The Reaping

The Reaper

I first met the reaper when he came for my hamster. I watched as the doorknob slowly turned and the door creaked open. I was expecting Jane, my caretaker—if you could call her that. But it was not Jane. Definitely not Jane. A very tall, skinny figure peered into the room. It crept quietly across the floor to the hamster cage and reached in.

"Who are you? Why are you touching a dead hamster?" I questioned. He turned around with a swoosh of his robes. He seemed startled to find me standing there, staring up at him.

"Are you talking to me?" He looked perplexed but I did not know why. It was perfectly obvious that I was talking to him.

"You're the only one in the room. Who else would I be talking to?"

"You can see me?" He leaned closer, inspecting me, "what an odd specimen."

"Why would I talk to you if I couldn't see you? Who are you?"

"I'm the Grimm Reaper. I came to take your hamster's soul on to the next life," he gestured toward the hamster's dead body and then to its transparent copy in his hand. The copy sniffed around and blinked like normal but it didn't try to jump from the Reaper's grasp.

"Oh," I pondered that for a minute, "Is he going someplace good?"

"Well, I am not sure. I do not know where the souls go. I just free them from their bodies."

I asked the Reaper dozens of questions. I think the most life-changing question I asked was, "Can I go with you?"

For a normal child that question would be completely absurd, but for me it was not. I was an orphan. The hamster was not even really mine. It belonged to the orphanage I was left at. I was just the one who took care of it the most, but I wasn't all that sad to see it go. I was much more interested in the Reaper.

One would think, being a six-year-old girl, I would have been afraid of a tall, dark figure in the night but I was not. I did not really know about 'stranger danger'. So when I asked the Reaper if I could go with him, I thought it was a perfectly reasonable request. After all, he had broken into my room to steal my hamster.

When he told me no I was devastated. I tried to keep the pools in my eyes from spilling over but couldn't. I wanted so badly to be adopted. I had lived my whole life in that shabby, run down orphanage. For six years I had waited for a family to take me home and love me like their real daughter.

"Oh please do not cry," the Reaper put his pale, bony face in his palm and shook his head.

"But if you won't adopt me, no one will," I sobbed.

The Reaper looked at me a long moment, then let out a loud sigh. "Well come on then," he opened his free arm to me, the other held the hamster, and I ran to him. When I touched him, my vision went black. It felt like I was being thrown off a cliff, like my body was expanding, then shrinking, then expanding again.

Then suddenly I could see again. I stumbled around, dizzy. Finally, I caught my balance and looked around. The place was a disaster, really. There were cobwebs everywhere and about an inch of dust on everything. I could not even see the floor through all the dirt and random things thrown around.

"What happened?" I asked, very confused.

"I brought you to my home," the Reaper bent down and out of his hand leapt my hamster. "I brought its spirit here for you."

"Thank you Mr. Reaper," I scooped the hamster up off the floor and stroked his soft head.

"Child, if you want to stay, you will have to earn your keep."

And that is how I became the Reaper's sidekick.