Amelia Watson, A Girl lost in time. [Ongoing!]

Chapter VIII: Tears

From the Reaper's Eyes

Calli managed to find a secluded area, and there she laid the unconscious but alive detective on the ground. It was an abandoned cottage near the road, where it led to a forest. The incident with the police officer still annoyed her nerves. A different place, with different people, will lead to different problems.

She stared at the senseless detective, and clicked the thoughts away. I need to contact Death-Sensei before I proceed with anything. But upon silencing her mind and easing her senses, she couldn't feel his presence.

Not in the underworld, nor in the overworld. She groaned in frustration, and decided it'd be best to start a fire.

Gathering a pile of twigs in an instant, it caught fire in her arms. She laid it near Amelia, for warmth. She had her fair share taking care of mortals throughout her Reaping Career, but none has ever been this stubbornly difficult.

She tried to enter the underworld, but there seems to be some sort of barrier stopping her from doing so. The thought of never returning back to Death-Sensei in the underworld sharpened her senses. Just where could he be?

Meeting another version of herself still shook her. This cloning thing, she thought. This is getting on my nerves. Imagine battling someone exactly like you, on par with strength and speed, that left Calli's mind restless.

A snap of a twig made her materialize her scythe, and appear beside Amelia, shielding her from threats. No matter how stubborn she is, Calli has gone through so much to leave her defenseless now. After a few moments, a woman walked inside the cottage. She took each step elegantly, she was tall, well dressed and stood with authority.

For some reason, Calli couldn't see her face. Her eyes focused on their face but her vision blurs each time she focuses.

"Who are you?" She asked, tensed.

"That, you need not know. Why I came, you mustn't trouble yourself with. How I knew, is trivial. What matters is fixing the error in my flawless web of strings." They said with poise, then she fixed her gaze on Amelia. "She has something of mine, I must have it back."

"No can do, buddy."

She looked at the Reaper, as if noticing her for the first time. "Do you wish to feel my wrath?"

"Do your wors-" Calli couldn't feel her body, she thought of moving, but her body couldn't respond, as if glued to something.

She heard the stranger chuckle softly before approaching Amelia. Calli could only stare as they examined her, fumbling through her attire as if finding something. But after a moment, they came out empty handed.

"Interesting," They said. "I would certainly find these new events amiable. Let us see what you have in store for us, detective. Many have struggled before you, and many more after. But I find it odd, that you would be destined to do great things, terrible, but great indeed. Letting you go will be like betting my life on a coin toss, a half chance. However, you have surprised me then, and even now." They turned to Calli. "Reality can be manipulated, my dear Reaper, and so can Time. I give you my thanks for making sure Amelia's been safe thus far. But unfortunately, your assistance is needed elsewhere. And so we must part."

Calli felt the force containing her dwindling, she tried to speak. "Wait-!"

The scene changed, she felt herself being pulled with a force like a black hole, the air around her disappeared. Bright dancing lights engulfed her eyelids. She saw the beginning, when Satan persuaded Eve to eat the Forbidden Fruit. The exact replica of atoms and bacteria. The massive explosion in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as if she were there to witness it. A pack of hyenas swarming a bleeding lion, a fight for survival.

Then she saw nothing. An empty vastness of void, forever expanding into nothing too. White pale eyes stared at her. It felt ancient, hungry, and in need to clench its thirst.

Before there was anything, before Gods and Goddesses came to be, before concepts were created, before nothing was nothing.

There were Monsters.

"Welcome back." Death-Sensei's voice fluttered to Calli's ears. She found herself facing him, sitting on a chair by the fireside, the flames crackled like bones. He was drinking a glass of wine, the eye sockets from his skull gazed at Mori Calliope with a small tint of curiosity.

Calli was so fixed on him that she barely noticed herself crying as streams flow from her eyes. Her arms wobbled, clinging into the arm chair, as if she was afraid of falling. The crying didn't stop. She gasped for air, her mind blank, there was nothing to think about, and she continued to cry.

"There, There, Mori." Death-Sensei's consolidating words felt dull, like food without taste. "I believe it was my fault in the matter of appointing you to this mission, if only I had known it would lead to this. Damn the Gods!" He threw the wine glass on the carpet, where the wine spilled like blood.

He hugged the Reaper like a Father to his Daughter. "Everything is alright now. You are safe, Mori. I regret it, I regret it dearly. I have not the power to oppose her, or any of them. And I'm repulsed of myself as I commanded you to take upon the task she ordered me. I thought you were ready. Forgive me, forgive me, Mori." A small tear fell from the bony eye sockets of Death-Sensei's face.

But Mori couldn't hear him. Her mind was filled with one word: Monsters.

Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters. Monsters.

She remembered those white pale eyes that stared into her soul, the vast void. She recalled the stranger from the cottage, remembering her words: "Reality can be bended, my dear Reaper, and so can Time."

Mori Calliope couldn't stop crying, and she truly believed in that moment, that she never will.

| End of Prologue |