Chapter Four

The Accident

Mark and his friends grinned happily and chatted amongst themselves in the back of the lecture hall. They were attending a lecture for one of their classes, and the speaker was supposed to show up soon. The lecture was about Archaeology in the Mayan era, a subject that fascinated Abel. Since it sounded interesting enough, the others had decided to go with him.

Their conversation was interrupted as a tall blonde woman with short hair and green eyes walked onto the podium at the front of the room, several sheets of paper in her hands. She cleared her throat and began to speak, and the group grinned at her thick accent; she was a German historical archaeologist that had flown out to America to do lecture tours around at different schools. They watched as the woman spoke and pointed to pictures displayed on the wall via a power point presentation for a good two hours before the lecture ended and most of the other people left.

"Come on, let's go grab a bite to eat at Cook Out." Gabe suggested with a grin, stretching.

"Yeah, just give me a few minutes. I want to talk to the archaeologist about something." Abel said with a small smile.

"Okay, just hurry it up. I'm starving." Mark complained, getting nods of agreement from Gabe and Valerie.

Abel nodded and walked up to the archaeologist, shaking her hand enthusiastically and speaking with her quickly. The others watched him patiently, waiting only a few minutes before he said his goodbyes and walked back to them. They smiled and filed out of the lecture hall, starting immediately down the road that would lead them to Cook Out. Cook Out was a small fast-food restaurant that had been strategically built right on the edge of campus. Students went there in droves every day because the restaurant had good, cheap food, and was open late into the night.

"What do you guys think you're gonna get?" Mark asked cheerily.

"Probably just a burger. I ate earlier, so I'm not too terribly hungry." Abel replied with a nonchalant shrug.

"Lame. I'm definitely getting one of the milkshakes. That stuff's awesome!" Gabe said with a grin; Cook Out's milkshakes were more accurately described as cups of ice cream, and they were notoriously delicious.

"I don't think anyone is going to be getting anything for a while. Look up there." Valerie said, pointing ahead of them to the place where the road went off campus.

There was a huge crowd of people gathered in a wide circle around something, and smoke could be seen rising up like mist in the night. Flashing red lights alerted the group to the presence of an ambulance, and they jogged up to find out what was going on. People could be heard whispering and crying as they approached, and they had to stand on tiptoe to get a clearer view of what had happened. They gasped at what met their wide eyes.

There had been a car crash, and a terrible one from the looks of it. There were scraps of curled, twisted gray metal littered around the crushed-can remains of the car. It looked like the car had skidded while trying to turn, and done a few rolls before hitting a telephone pole. The driver of the car lay a few feet from it on a stretcher that had been put on the ground, as the ambulance crew was busy trying to get the passengers out of the totaled vehicle.

"Ah, this is awful. She's in my Economics class." Valerie whispered, shuddering.

"I wonder what happened?" Abel asked softly.

"Victoria Clemens, age twenty-two. Driving too fast while trying to get back onto college campus after having a couple of drinks at a local club. Cause of death; internal bleeding."

The group turned quickly to see Alan standing behind them, holding a file in his hands. The Shinigami adjusted his glasses and snapped the file shut, stuffing it into his business suit top. He nodded at the group and strode forward, sliding easily between people as he passed through the crowd.

"What is he doing?" Gabe asked in horror as the man walked out of the crowd and up to the unconscious young woman.

"I think...I think he's about to reap her soul...that must be why no one is reacting to him. He must be masking his presence so they don't interrupt him." Mark whispered, fascinated.

"Then why can we see him?" Valerie asked, clinging to the back of Mark's shirt and hiding her face in it; if Alan was reaping the soul, she didn't want to see it.

Mark watched Alan carefully, and sadness settled into the pit of his stomach.

"He wants us to see what he has to see every day. This is his way of explaining why he was the Shinigami to get cursed with the Thorns of Death. He's showing us the pain he has to go through. In other words...Alan is saying goodbye." he whispered, knowing he was right without having to ask the Shinigami.

The group watched silently as Alan stared down at the dying girl, holding his scythe at his side. His eyes were as cold and emotionless as could be, but it was clear that it had taken a long struggle to close himself off to the pain of the dying. There had once been sorrow, regret, and apology written in those acidic green eyes. Now there was nothing left but cold resignation; now this was just business.

After a moment, Alan lifted his scythe over his head, then brought it down into the girl's stomach quickly. There was no blood, nothing to offer the crowd any glimpse of what was really happening. There was only a loud gasp and a gurgling cry, followed by a spastic twitch and silence. The crowd gasped and started crying as the ambulance crew rushed to her side, not seeing Alan leap away from the body and into a nearby tree.

The group of teenagers watched with wide eyes as Alan held his scythe out over the scene below him. The Shinigami looked almost majestic as brightly glowing strips of what looked like movie film flowed up from the girl's body. They wound themselves loosely around the graceful creature that had summoned them, and he closed his eyes slowly as they flowed into the blade of his scythe. Once all of the film strips had vanished, Alan opened his eyes slowly and looked down at them.

Mark nodded at him, showing that he understood. If they continued to pursue Alan like they did, they would surely make his Thorns worse. It was important that he live as long as possible; he was one of the last Shinigami left that still harbored a tiny amount of compassion for the souls he was in charge of caring for. It would be a sin to cause the death of such a remarkable being.

Alan smiled softly at them and waved before vanishing, leaving the shocked teens to mourn with the rest of the crowd. Their reasons were slightly different, but their tears stung all the same.

This is going to be a short fic-I have a much better one planned for my Alan-kun! I freaking love Alan! One more chapter, my Silverlings! Hope you're not disappointed! Allons-y!

~Silver