Mary woke up in a bed; her brother slept on a similar bed; the only difference was that it was a bit smaller than hers.
Mary rappled herself up when she felt a huge headache. She pressed her right hand against her forehead, and Mary let herself fall back. She lied in bed, trying to ignore the headache, which was impossible. She started to kick and punch the air, but she did not do it because she could not stand the pain.
The pain from the headache annoyed her; this anger turned to anger, and this anger led her to kick and punch the air.
She turned saver times around and pressed her pillow against her head, hoping that it would lighten the pain a bit. Jet thought everything was in vain until she noticed that the old man had opened the door and walked inside.
"Hello, it looks like you finally awoke. Do you feel bad in any way?" The old man's kind facial expression calmed her down a little bit, but he still did not let the pain go away.
The old man reached into his pocket and took a glass out that was closed by a cork. The man removed it and gave it to Mary.
Mary had no idea what the man gave her, but she did not care; the only thing she could think about right now was to soothe the headache.
Mary made sure to drink every single drop; she did not care that the liquid inside the glass had a strange green color; the headache was in her six-year-old brain, the biggest problem in this world.
The pain was soothed step by step; it did not take long, and the pain disappeared as if it never even existed. The old man appeared as her hero in her eyes; she could lie there and be at ease. As she turned to the side, she saw the image of her brother and wondered if he too had a headache similar to this one.
"How is Robert doing? Has he too had this headache?" Mary asked.
The old man looked at her, pumped his chest out, and spoke, "No, he didn't; he woke up three days before you; from all, he was the fastest up until now."
"Wait, what others do you mean, mister? Are there more people in this house?" Mary's eyes, which shone with her childish innocence, looked at the old man, waiting for an answer.
The man took a chair that stood in the center of the room and began to talk. "Yes, there are; I did what I did with you two already a few times."
"What did you do with us? It's nothing bad, is it?" Mary could not imagine that the old man in front of her could do something mean to her; for some reason, there was still a feeling of fear inside her.
On the old man's face appeared a soft smile: "Of course not, my dear; how could a father do something to his very own child? I simply turned you into a grim reaper. Don't you remember, since the day you were little, you wanted to be like your father?"
"No, you wouldn't, father. Can you later tell me more about all this? I am still a little bit tired, and I am sure Robert wants to sleep too."
Mary's fear got blown away by the man's words; it was as if a wind gust blew them far away. She showed an adorable smile that could melt the hearts of angels.
The old man nodded, stood up, and walked out of the room. Mary buried herself under her blanket. She felt a warm sensation on her chest that made it easy for her to fall asleep again.
Thanatos could not believe what he was told. In this very moment, Morgana told her that she thought that the person who killed her mother, her father, and other siblings probably too, were her father.
"Fuck, that is, I don't know what to say. What happened next?"
Thanatos had no idea how, but it seemed as if this man used some kind of death art or the ability of his soul, but one thing was for sure, and that was this whole situation. He had no words to tell her; the only thing he could do was listen to her.
"Thanatos, I am sorry if I become emotional in this part, but this has not been easy for me up until now." Morgana gazed into her soup again; she was afraid of this part of the story. She was afraid of telling Thanatos about all her sins.
"Morgana, take your time; this is not an interrogation. I simply want to know what happened to you."
This was a lie; Thanatos wanted to know what happened more than anything else. However, forcing Morgana to speak or make her feel confident was wrong.
There were, after all, a few things Thanatos, too, would not want to tell others.
Morgana took three deep breaths and continued.
___
Mary woke up and felt a headache. Mary punched and kicked the air, but not because of the pain. She was annoyed; the headache annoyed her; this annoyance turned into anger, and this anger let her punch and kick the air.
She pressed her pillow against her head as she heard how someone entered this room through a door.
It was the old man; he came in with a glass. Inside the glass was a bizarre green liquid. The old man gave it to her, and the headache seemed to go away.
"Thanks, father; I really needed this. How's Robert doing?"
The man Mary addressed as her father showed a gentle smile and pointed in a direction.
Mary followed the direction the finger was pointed in and saw Robert, who was sleeping, in a bed two meters next to her.
"He woke up a few days before you; he is exceptional. Yeah, really exceptional. He will once become a great reaper."
The man's smile dithered; he gazed at Robert as if he were a prime product that existed only once in the world. The man was so focused on the boy that he did not realize Mary's puzzling expression. He only reacted as he heard her voice: "What do you mean by became? Weren't we all the time grim reapers, father?"
"Oh, of course, I only meant that he has great potential, and you, of course too, but first let me introduce you to the others."
Mary forgot everything; she forgot her parents and her other siblings; she forgot that she was once a human. For young Mary, the man who killed her father was her father.
Mary remembered nothing of others, but then, as if memories got plucked into her brain, memories of several young people around her age appeared. Along with those names, trainings, and knowledge of grim reapers, she knew as if she were a 60-year-old grim reaper.
"Sure, Robert, wake up; we have to go and train." Mary stood up and pocked her brother into his face; the boys eyes opened in an instant. Robert rolled out of bed, took Mary's hand, and walked with her in a huge room.
In the room stood several long tabels, and on the tabels sat many children who were between the ages of three and eight.
They all had the knowledge of a grim reaper suitable for their age; the eight-year-old children had the knowledge of an 80-year-old grim reaper. Grim reapers brains developed slower than humans.
The children on the table sat straight; the walls were black, and candles that had white flames enlightened the whole room. Nobody talked; they sat and waited for the last two to arrive.
Mary knew where she had to sit; in her mind were all the 60 years she walked the path to her tabel. Mary sat at the very first table on the right. All together, there were five tabels. Mary and Robert walked over to their assigned seats that were programmed into their brains.
The old man walked on a small stage made of wood. He waited until Mary and Robert sat in their places, opened his arms wide as if he were waiting for air to hug him, and started.
"Welcome, my dear children. Since all of you are getting ready now, I am the happiest person in the world to announce that the training all of you awaited for so long will start from today onwards."
The children got fired up; they made fists and waited in anticipation. As the man's voice echoed throughout the dining hall, "Believe in yourself and get everything you have in the training; you will train; the better the results, the more rewards will be included."
"The best of you will get the highest number; the lowest number is A, and the highest is Z; try to become a Z candiditat."
The man made a little pause between his speeches; the tension in the dining room grew; everyone wanted to hear it; everyone wanted to hear that one sentence that came, and then the man spoke with all his might and said, "Are you ready, Thalgarth?"
"YES!"
The children screamed in sync with their answer, and with this answer, Thalgarth, a lethal organization that brought terror to the lands, got created.
___
"This what? You were a member of Thalgarth, and this old man was its founder, but how did this organization bring terror all over the world? How did you do all this while being a student at this school? This makes no sense." Thanatos couldn't believe what he heard. Thalgarth, an organization of grim reapers, hunted for a long time; however, this organization got the group disbanded a few decades ago, and their leader was not an old man but a young reaper who probably met his end in Esangro.
"That's the story you know, but what you captured were the fragments of Thalgarth." Morgana couldn't look Thanatos in the eyes; the only place she could look at him was the ground.
"But as I said, this is not easy for me, but I would have to tell someone this someday. I'm going to tell you about the birth of Thalgarth and its members."