Chapter 23 - ReaperHollow NightSeven years ago, I watched someone die.

  Each departure I’d spectated since then has etched itself into the fabric of my memory, a solemn procession of farewells.

  It wasn't the novelty of mortality that gripped me; it was the familiarity, the cruel intimacy - the fragile dance between existence and oblivion.

  In those hushed moments, I found myself drawn to the beauty of transience; the acknowledgment of life's ephemeral nature. The unravelling of the delicate thread that bound us to this world.

  The stillness that followed a departure echoed with the stories untold, the dreams left unfulfilled, and the symphony of a soul's journey from birth reaching its final note.

  While others may recoil from the spectral hand of death, I embrace it with a kind of reverence.

  It’s never truly a celebration of the end, but rather a discovery. A recognition that within the finite, there resided an infinite tapestry of experiences, waiting to be explored.

  The dance between life and death, with its intricate choreography, captivated me, and in those quiet moments, I found soce in the profound beauty of a life well-lived, even as it gracefully surrendered to the embrace of the inevitable.

  Tonight, I find myself captivated once more by the waltz, for it seems yet another soul is to be carried along that stygian river, into its final resting pce.

  As, I send the ferryman my apologies, for this one’s work is not quite finished yet.

  I was pleased that one swing was all it took to behead the foul serpent. Indeed, as it fell before me, I felt its strength – an essence that was visible to my eyes only – join the ranks of the many others I have sin.

  A furious bellow to my rear interrupted my relishing of the soul’s delicious fvour. At least the snake would not be alone in its final journey, I thought.

  Still, there was something I had to take care of before attending to my duties.

  “Here,” I spoke, offering the gleaming white orb to my rescuee. “You’ll be needing this. Unless, of course, you’d like me to have it?”

  For a few precious seconds, he sat there, dumbfounded, as though his spirit had already left the body behind long ago.

  It was perhaps the sound of heavy, rapid footsteps barrelling toward us that shook him from his daze, and thankfully, he already knew what was required of him.

  With a sharp, crimson gre somewhere toward my three o’clock, the anthropomorphic bull’s charge was halted, though the pounding of its hooves was repced by the crashing of its arms against the narrow walls of the back-alley, sending debris flying every which way. How brutish.

  I saw it fit to grab my acquaintance, alongside a strange tome that y adjacent, swiftly carrying both onto the roof.

  “Why…?” He stuttered quietly after I threw him to the ground.

  I shrugged.

  “You know perfectly well why.” I replied curtly. “Now, are you going to eat that?”

  I wasn’t going to ask again. Perhaps having realized this, Scarecrow spoke no more. I turned and peered below to see our adversary still in the midst of its tantrum, whilst a pale light shone brilliantly behind me.

  “Now, shall we?” I offered without looking back.

  In a fsh, he appeared by my side, his foot tapping on the ledge, and hands balled up into fists.

  “This one’s mine.”

  Looking out into the night sky, my ruminations were suspended by the shrill, ear-piercing shrieks of one in complete and utter anguish.

  Wasn’t he getting tired of this?

  “Did your mother never teach you not to py with your food?” I inquired as he gave the bruised and bloodied creature another shing.

  The repeated cries of the poor soul was his only response. Again and again, he swung the sickle’s bde at the tortured beast, carving bck marks across its already colpsing body as it writhed in pain on the floor.

  The dispy was, truth be told, beginning to irk me. Death is to be swift, merciful, and considerate.

  This was an absolute betrayal – no, abomination of that sentiment, and I would not stand for it.

  I knelt down at the creature’s head, stroking its broken horns and contused snout, providing the little comfort I could.

  As I stood up, its eyes closed, as if in gratitude for my next action.

  I exhaled, and brought down the gleaming bde’s edge down onto its neck. The cries had finally ceased, and as the matter began to fade away into bck, smoky wisps, I offered a silent prayer for the fiend’s soul.

  “There shall be no more of that.” I warned him.

  A rigid silence came over the entire space in that moment, and I hoped I would not have to finish the work this duo of Noise had attempted to carry out on him – though I would have few qualms if it came down to it.

  Eventually, he sheathed his kusarigama, turning away and muttering an annoyed “Whatever.”

  Feeling as though I too deserved to be rewarded for my efforts, I took pleasure in absorbing the orb the beast had left behind, as well as the soul added to my collection. Both were delectable treats.

  “What now?” He said after a while.

  My vision careened over to a small monitor id out on the other side of gss, underneath one of the many abandoned storefronts that littered the high street we currently occupied.

  “This makes the second artefact our cohort has secured,” I reyed, brandishing the book I’d been perusing.

  Even after abandoning the area we began in, it was virtually impossible to not hear our captor’s announcements from anywhere in this dark world.

  Much to our chagrin, we were also informed of the mission, though of course, had no intention of carrying it out.

  “It seems we can’t help but be team pyers.” I remarked. At this point, I expected some kind of retort, or jest from the misanthrope, there was none to speak of.

  As if exhausted by the miniscule social interaction, he raised his weapon.

  “If there’s nothing going on here, I’m out.” He said ftly.

  I smiled.

  “Do as you will.” I replied once he’d began scaling a nearby building. “However, I must implore you – don’t forget our deal.”

  He looked at me for a few moments, bored, before vanishing into the night sky.

  What a troublesome character, I reflected, soon taking my own leave in tandem.

  Quite some time had passed, and I still didn’t feel as though I had gotten close to any answers. In fact, as I read more of the journal, the modicum of information I did have started to become hazy and unreliable.

  Perhaps the most irritating quality of the diary was how incomplete it was – bnk pages upon bnk pages appearing out of the blue, oftentimes smack dab in the middle of visible entries, making the timeline of events patchy and uninformative.

  That said, the journal’s very existence confirmed one thing in my mind, and I would soon have it verified.

  I halted my traversal of the bck cityscape, stopping atop a mppost facing a small, standing digital dispy on the pavement below, likely used for advertisements, news, and announcements for pedestrians as they walked by. In the real world, anyhow.

  “Juno!” I called. “I know you’re there. Show yourself – we have much to discuss.”

  If anything, I appreciated their speed, for the dispy whirred to life near instantaneously.

  “What is you desire, my child?” They asked as softly as their rather grating voice could allow.

  Assuming that they could see me as well as hear me, I held up the tome, “This book. What is its origin?”

  They were silent for many beats.

  “It is as I have already said. An artefact. A relic from a distant time before yours.”

  I nodded.

  “A ‘distant time before ours’? Do you mean a time in the waking world, or in this realm?” I probed.

  Again, a deep silence wefted through the air, until I realized that this time they had no intention to answer at all. So, I decided to cut to the heart of things.

  “We are not the first group of people you have captured and held hostage here, are we? How many others have there been? What fates befell the-“

  The monitor’s dispy turned off with a sharp buzz, and once more, I was left to ponder my discoveries alone.

  As uncooperative as they might have been, I was beginning to understand the old adage of silence speaking a thousand words. I knew in my heart that my line of investigation was correct; we were simply the test in a long line of victims dragged to this tenebrous pne.

  And once I uncovered the truth behind the account I held in my hands, perhaps I could uncover even more of this realm’s secrets.

  Regardless, my course was set – and I knew where I needed to head to next.

  I would be paying my ‘friends’ a visit.