of spectacles.
"You'll need these."
Hesitantly, I realized that there was no way out, and I put on the glasses.
"Work hard, Erican Jennan."
I appeared in front of the door of a classroom. I was in a gray, lifeless hallway that I assumed was this academy I was supposed to go to.
"Isn't there a class going on?"
I looked out the windows. It seemed to be only seven forty-five in the morning. There was a schedule on the wall that said that class started at eight.
I looked down at myself, and I was still wearing the clothes I had died in. It was not the most presentable, but at least I wasn't naked or in my pyjamas.
I opened the door to a room full of boys and girls my age. They all looked more presentable than me, but their exhausted eyes were all on me.
"I was told I needed to come to this class." I justified my presence.
"There are open seats in the back." a girl with silver hair told me. I would soon learn that her name was Adrianne Crevan.
My heart broke when I saw Adrianne. I loved looking at her, because she was just so beautiful, but it just reminded me about the circumstances of the present. I was worried sick about her still being at the hospital, and I missed her so much.
I sat in the back and rested my head on my hand. Kids were murmuring to themselves, and I thought they were talking about me until they mentioned "Sutcliff".
"Great. Now I get to know what kind of shit everyone was saying about me while I was in the hospital." I groaned.
"Hey, isn't Sutcliff usually here by seven thirty?"
"Yeah, she's usually never late for being early." another kid snickered.
"Didn't you hear? Some people are saying she tried to kill herself." one whispered.
"Oversensitive bitch. I hope it worked, after what she said yesterday about "half-demons", as if they aren't scum just like real demons, or anyone who would give them a chance." another scoffed.
"So that's really what they thought…" I thought to myself. "Even if I died and I did want my mother to tell the school the truth, no one would have cared."
"Shut the fuck up!" Adrianne shouted, silencing the room. "Most of you treated Mara like shit yesterday, so don't start saying things like that about her when she might've killed herself just to get away from you all. How could you say that, Dick?"
"Wait. Why is Adrianne defending me?" I thought, a lot more surprised than I should have been. "It could've ruined her reputation."
"How could you defend her?" the other kid asked, appropriately named Richard Knox. "A demon is the reason why the only parent you have is that creepy doctor."
"Yeah, a demon killed my mother, not Mara. That demon would deserve to be isolated and bullied, not Mara. That demon deserves to have "demonic bitch" and a bunch of unspeakable things written on their locker, not Mara, which I know you did. That demon deserves to be driven to fucking kill themselves, not Mara!" she shouted to Richard.
"I was just telling the truth. It's not my fault it got to her. By the way, you know that I like being called my full first name." he remarked coolly.
"I'm not calling you a nickname, I'm calling you a dick! If it bothers you, fucking good! "It's not my fault." Bullshit! You wrote "Kill yourself" on her fucking locker, too! You wrote death threats, rape threats, and suicide bait in your locker. You literally wrote a note that said, "Across for attention, Down for cemetery. Make a crossword puzzle on your wrists, Demon." and put it in her locker."
"I-"
"I can recognize your shitty handwriting anywhere, so don't deny it! She stormed out after school and left her locker open, and it was in there! I couldn't even find her after school, she went home so fast! Thanks to you, she might have gone home to never come back!" Adrianne exposed.
"All I'm saying is, if she did kill herself, she's not getting any rest in peace notes and goodies on her locker from me. Who here actually would?" he said, overconfident.
"I fucking would! I'd put a bouquet of her favorite black roses by her locker every single day, and I'd also leave a note every single day about how sorry I was for not talking to her much yesterday!" she screamed, trying not to cry.
"Adrianne…" I wanted to reach out to her, but I knew it wasn't real. "Why did this suddenly become about me?"
"If I had just asked her how she was doing…" she shook her head. "Mara Sutcliff is one of the best people in this class! What did she ever do to you? She's sweet, smart, beautiful, and a fucking warrior for possibly putting herself out there like that, only to receive suicide bait that she might've already taken! You said that anyone who would give a half-demon a chance is scum, but if supporting Mara Sutcliff makes me scum, then I'm as scummy as scum can be!"
"Me too." a girl with platinum blonde hair covering her right eye, Amelia, piped. "I'm scum too."
"Who cares if you're scum, Silver? She doesn't even know you think that! She thinks you actually want her to die!"
Adrianne's fiery voice went as cold as stone, as well as her expression.
"...What?"
"I know my opinion doesn't mean jack shit to her, so when I was writing out those notes, I signed the worst one with your name! As far as she knows, you told her to kill herse-"
Adrianne leaped over the table and punched him in the eye, smashing one of his lenses and knocking him to the ground. She picked him up by his hair and smashed his nose into the desk as the class watched, likely doing anything to stay out of her path of rage. I closed my eyes. I couldn't bear to watch.
I wanted to watch Adrianne beat Richard up, but it was understandable why Erican didn't.
"How dare you! How dare you put my name on the line for your suicide bait? Do you have any idea how much Mara Sutcliff means to me?"
"Why do you think I - AUGH!"
Another sound of a fist against Richard's body told me her response.
"Why isn't anybody helping me?"
Nobody moved.
"You! New kid! Get this bitch off of me!"
I opened my eyes to see the bloody, bruised Richard.
"You baited her to do what got me here in the first place. It could be the reason other people did to. That's why no one's helping you." I answered, looking back down.
Adrianne kept hitting him until security staff came in and broke up the fight. Richard was taken to the infirmary, while Adrianne was escorted out of the room. They weren't even rough with her, despite what happened.
"If any of you treat Mara like he did if she comes back, I'll-"
The door shut, and the room fell silent.
The whole reason I hadn't been bullied as much this past month as I did that day was because of Adrianne. I truly had to thank her for everything, but it was likely too late.
She was probably dead by now.
"Good morning, class." the teacher came in earnestly. He was 5'11", had tanned skin and brown hair, and had his wedding photo on his coffee mug. Above and below it, it read, "I love my husband to DEATH!".
"Good morning, Mr. Hobson." the class said chorally.
"It feels so long since I've been in his class, even though it's only been less than two days." I thought.
"Is that a new mug, sir?" Amelia asked.
"It is! My husband got it for me. I should really bring them into the class one of these days. You'd love them!" Mr. Hobson answered cheerfully. "But first, I have a few announcements. We have a new student!"
Naturally, everyone turned to me.
"Introduce yourself! We all try to get along in this class, so we'd love to know a bit about you, kiddo."
I stood up, putting my hands in my pockets.
"Well, my name's Erican, and… I actually just became a reaper a little while ago, so there isn't much to tell about me right now. Sorry." I told everyone. They all looked at me with sadness and pity; they knew how I got there.
"I'll just sit back down." I said, doing so.
"Well, now I'll tell you my second announcement." Mr. Hobson said, less brightly than before. I guess I ruined his mood by almost dying.
"Sir, is it about Mara?" Amelia asked. The teacher nodded bleakly.
"Mara wont be here today. She's recuperating in the hospital after an accident at home." he explained. The class started to murmur.
"What I've been told is that she's lost some blood, but she's recovering just fine. She'll be back fine and dandy tomorrow!" he said, full of optimism. "With that said, let's start our lessons, kiddos!"
"Yes, sir!"
Frankly, the lessons were gibberish to me. The class had math and english that I was bad enough at as is, but their history lesson was way different. Sure, we learned about Jack the Ripper, but we didn't know that their real identity was made up of a human, Angelina Dalles, and a rule-breaking reaper named Grell Sutcliff, who eventually murdered the former with her chainsaw of a death scythe. It was actually very interesting.
"She never told me that!" I thought. "Well, at least I'm catching up on things I missed."
Near the end of the day, the class went to the gymnasium to work on practical skills. Since I would not be given my training scythe until the next day, all I could do was sit against the wall and watch. I watched them hit their scythes against one another. Eventually, it got old, and I got bored.
Bored and sleepy.
"...Is this really happening?" I thought. "Am I really some reaper thing? Did I really kill myself by downing a bottle of drain cleaner? Is my mother really gone?"
"What am I thinking?" I asked. "I must have fallen asleep after Mother told me to run away, or even before! This must be a dream!"
My eyes started drooping out of exhaustion. I curled up in an upright fetal position against the wall.
"Maybe if I sleep and wake up…"
I buried my head in my arms, succumbing to the exhaustion. The world became silent around me.
"It'll all be okay."
…
"...can…"
I heard a faint voice.
"Erican…"
I recognized the voice. I didn't want to open my eyes.
"Wake up, Erican!" he shouted.
"That voice..." I thought. "I remember it from the phone call at the hospital! It must be…"
I opened my eyes. I was still in the gym, and the room was empty, except for when I saw a pair of legs in front of me. My stomach churned, because I recognized it's shoes; my father's shoes.
"No… it can't be…"
He grabbed me by my hair and pulled me up. I didn't want to open my eyes, but I did anyway.
I saw my father looking me in the eye furiously.
His eyes were yellow-green, and he somehow looked more unstable, though I thought it was impossible. I would soon be proved wrong.
"Did you really think you could escape me by dying?"
