Pandora

Chapter 10 - Grim Reapers and Masterplans

The next day, Pandora was woken early and led through the maze of corridors by a guard - not Icarus this time - until they reached a dining hall. Inside, her father, Bolt and a few others were sat around a large table.

"Ah, Pandora" her father said when he saw her "sit down and eat." He meant for it to sound like an offer, but it sounded like a hostile order. She did so, taking a seat next to Bolt. Across from her sat a man who looked about 24, with dirty blonde hair. He looked up at her, his dark blue eyes wide, as if he was a wild animal. Pandora nervously looked away.

The guard that escorted Pandora stood behind her father with another guard, silent, faces hidden behind the visors on their helmets.

"So" the man across from Pandora said, trying to continue the conversation that was going on before Pandora entered "when did you retire?" he asked Pandora's dad. Pandora looked from the man to her dad. He worked - had worked - as a 'Grim Reaper' collecting human's souls. He was the original Grim Reaper - after Pandora opened the box and released death into the world, someone was needed to collect the dead's souls. At the time, it was only him, but then as more people were born, and died, he needed more help. There must be thousands, millions of Grim Reapers nowadays Pandora thought to herself. And all because she opened that box. It wasn't her fault though.

"Wait, you retired?" Pandora said, snapping back into reality "You loved that job, collecting the dead's souls, seeing their family sobbing."

"Yes, well it gets tedious, boring after a while." Her dad explained "Especially nowadays. There are no sword fights, no massive battles with armies charging at eachother. After my first experience with collecting the pieces of people who had died in an explosion, I gave up. You can't take their soul if you don't have all the pieces, see. So it's near impossible these days."

"So if you quit, why do you still wear your 'reapers robes' as you call them?" She asked "Do you love them so much because it reminds you of all the pain and destruction in the world? Does it remind you that you started this death thing?"

Pandora's dad ignored her, turning instead to the blonde man opposite her. "In answer to your question, Icarus" He said "I retired in the 11th century. I was working in China, about the time they first started using bombs and I realised I would never be able to piece all those bodies together to collect the victim's soul. So I left." Then turning back to Pandora he said "And I think you'll find it was you that opened the box"

Pandora opened her mouth to argue but just then, waiters came in with trays of food, piled high with bacon, eggs, sausages - a giant English breakfast. "Here you go Master Lucifer" one of them said, placing a plate of food in front of Pandora's father, before serving everyone else at the table.

Pandora scoffed. Master Lucifer - who did her dad think he was? Making people refer to him as Master.

Pandora barely ate anything - nibbling at a poached egg and barely touching the croissant that was on her plate. She watched Icarus, Bolt and the others at the table. They all looked like ordinary people - except from her father, that is - yet they were all so evil

*******

After breakfast, Lucifer led them into a large room, that he called 'the hall of oppression'. On one side of the giant room, the wall was covered with maps of the world. Each map looked different, but following the line backwards, Pandora realised it was many maps from different millenniums, leading all the way back to one where all the continents were joined in the middle of the map. Below the maps, running the length of the wall was a 'bookshelf', but instead of books, there were thousands of rolled up maps, each one either showing a city, country or continent and all labeled neatly and filed in alphabetical order. On the opposite side of the room, hundreds of screens showed CCTV footage in all the capitol cities. One larger screen sat in the middle of all the others, but was currently off. Across from them, on the far side of the room was a line of desks, on top of which were computers, tracking devices and hi-tech gadgets. In the centre of the room was a white table. The table looked more like a block of smooth marble than a table, and it had nothing on it. However, when Lucifer stepped towards the 'table', the top lit up with a soft, blue light.

"Show plan no. 1" he said. At his words, the blue light formed a hologram on top of the white surface. Pandora gasped in amazement, stepping forward to get a closer look.

In front of her, was what looked like a cartoon strip, but each picture was moving. The title of the 'cartoon' read Master plan. Lucifer flicked through the 'cartoon' and briefly explained it to Pandora, but she ignored him and just watched the blue hologram in front of her - fascinated.

Step 1) Locate box of evils - see plan 2 for more detail.

Step 2) Get Pandora to open box - see plan 3, subsection d for more detail.

The strip went on like that, everything planned, including Pandora's capture. After Pandora's capture came:

Step 13) Become the 'Grim Reaper' - see plan 14 for details on how to do this

It went on and on - the plan seemed endless. Each part of the plan included "see plan x for more detail. Plan 1 was a master plan, all the others just part of it. After 'allow Pandora to be captured' Pandora knew nothing until

Step 369,449,986,434,358,908) Bring Pandora back

But anyone else reading it (that hadn't been locked away from civilization for millions of years) would notice little parts of his plan that hadn't gone unnoticed in the human world.

One plan/step in the master plan was labeled 'Fall of Pompeii' and consisted of using someone's powers of fire to trigger a volcano and was clearly referring to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Another - 'Let London Burn' showed a detailed plan of the great fire of London. 'Smog' had the date 1952 - showing Lucifer had planned The Great Smog in London. Lots of the plans/steps in the master plan targeted the Capitol of England. Jack the Ripper and The Plague were both planned by Pandora's dad. He targeted other countries too, one of the more recent ones read '9/11' and another 'the disappearing plane' - referring to the missing Malaysian Airlines plane. But because Pandora had been locked away for so long - she knew nothing about any of these disasters.

Lucifer was still talking about the plans, but Pandora ignored him, turning her attention to a number at the bottom of the hologram - 32,606,003 and going up constantly. Beside the number it said 'deaths so far this year'. Another number next to it was labeled 'deaths so far today' - 80,527 and going up. All those people - everyone who had died that day, that year - everyone had died because Pandora had opened the box. She had unleashed pure evil - death, pain, suffering, hatred, jealousy, greed, hunger - all of which had caused millions, no billions - an infinite number of deaths.

And looking down at Lucifer's plan, she could see that was just the beginning.

*****

Sorry for not updating for so long! Thank you to anybody who actually reads this story - it means a lot to think that somebody out there enjoys my work!

So the two numbers 'deaths so far this year' and 'deaths so far today' are from about a month ago because I wrote this chapter and then went on holiday and forgot to upload it :/

But, anyway thanks again for reading this story!

Emily :)