"I thought this place was "inhabited by none?" I mockingly wiggle my fingers in a fo-spooky way at York as he guides us towards the glittery trees where the soul we were taking back to our planet was.
"There're no higher life forms here. No humans or anything resembling one. It's all small animals, a few predators, but only four different species with each number remaining below thirty a piece."
"That's incredibly specific information you have on this planet." I eye York.
He laughs a little, wiping a fake tear from the corner of his eye. "I know you find it hard to believe, but I do try and excel at my job." He grins over his shoulder at me.
We walk in silence for a while, almost an hour I'd say. I see lots of small animals hopping from tree to tree, something resembling a squirrel, but bright yellow and orange, not to mention it had long spiky horns and four eyes. Even the bugs are different; they all glow like they're radioactive as they float lazily around in the air, landing on the occasional flower or leaf from time to time. They had long bodies like a stick bug, just with wings attached.
"We're almost there. Get your weapon out, the soul is being killed right now." York slowed down a little then, pulling his sword out from his sweatshirt and walking lower to the ground. I follow his lead, getting my hunk of metal from my pocket. I clicked the button, trying to work on keeping a firm grip on it when it popped out suddenly.
York ducks behind a bush then, and I follow his lead.
"Look." He whispers once I'm beside him, moving leaves away to look through with him.
I scrunch up my nose a little in disgust at the creature I see in front of us.
It's large, the size of a great dane. It was a dark red color, with long ratty hair hanging from its body. It stood on its two back feet, kind of like a kangaroo, but with a head shaped like a cow skeleton. It had sharp cheekbones and deep set black eyes, and long sharp teeth that dripped with saliva and hid a snake like tongue.
It has a deer type animal trapped against a tree. Its prey was badly wounded; one of its legs was already broken beyond repair. Its eyes were wide with panic, its body trembled with fear. I felt kind of bad for it, to be honest.
Circle of life, I guess.
"This soul has been here for almost six years. It came from our planet before that, a woman who was murdered by a serial killer. Her soul lingered for a little too long, because she panicked when she came to as a ghost and fled from her death zone. That's not a common occurrence, but when it does happen, it can mean a vengeful spirit." I listen to York talk as the ugly kangaroo creature finally sinks its teeth into the deer's throat. I resist the urge to cringe away at the awful gurgly noises the poor creature is making. I was going to have to get used to stuff like this.
This was literally my job now.
"Are we going to have to sit here and wait for it to be done?" I ask as the creature sits back on its hunches once the deer is dead. It starts tearing into its belly first.
"No. When a soul is forced out of its body, kind of like when you died, all we have to do is…" He trails off as his gaze floats upwards. What was he doing?
Then I see it; the thin glowing strand of string, floating through the air. It looked just like the thing he had pulled from that boy's eye. Was that really what a soul looked like? I think I thought it would be… bigger.
"Gotcha." He grins victoriously when he jumps up above the bush we had been hiding in and snatches the string out of the air. I watch from my spot on the ground as he feeds it into his tiny soul jar.
"Oh, shit." Suddenly, I can hear the creature from before making a new noise, one that doesn't match his previous eating ones. York has his head turned to the side, and he's watching something nervously. "You might want to get up, Zero. We're gonna have to make a run for it, I think. Oh, SHIT!" I push myself off the ground to send myself flying backwards when the creature is crashing through the bush we were still hiding so it could tackle York.
"Fuck." I mutter, covering my nose as York holds its jaw away from his face with his hands. It stank, bad. It smelled like rotting flesh and fruit, sweet and sickly.
Like death.
Without thinking too hard about it, I tighten my grip on my half-finished weapon and brace myself.
"Hey!" I yell to the creature. It stops trying to attack York and turns to growl at me. I gulped a little at the sight of its curved, yellowing teeth dripping with blood and saliva as it stalked towards me.
I assume the position of a batter, and wait for it to leap towards me, which it does. I bring the pole forward, smacking it as hard as I can directly in the face. It's stunned for a moment, blinking its eyes heavily and shaking its head.
"Let's go!" I click the pole's button, shoving it in my pocket and quickly slipping past the creature to grab York's hand and pull him away.
"Good save, buddy!" York laughs as we stumble away. "Get in the trees!" He says when the crashing of the pursuing creature reaches our ears. I had definitely pissed it off.
I watch York as he jumps mid run, pushes off one tree with his foot to grab a branch, and then he swings his body so he can fly a few more feet through the air and land on a higher up branch of a different tree.
Seems easy enough.
"Come on buddy, you got this!" I hear York teasing from the trees as he jumps through them above me.
I focus on an upcoming tree branch, preparing myself to jump off the ground. My heart was racing in my chest, I could hear the creature getting closer and closer. I knew I wouldn't die if it did get me, and I'm sure York would eventually help me. But I really didn't want to feel its teeth sinking into me. Nothing about that sounded appealing.
I grunt a little when I finally push off the ground with my left foot, holding my hands out to grab at a branch.
"There you go!" He yells victoriously from where he is in the trees.
I grin as I swing off a branch, and towards another tree, where I quickly pick where I will land, and position myself to do so.
My middle ends up being what's wrapped around the branch instead of my hands; I had fumbled the landing again.
But it was okay, I was just glad I had made it. I look down from where I'm folded over the tree branch to see the creature standing at the base of the tree, sniffing the air and searching its leaves for us.
I guess I didn't picture my first day on Reaper duty would involve running from a kangaroo that looked like it'd gotten eaten and shit out by a radioactive cow.