Timeless Snow ✓

Ch. 68 - Rift

To explain to you the depth of reaping another human's soul was no easy task. Every day was filled with sorrow and sadness as I comforted countless people on the last day of their life. The small bliss of being a kind person who could guide them to their next destination was outweighed by the crippling sadness of having to take someone from the ones that loved them most. 

It wasn't a week before Samuel was gone that I had reaped my smallest soul. It was a little girl named Rachael. She had leukemia. Her body was frail and cold, her hair withered from her head leaving only her skin. I could see her bluish veins just under her glass skin. Her brunette locks were nicely combed and brushed from her face from a caring family's gesture. Her breathing was nothing more than short gasps as she took her final breath in the dead of the night. I stood by her bedside in those final seconds. The clock passed midnight, was it a blessing or a curse that little Rachael was sleeping as her body began to fail. I looked up and pandered across the room as a single mother lay curled up in a cramped hospital chair. She wouldn't leave her child's side.

The poor woman was completely unaware that her eleven-year-old daughter was about to die.  I tried to keep my composure at that moment, to be a calm and confident face that Rachel would see when her soul finally detached from her body, but it was much easier said than done. She was just a little girl, with the entire world before her. It was stripped away by a defect in her own body that she had no control over and medical advances had found no cure. How could death be so cruel as to take her...? Why did her life need to end? 

Rachael's breath hitched before finally coming to a stop. I took in a gasp and covered my mouth with the palm of my hand. I choked back the tears as quick as I could, blinking rapidly to try and dry my eyes as I lowered my head in hopes that should she come too quickly, she wouldn't see my tears. The depth of that type of pain is indescribable. The hollowness of the consuming sorrow that had no end. I knew I couldn't stay this way, that I couldn't be a reaper forever. 

I only had three years to find a way out. I knew within the first year that I was never going to make that goal. I knew I'd lose my deal with death and be forced to be a reaper indefinitely. 

I needed a plan, but first I needed answers. While keeping up with my deathly duties, I searched the globe anywhere I ended up to reap. I searched high and low for answers, from libraries to churches and even a psychic here and there. If my spirit was capable of blood, sweat, and tears, I that's the effort I put forth in my pursuit. I tried talking to other reapers for answers, but most were too afraid of what Death would do to them should he feel betrayed. The silence was the majority, but as time grew I cultivated friendships with a few reapers and answers finally started to come to light. 

It's there that I first heard the legend of soul mates causing a 'galactic rift'. That rip in the world released a blinding white light that Samuel had walked into, it had a name, or at least that's what some called it. Little was really known about galactic rifts. It was rare even that most had only heard of. The only one capable of creating one of these rifts outside of soulmates was Death himself. I knew I could never get him to voluntarily let me move on, the deal was to precious for him to let break. I was determined but wary at the idea that I could actually trick Death. History didn't favor victims that tried to cheat death. From what I gathered, Death was the oldest sentient being to ever exist. How could I of all people, trick him? 

Nevertheless, I focused on the other way out. Despite no one I had spoken took ever seen one, there still remained the legends of soulmates. The origin of the term is dated, some believing it's the divide of one soul into two while others theories that all humans consisted of four arms and four legs with two heads until split apart by an angry god. I never got a hard answer of how soulmates came to be, but regardless a legend remained in the wind. 

Two who are truly to be fated connect, that bond is so incredibly strong. It links them in a way that borders the supernatural. Plenty of people claim to have found theirs but many never really know if it is in the end. When two connected souls pass it leaves a hole in the other that is incurable despite any attempts to heal. It's how they die that matters for a galactic rift. Since nothing happens should only one soul in a mated pair pass despite the eminence hollow feeling in their loved ones' gut. Something spectacular happened should the wheels of fate turn in just the right way. For when mated souls die at the exact same moment, it rips a hole between our world and the in-between. 

The last time anyone had heard of a galactic rift opening was in the 15th century. Two women were accused of corruption due to their love for one another. They knew they were to be killed for being homosexual at such an age. In one last act of love, the two jumped off the rocky cliffs nearest their village, hand in hand. The force of the impact in the raging waters more than 200 feet below killed them instantly, at the exact same moment. A passionate reaper named Vixen was more than happy to tell me the legend of their love story. She was the reaper that arrived to reap them. She described the beautiful white light just above the surface of the water, fizzling and sparking with an inviting light. Having confirmation like that was the closest I was ever going to get to an escape from the 'after'. 

That was hundreds of years ago and no one had seen one since... 

Things didn't look good, but I wasn't going to just give up. My options were limited, try and find and open a rift or stay in limbo indefinitely. I had all the time in the world to find the answers I sought. I owed it to Samuel to try, and I promised Nathaniel. I couldn't walk away from that. I couldn't shake the thought that if I moved on, my parents wouldn't suffer anymore. Though I kept my distance, I always felt that a piece of me remained connected to my parents, my family. Something in my gut told me that the closer I was to them, the more they suffered mentally. Maybe they could still sense me around, and it was killing them ever so slowly. How could I just let that go? 

It was a bittersweet curse that it only took two years for that spark to ignite. It wasn't my proudest moment as a reaper, feeling a sense of joy at the loss of two human souls. Their loss was going to be my gain and for a moment, I regretted that I was thankful for their death. It was only these emotions that grounded me when I arrived first on the scene of the accident. The perks of being an advanced spirit, I caught wind of the opened rift quickly. I had managed to beat any other reaper there by sheer luck. When my feet touched the damp asphalt an idea came to me. I didn't know how long I had, how long the rift would stay open?

"I'm going to explain this quickly." Raising my hands up I surrender toward them, trying to employ I meant them no hard. The woman's blonde hair was blooded, the red stain dripping down to the pavement with the rain. The rain... It was always the moments in the rain.

"You died..." I said, raising my voice over the hissing of the overturned car in the ditch to my right. Blinking the rain from my eyes I glanced over at the car, allowing no illusion to hide the two figures you could see sitting in the front seat. The man behind the wheel slung into the airbag of the car. His eyes were wide open, frozen that way in his final moment. "I know this is hard, trust me." They weren't going to, they had no way of knowing that I knew exactly what all of this felt like. And, I hope they never had to live with that knowledge like I do.

Staring at his own bloodied hands, the dark-haired man stood unwavering aside from the rattle of his nerves. He couldn't speak, not yet. His eyes fixated on his own body trapped lifelessly in an overturned car. How heartless I felt to try and force them through this situation for my own benefit, but I wasn't going to just turn my back on them either. 

"I know you have questions. I know you want to know 'why'? I can't answer that." Kasey shook her head back and forth as rain spiraled off the ends of her hair. "But, this isn't the end!" I roared, lifting up the corner of my lips as I tried to convey to them the opportunity. Their eyes drifted to me, the woman sniffling through her sobs and the man's hollow gaze finally looking at something other than his own death. Yes, they could stay, they could realize their death and move on 'naturally', or they could just step through the light with me and skip the next beginning. Cut out all the middle man, the suffering. 

I didn't expect them to accept my offer, but they did. 

I didn't think there would be consequences to my actions, but there were... 

I just didn't know what they were...