"This boy lived a hard life." York says as we come to a tree line. The tree's bark is a very light color, almost white, and the leaves are dark blue and shimmer in the moonlight. I stare up in awe at the leaves for a moment, then refocus on following York into the forest. "He was molested by his older brother for most of his life and was shamed when his parents found out. They said he must have enjoyed it to have let it go on that long." I watch the back of York's head as he speaks lowly. I don't know where we're going, York is just walking through the trees, stepping on plants that explode with more glowing orbs and glittery dust. I wave some out of my face and try to focus on him.
"He made a friend at school, and confided in him, and the boy revealed he could never care about any of that because he loved him. And they slept together, and the boy recorded the whole thing. And posted it online." I swallowed heavily. My heart felt heavy.
And I thought I had it bad.
"He killed himself before his parents even found out. He couldn't deal with seeing their expressions of disgust." His voice sounds cold and cutting. He sighs a little, like he's letting go of something, and then turns back to me with a small smile.
"This planet is where souls go most often when they've had a tough life. A field mouse up ahead is giving birth currently. I'll attach his soul to one of her babies, and he'll live a quiet life in a low predator area for a few years. Then we'll give him another human vessel."
So, it's like a break for the soul.
We walk for a couple more minutes, and then York crutches down at the base of a tree, where there's a huge chunk of dead, hollowed out wood resting. I squat down next to him, watching closely to see what he does.
He moves a handful of leaves out of the way, grinning when he finally catches sight of his target. There was one larger, lavender colored rodent type sitting there, with its babies surrounding it. I say rodent type because… it had six eyes, no ears, just holes in the side of its head, and more of what I would call a prey mantis body. It bares its small pointy teeth at York but makes no move towards him.
I wanted to ask so badly what the fuck kind of field mouse I was looking at.
"They're very gentle, you know." York mutters, like he again knew what I was thinking.
I keep my mouth shut like I'm supposed to and keep my eyes on York. He pulls his bottle from his pocket, carefully uncapping it and leaning forward a little.
"I wish you luck." He mutters as he dumps the string onto the wriggling mass of tiny bodies. The glowing string flicks around for a moment, then seems to settle on a newborn in particular. I watch in fascination as the string crawls through the tiny creature's ear hole, disappearing completely in a few seconds.
"You can talk now, you know." York says after a moment of us squatting there staring at the beings below us. The mom had settled a little; she was no longer baring her tiny fangs, but she was definitely still keeping an eye on us.
"Was that it?" I ask after another moment. York nods.
"That was a more cut and dried job, to be honest. But yeah, that was it."
"You never even talked to him. I thought you were going to have to convince him to move on from this life." I stand up finally, backing up a little. York lingers for a second longer, then he too finally stands.
"Suicides are a little different." He starts walking back the way we'd come, and I follow. "They made the choice to leave this life behind, so there's no convincing to be done." He shrugs.
"Huh." I follow quietly for a minute, thinking about everything that I'd just seen.
"Where are we going now?" We're coming back to the field now.
"Now, we're waiting to find out which soul from here we're taking back to our planet."
"How do we find that out?" I halt when York suddenly jumps and grabs a hold of a low hanging branch that's sitting on the edge of the field. I watch as he swings on it for a second, then swings one last time more focused and jumps up to sit on the branch. He looks over his shoulder at me, and pats beside him. I raise a brow but do as I'm told. Once I've jumped up and sat next to him, he starts talking again.
"Aster, or whoever is at the homebase, is in charge of telling us where to go and who to reap. We can't do anything without someone telling us that info. Keep in mind while you're working, he's also giving out jobs and locations to twenty-five other Reapers, so sometimes it takes some time."
"How does he know where to go?" York kicks his legs a little and grins then.
"That's a secret." I scoff.
"Why the hell is it a secret?"
"It's a secret from everyone except five Reapers at a time, and those are one of the poor bastards who has to remain at the homebase all the time."
"What makes those five different?"
York shrugs a little. "It's the first five letters. So, either Aster, Banks, Cole, Dylan, or Emrys can stay. Aster has just always been okay with it, and no one else wants to take on the burden. Don't feel too bad though. We bring him plenty of weird food and new books. And he gets a break every year, for a month. He gets to reap like the rest of us. The other four take turns each year staying in so he can go out, and so they don't get rusty doing whatever it is they do." York sighs a little, suddenly falling back so he can swing off the branch by his knees.
"We have a soul in need of a home." He drops to the ground then, looking back at me. "Come on. We have work to do." I jump down beside him, rolling my eyes a little. He had been the one to make me get up there with him in the first place.
"Lead the way."