"I've been dying to know," York starts as we descend the very long staircase leading to who the hell knows where. "Do you know what your new name will be? Don't forget, it has to start with the letter "Z.""That seems like such a random rule. Why can't I just use my old name?""Which was what?""It was-" I stop, shutting my mouth quickly. What the hell? Why can't I remember my name? I know I had one for fucks sake. Everyone has one.And yet."Why the hell can't I remember?" I ask, poking York in the back roughly. It was very frustrating to not be able to remember something I had said and heard a million times throughout my lifetime."None of us can remember our old names."
"Seriously?"
He nods. "Yup. A couple of us have even tried to find out what our names were before, but any documentation of it couldn't be read by us. It all looked like foreign language. It comes out distorted if you come across someone from your human life who knew it, too.""Huh. Wonder why that is." I think aloud. We've been walking down these stairs for a few minutes now. Surely, we're almost at the bottom.Wait. I won't have to walk back up these stairs, will I?"We think it's to help let go of that human attachment. Because if you really go through with this, you will no longer be human. You know that, right?" He glances over his shoulder at me for a moment. His white eyes stare into mine, and I feel reminded of the fact that the boy I had been calling an annoying little shit in my head this entire time was not in fact human."Yeah, I kind of figured.""And that's okay with you? You can still back out, you know." My heart skips a beat.I could?I had wanted to, for a moment.But I also don't like the idea of losing my memories from this life.It's probably not healthy, but I don't want to lose the life lessons I've learned. I don't want to have to go through the trauma that is seemingly required to learn a lesson.Character development so rarely seems to come from a place of warmth."I'm committed." He chuckles a little to himself, and we continue down."How much longer?" I eventually ask. It was getting harder to see as the light from the sun above disappeared more and more with each step. I was focused so hard on not missing a step it was starting to make my head hurt a little. It was very hard to see at this point, and the stairs aren't what I would call uniform. They were made of rough rock, with jagged, uneven edges. Some were slightly bigger, some smaller."Almost there." I sigh in relief.I imagine being a normal person, and somehow, someway, coming across this staircase. I wonder if there was any risk of someone wandering down it. Who would be dumb enough to do that? I scoff to myself. Humans are dumb; I've always known that. Far too many of us think we are invincible."You'll be meeting the letter A, the appointed leader of our bunch. He's one of the few who stay here. There must always be at least one Reaper here at all times, and he's bore that responsibility for the last two thousand years.""Two thousand?!" I exclaim, stopping for a second. "Two thousand years is a long time." I muse, rubbing my neck. "How old are you?" I ask once I've resumed walking.
"I'm only fifty, the second youngest here. With you officially being the youngest." I can hear the smugness in his voice. He was glad to be rid of the baby in the family title, I could tell."You don't look fifty." I mean, his hair was white, but his skin wasn't wrinkled, and he certainly didn't behave or move like an older man."It's one of those fun things about being a Reaper. Once your modifications have been completed, you will never physically change. You also can't die. You're kind of already dead, so unless your soul is physically removed from your body, you're not going anywhere any time soon. Hey, we're here for real this time." Modifications? I wonder if that had anything to do with his creepy white eyes.Finally, we step off the last stair onto flat ground.
"Here," is what looks like a giant meeting hall. High ceilings are carved out of the rock that's been sanded down for a more smooth, clean look. There was thick crown moulding carved out too, all along the edges where the smooth ceiling stopped and the rough, naturally textured rock walls began. There are even columns with carved intricate patterns standing in the entryway and in front of three other entryways on the opposite side of the room.There's a massive round table taking up most of the space, with stone chairs sitting all around it. There's quite a few, twenty-six if I had to take a guess. I notice there are what look like personal items inhabiting the space of each chair. A jacket strewn over this one, a blank notepad with pens in front of this one.I bet they all sit in the same chair every time.How very human of them.The room is quite dark, with only a few candles hanging on the walls. It took my eyes a second to adjust, and even then, I had to squint to make anything out."This is where we meet to discuss anything that needs to be talked about between us Reapers. It's our homebase, and where you can always come back to if you need advice or time to recover from a job." I nod, watching him walk past me and towards the seating area. He grabs a black beanie that had been sitting on the arm of one of the chairs. He dusts it off a little before pulling it over his hair. I guess that's where he sat. Or he was just stealing someone's hat. That also seemed like him, to be honest."Where is everyone else?" I ask when York's eyes finally fall back on me. He looks around a little, shrugging."Who knows. Like I said, only one of us actually has to be here all the time, so there are sometimes months when no one is here but Aster.""Aster, huh?" I try picturing him in my head. I wonder what he will look like. York looked young, immature, and goofy. Even with the monster gaze and tattooed covered skin. It made me imagine Aster as a young boy too."You'll like him. Come on." He twitches his head to the right and takes off that way.We walk past the table towards a hallway in the back of the room. There are two other entryways, one on each side of us now. I couldn't help but wonder what was down there."So, what kind of modifications do you have?" I ask as I follow him down the hallway. There was even less light down here, and I found myself putting a hand on the wall to keep myself walking straight. I could hear York skipping along just fine ahead of me. I hope there weren't suddenly more stairs or something because there was only a candle every so often and it was getting harder to see anything."Well, we all get the same basic things done. New eyes, new eardrums, new hands, knees and elbows." I feel my heart racing in my chest. How the hell was I going to get new elbows? What's wrong with mine? And I have to get this done? "Besides that, you'll be evaluated, and they'll determine if there's any other modifications they need to make to your body before they send you out. It's common to have at least two more things that need to be changed." I notice he didn't actually tell me what he personally had done. Was it rude to ask?"I see." I mutter. I let out an annoyed noise when I suddenly crashed into York's back."I forgot you can't see, can you?" I shake my head, squinting at where we're stopped. I jump a little when York starts banging on what's in front of us with his fists."Let me in!" He yells like a little kid. "I brought Z!" I hear a crash inside, and metal clanging."Finally!" A man's voice says as light spills out of what I now realize is a giant wooden door. I blink a little against the sudden glow from inside the room."Look! Aren't you happy?" I blink in confusion and watch as York jumps up and lands on the shoulder of the giant figure in front of me"Uh. Hi." I stammer, my eyes scanning the "man" in front of me.He was tall, like seven feet tall. He was very skinny, accentuated more by the tight black shirt he was wearing. I could see every single one of his ribs, like he hadn't eaten in years. His eyes were black with red irises, his hair long, black and stringy. I could see long, pointed ears poking out from in between his hair."You have truly agreed to be our final Reaper?" He asks, stepping forward a little with York now sitting on his shoulder like a cat. Both of their inhuman eyes bare into me. I was feeling a little uncomfortable, to be honest. York was young looking and acted like a child, this man was giant and domineering. He didn't even kind of feel human, even I could tell that much."Yeah. Yeah, I have." I step into the room a little, finally crossing the threshold. I had in fact agreed to do this, and it seemed like this guy was definitely going to be a boss type figure to me. I didn't want to act scared of him and get on his bad side on my first day.This was the rest of my existence, it seemed. Got to make the best of it.