Beginning of the End

Eyes

Tobio opened his eyes and was met with harsh lighting. He groaned and closed his eyes again.

Is it morning already? He needs to get up and prepare for school, but for some reason, he feels woozy like his head was stuffed with cotton. His limbs felt heavy as well and he would much rather stay on the bed. For some reason, the beddings and sheets were softer than usual and it did not help to urge Tobio to get up for the day.

"Good morning, Mr. Kageyama."

At the voice, Tobio snapped his eyes open and winced because of the light. Tobio blinked repeatedly to get used to it and the first thing he noticed is that everything Is white, a blob of black with a bit of brown. Is it a person?

And that he couldn't see anything clearly. Everything is hazy and blurry.

What is going on?

"Um... where am I?" Tobio's voice cracked slightly, his voice still a bit thick with sleepiness.

"You are in the Grim Reapers Japanese headquarters. I suggest that you wear the glasses on your bedside table to see better," Tobio nodded dumbly and followed the man's instructions.

He reached out to where he assumes is the bedside table and started feeling the surface for the glasses. When his hands met something round with a handle, Tobio grabbed it and put it on.

After putting on the glasses his eyes instantly cleared, and could now see everything clearly. The first thing, rather a person that Tobio saw was a man with short neatly combed dark-brown hair and green (?) lime (?) eyes.

Is he a foreigner? But his Japanese is impeccable, Tobio couldn't even detect an accent not that he would consider himself an expert.

The man adjusted his glasses and that was when Tobio noticed that the man was holding a long garden pruner, and Tobio was suddenly on alert. Is this the man who trespassed his home yesterday? What is he doing here? What is Tobio doing here? Had he been kidnapped?

What even is a Grim Reapers Japanese headquarters? Is this a joke? Is he being pranked?

Tobio frantically looked around trying to look for any means of escape. The man only raised a brow at him and then sighed, as if the whole situation is troublesome.

The man brought out a black file and started reciting its contents, "Kageyama Tobio. 14 years old. Date of birth: December 22, 1996. Date of death: November 18, 2011. Death by overdosing on sleeping pills. Remarks: Soul was harvested to be turned into a grim reaper."

The unnamed man closed the file shut and Tobio could only gape at him.

Grim reaper? What? How did he know his name? Dead? He's dead?

That, that can't be! He was just supposed to go to sleep, then wake up and start anew. Not, not die!

"Death by overdosing on sleeping pills."

Tobio blinked and the events from the day before started to flood in. The run home, throwing his bag somewhere, the pacing, his thoughts, the pill bottle. Everything.

Did he really die?

No more tomorrow? No more second chance?

"I-I died..?"

"Yes."

"But I'm still here."

"That you are. You are to be trained to be a grim reaper, and we'll have you attend an academy for it. Now get up, we have a lot ahead of us."

The man walked out and Tobio was left to his thoughts.

Who is that man? What even is a grim reaper? And he became one of those? How is that even possible?