Kill Me or I'm Dreaming

A scythe.

Reflecting sun rays from the wide bedroom window brilliantly, it gleamed above my face dauntingly. Pale brown and slender fingers wrapped themselves tight around its staff. I fixed my eyes to rest on the being that held it. Looming over me while paying me little mind.

‘They’ were having a conversation. They spoke in hushed voices to one another while the scythe hung over me and I remained forcefully pinned to the ground, frozen.

The rimming of my vision was blurry, my line of sight limited to the center. My pupils trying with no success to constrict – too much sunlight I couldn’t squint to avoid, burning away my vision. My head was swimming in thoughts that seemed not to ever fully materialize. My heart was silent, utterly silent.

Where was I? How did get here? What is going on? My lips felt stitched together at the seams. My thoughts were perfectly voiceless. 'They' would never hear me. Locked in place, I could only look ahead at the slender man whose height grazed the ceiling.

I’d seen his likeness before, perhaps in photos … in drawings? He seemed familiar, yet unfamiliar? Perhaps I'd seem him in a dream?

What was a dream?

The scythe bounced up and down briefly as they spoke to one another urgently. I tried my best to make out their speech, but in my head, it translated garbled and nonsensical. I tried to read their lips ... but he had none. With void black sockets he gazed at me from next to the ceiling, cold and terrifying. From a black book he read something, small in his hands. My soul rumbled when he spoke his wordless words.

My soul?

There began to grow a weight in my chest. A crushing and numbing pain, fire and ice flaying the edges of my core. My body denied me breath; my heart denied me a beat. Am I dying?

Yes.

The answer came in a wave, a moment of temporary clarity. To pull myself out of this cage was no use to me now. I was within my body yet... unattached to it. But I saw them, the beings. They, in colorless robes, stared into my soul with the same void eyes; soundless as they lowered themselves down towards me, cloaked each in a large black hood.

Hello. They said.

Hello. I replied, my vision beginning to crystallize.

Hello. One of them spoke into my soul. My name is Zane.

Hello, Zane. My name is Dimitria. I replied.

Dimitria. I am your reaper.

His face made sense to me now. No features. No nose, no mouth. Perhaps no ears under the hood. Only dark voids where his eyes would have been.

We have decided. It is not your time. His voice said within my soul.

What?

My vision began to shake violently.

Wake up, before you forget how to...

I gasped sharply, bolting myself upright from my place on the floor. I was alone in the room, sat on the dark wood floor and nothing else. I only stared straight ahead, trying desperately to remember the hazy dream I’d just had. Clutching my sides, patting my face, extending my fingers. I was here, alive. Next to me lay my messenger bag, papers sprawled out of it. And a book, black and small. The messenger bag I recognized but....the book had not been here before. Picking it up, I needed only flip to the first page to make sense of its purpose.

Dimitria Hanover. Time of death, 2:34pm. Cause of death, cardiac arrest due to shock.

Verdict: Resurrection.

Use this time wisely.

I skimmed the journal briefly, the rest of the pages filled with life stats. Laughs, Cries, bouts of rage. Stats I had no desire to examine at the time.

Glancing over at the mess of papers, I decided to shuffle through them. It came back to me then, the drive over to my grandfather’s house, searching through the house for him like a panicked mad woman. Seeing him on the bed cold, sheets tucked neat around him, prepared like he had been ready for death’s visit. His note neatly placed by his side. The stench. The realization that it had been days since he’d passed. The shock of it all. My hands clawing at my chest, as though to catch my hearts final kick. The blackout.

A cold chill cursed through my veins. It had not been a dream.