Young Writers Society

James looked over at Edward with even more confusion, and worry for the boy.

"What? No, Edward - we're not dead! You're not dead. I'm not dead," he said pointing to himself, poking his chest with an insistence to even assure himself of that truth. "I mean, I've never heard of a grim reaper but it sounds like you guys have pretty sad jobs. Is that all you get to do?" he asked, looking up at Watson. "Where do you put the souls when you're done? Do they go back into the earth? Like magic?"

Damascus spoke up matter-of-factly. He could answer James' last question, at least.

"Actually, they send the souls to my-" he paused, and then thought better of what he was going to say. If he let it slip that he was connected to death as well, then they would be scared of him too. "They send the souls to a different plane. Kind of like where you go when you dream. It's not a scary place, don't worry."

This last part Damascus said with a pale, haunted expression. It was a complete lie, but he didn't want to boys to be scared anymore.

"I'm definitely dead," Edward quietly said, a sob escaping his quivering lips. "It's the only-it's the only way something like this could ever be possible!" He held William even closer, and pulled his legs up so he was curled into a little ball.

Schadel, meanwhile, had been about to answer what James had asked - there wasn't any problem with saying that grim reapers were like normal people, right? - but then Damascus spoke. And now she was staring at him instead, because what he said just didn't make any sense.

"How do you know that?" she questioned. She took a few steps towards Damascus, stopping when she was right beside him. Even though he was kind of tall compared to the other boys, she easily towered over him. "Blanx says that we don't know were the souls go. That we just give them to the administration, and then the administration does stuff with them-"

She came to a sudden stop and stared down at him.

"Wait," Schadel said, folding her shadowy arms. "You're not a human. You're something else. You've got scales and wings and talons and really cool crimson eyes, and you're also lying right now. I think you're a demon, like in Christianity! And then the place you're talking about is Hell, where all the bad humans go when they die according to the Bible!"

She was feeling pretty proud of herself for figuring that out, and was 99.99% sure that she had guessed correctly. It made a lot of sense.

Boris cowered behind the wood pile more resolutely than before.

Damascus... was a demon? He'd gone and made a real demon angry?

This was...this was it. This was the end. He was going to hell. He wasn't making it home. Sigmund might find him, but he would never know what happened.

Boris started to cry quietly.

Damascus blinked, and his cheeks grew red from the sudden confrontation. Really, he wasn't too bothered that John-Watson had figured out that he was a demon, even though he had a vague notion that he should be more careful with letting humans know. John-Watson wasn't human herself, after all. The thing he was most worried about was scaring the other boys, who for the most part seemed easily frightened.

"I- I am a demon." He nodded, his face open. "But only the spectors call it Hell. We call it the Underworld."

With a frown, he addressed the two words he didn't know, wanting to answer any questions that they had.

"I don't know what Crist-i-anity is, o- or the Bible, sorry. But it's not just bad people! We admit all souls." He smiled with this, trying to reassure them somehow. It only took a few seconds for his smile to fade as he realized how they would take this. "No, I mean! It's- it's not completely scary, that's all! Please don't be afraid."

A grim reaper. A harvester of the dead.

The wind howled through the vacant streets. Ice coated the rundown cobblestones and a blanket of snow covered it all. The flakes still fell in heaps to the ground. He was freezing. It was bone-chilling despite the fur that was slack around his bony frame.

He struggled to take in a raggedy breath and it quickly devolved into coughs that racked his body. Blood stained the snow red as he tried to move forward again but only fell, soon finding himself unable to get up. His breathing became shallow and the cold seeped in. He could feel the darkness...

Footsteps. Dimly, somewhere in his fading awareness, he knew they were there. There were wings, silvery eyes, a slender figure - and a pale scythe. Death at last...

Oblivion.

When he awoke, there were blinding lights...

Engel froze as the memory flashed through his mind's eye and he stumbled back a few steps in shock and disorientation. He knew that reapers weren't evil - but he also knew he was very, very close to death. Then again...he had been before, hadn't he? And the reaper had come, but hadn't taken him. But this was a different reaper? There had to be more than one. And if that one had spared him, then who was to say anyone was dead?

Then he stopped and stepped forward towards Damascus, and looked meaningfully at both him and Watson as he spoke.

"It's okay," he said. "People always said that demons are monsters, and that the only thing that wasn't human and that wasn't a monster were angels. But I've seen humans that are monsters, too...So if humans can be monsters...then why can't monsters be human? You haven't hurt anyone, and Damascus was just afraid of me as I was of him, and Watson can't help that she was born a reaper any more than I can that I was the son of a dishonorable man. It doesn't really matter what we are if we aren't monsters. So...like Boris said, let's be each others' brothers, and let's be friends, and that way, we won't ever have anything to be afraid of because we'll be way scarier than whatever it is that might hurt us!"

Boris had only met Engel a few hours ago, but, he felt like he wanted to believe him.
It was true that neither John Watson or Damascus had really done anything bad.
John, up until this point, had been one of the least threatening people he'd ever met, and Damascus had done nothing but try to comfort everyone.

He felt a little bit ashamed to hear Engel remind them of what he had said. Yes, it had been him who suggested they all be brothers, wasn't it? He shouldn't have needed someone to remind him of that.

Had he really been frightened of John and Damascus?

Boris wiped his face and nose on his sleeve, and slid out from behind his hiding place, hoping nobody would comment on his cowardice.

He rejoined the fold, and acted as though he hadn't moved at all.

"Ja! It'll all be fine. I'll protect all of you! Because you're all my brothers. And...sister?" he said, turning to John. Oh. John was made of smoke now.

He twitched a little, at first, but he smiled. Damascus was right. It was actually very pretty.

"Yes! I agree, and I'm so glad you still want to be my brothers." Damascus' eyes lit up at how well Engel had reacted to his revelation, and then how Boris, in turn, had done the same. Things were going much better than he expected.

"We need to have a ritual, so that we are bonded for all time." He grinned brightly at this, enraptured with the idea of having eternal friends- no, brothers. "Um.. maybe not a blood pact. I don't think everyone would appreciate that. How about we trade locks of hair?"

Boris made a disgusted face. "Gross. Let's just do a swear."

Edward gave another terrified whimper from behind the log. Schadel knew that someone probably should be trying to talk to him, but suspected he would just freak out if she tried approaching him no matter what form she used. "I don't have any hair," she pointed out, gesturing at her head. "And Blanx never mentioned needing to do that when he was talking about making friends."

She thought for a moment, then suddenly remembered something she had read about and seen a couple of the kids in Blanx's neighborhood doing. Silver eyes positively alight, she suggested, "Let's spit on it!"

Damascus blinked, eager but still very much confused.

"Spit... spit on what?"

"It," Schadel said. She held out a hand in front of where her mouth would be. "You spit on your hand, and the other person does, too. And then you shake on it."

Damascus nodded slowly, taking this in. Without hesitation, he filled his cheeks and brought his hand up to spit into it. A long strand of saliva connected his hand to his mouth when he pulled away, until he wiped it on a wrist.

"Who first?" He wiggled his fingers invitingly, all too pleased with this concept.

James's mouth twisted up in disgust as he looked at Damascus's spitty hand.

"Ewww," he said, squinting his eyes. "Can't we just like, promise or something? Why do we have to do a ritual? I like Boris's idea."

Boris was the one who'd suggested this, so he had to show some initiative and do it first.

Disregarding James' hygiene conscious qualms, he boldly and resolutely spat in his hand, and grasped the outstretched hand of Damascus.