The Price of a Soul

- t w o - evasion

He had seen this scene many a time; relatives huddled together in tearful reminiscence, this rare unity perhaps being the first and last of its kind.

The girl lay motionless upon crisp hospital sheets. Transparent tubes connected to a humming machine sprawled over her torso, the only way to maintain the functioning of her failing body. She was, however, fading fast; the roses in her cheeks replaced by an ashen pallor. Like a dream at dawn, she was slipping away, and the time for her to finally let go of it all was imminent. 

The Grim Reaper clutched at his scythe, poised and waiting with the patience of one who had all the time in the world. 

“They say she didn’t feel anything,” someone mused, their voice carrying barely over the monotone reverberation of machinery. “She was out before the impact could register.”

The others nodded in silence. “It was quick,” another murmured, “She didn’t notice it coming at all.”

It was almost amusing how humans fervently consoled themselves and each other in the face of death, as if their frivolous words could actually change anything. Then, there were funerals and solemn rituals, the purpose of which to placate the living. Humans were so self-centered at times.

The Grim Reaper felt a faint, familiar tug at his heart - a reminder that he had somehow been part of all this once upon a time; but having moved on from being mortal, his link with the human self he had once been was supposedly non-existent. “You are no longer human,” his chief had growled, “You gave that up by your own hands.”

On the monitor screen, a green line faltered, and in an instant, flattened. The relatives screamed shrilly and clutched one another, and medical staff raced against time to recover a life with all the equipment that they had. 

The Grim Reaper smiled, not sadistically, but sadly. All the efforts of these frantic doctors would go to waste, because here he was, wielding the key to the girl’s fate. He stepped forward and carefully drew out the Soul with his scythe. 

The moment that he had picked it up lasted forever as he saw with his Eyes the entire life of the girl; all laid out like a camcorder clip in fast motion. An infant rapidly grew into a cheerful, bright child with ribbons in her hair. Another typical childhood - nothing special. A young man in ripped jeans briefly appeared, and then the girl was crying alone outside a house, red still trickling down one leg. There was a boy, around the girl’s age, but soon enough she was walking dazedly on an empty train platform early in the morning and onto the tracks. The last image was a train approaching the station at alarming speed.

He froze. Then, very slowly, he lowered the scythe, allowing the Soul to return into the body. He did not know why he did it, but his heart ached; and immediately he was out of the room, fleeing from unseen demons.

Behind him, the flat green line rose up on the screen.