CHAPTER ONE



Their I was staring at the cold color changing tile flooring. My black hair clinging to my face from the rain. My blond bangs swept to the side. My normally brown eyes had turned red from crying and instead were green from my drastic mood change. I was a reaper doomed for all eternity to dwell on the earth with no rest. Well not all eternity.

After about one thousand years you had the choice to retire and be reincarnated. I was once a living human girl, I only had a few real friends. The others wouldn't put up with me and only wanted to be friends with me because I was considered popular. I went to school every day and did as I was told, up until I was fifteen.

Thats when my mother was murdered.

Thats when my step father took advantage of me.

He beat me.

He raped me.

And I ran away.

I had no one to turn to, nowhere to go. I was on my own and scared. I was scarred, not on the outside but on the inside. The bruises he had given me had long ago faded leaving nothing but my pail skin in it’s place. He had me under the impression that I was nothing but trash. But to him I was less

My mom used to tell me I was a gift from god. But I know I was nothing but a burden. I was avoiding every person who laid their eyes on me. Sleeping in alleys. I had finally had enough of this so called “wonderful life”. Looking around I noticed a glimmer of light shine off of something as a car passed. grabbing the old glass bottle I broke It on the ground beside me, picked up a piece of the shattered glass and put the sharpest point to the base of my throat.

As I dug the glass into my neck, the pain brought back memories of the first time my step dad attacked me...

I heard a crash. It sounded like my moms favorite vase that she used to keep on the porch. The thought of my mom brought tears to my eyes. She had been missing for three days. I thought she had just gone to stay at her friends like she usually did when she disappeared. but a phone call earlier that day from the police station somewhere in Nevada, proved my guess wrong.

They had found my mom’s body, well it was a body but it was in fifteen pieces. They found her right arm in a black plastic bag hanging off an apple tree in a back yard. They soon found the rest of her body was also hung off of different trees in different yards except for her head which was hung by her hair from a cross in a grave yard.

He stumbled through the front door, beer in hand. He didn't usually drink except for on special occasions or when my mom was away, because when she was home she wouldn't deal with his drunk ass.

"Amber get your ass over here". He slurred. He was always like this when he was drunk. He'd always go after me and try to find a reason for me to be in trouble. I knew better than to go near him when he was like this but i had to tell him about what had happened to my mom. Cheeks stained from tears I walked over to him and looked down at my feet.

" M-mom's not coming home." I stuttered trying to hold back the wail that had lodged itself in my throat. "s-she was" I paused as a single tier made it's way down my cheek. "murdered". I whispered in a voice almost too small to hear.

"She was what?!" He shouted. The smell of vodka on his breath almost gagged me.

"M-murdered." I said slightly louder.

his eyes shot open as wide as they could. If they had gone any wider they would have popped out of his head. His eyes suddenly narrowed and a growl echoed in his throat.

"This is all your fault!"

He jabbed his index finger into my chest with every word. I starred at him wide eyed. Without warning he slapped me across the face with enough force to make me fall and knock my head on the corner of the wood stove that had been beside me I whimpered as I reached up to the side of my head. A warm sticky liquid was leaking out of my scalp.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Mike which was the name of my step dad stumble over to the counter. he grabbed a frying pan, steadied himself, and walked over to me. With the back of the pan he hit me in the same side of my head as i had banged into the wood stove. i fell to the ground with nothing but a light thud.

I stared out into space wondering when this too real nightmare would end. He kicked me in the stomach and i could taste a rusty copper enter my mouth through my esophagus. Their was no way this was a dream. It was to real. I pulled myself to my hands and knees only to be kicked back down. I coughed up more blood and every thing went blank.

This reminded me of a poem I had written a couple years ago.


I know your their
you can stop hiding
I know your scared
that your going to end up dying
I’m telling you now
your going to end
either i can do it or you can
put the gun to your head
put the razor to your wrist
and when you’ve died and gone
I hope we meet again in hell
theirs no escape their
and theirs nowhere to hide
you’ll be trapped
and i’ll be waiting
so wrest your’e head and close your eyes
as I sing you
my lullaby...


Only people that die naturally, like from a disease, or by an accidental death like a car crash, an over dose on some drug, or falling off a building as an example, go to heaven to become angels. Angels protect people from demons.

People that commit suicide like me, are turned into reapers. doomed to rome the earth for a thousand years or longer. a reapers job is to kill the people they are assigned. the deaths they cause are either natural, or accidental.

People that are murdered are trapped to rome the earth as spirits, otherwise known as ghosts. they’re job is to watch people and report the changes of human activity from year to year.
The only other way to die which is less common than you’d think is being killed by paranormal activity, or demons. These individuals are sent to hell where they will be sentenced to being innocent enough to be turned to spirits like a murdered person, or be stuck in hell.

Or for those special people like my step dad, and my mothers murderer, if you’ve murdered or raped someone, when you die you are sent straight to hell to become either a demon or sometimes a dark angel.

these were the five death groups.The reapers had 5 main rules

1.Don’t fall in love.
2.Don’t talk to humans
3.Don’t get caught
4.Don’t kill a person you are not assigned
5.Don’t interact with other death groups accept for the partner you are assigned which can be from any group.

The blue tile that I had been staring at had changed to a purple color. i was standing in the main office of the death building, waiting in line for my turn to see the leader and be put with a partner. this was the first step in all of the death groups.

A few people were sitting in chairs. one person wearing black sagging jeans with a studded belt and black sweater with a skull on it was leaning against the wall.

Their were five lines, each containing a death group. It seemed that everything went in groups of fives. I approached the desk and looked through the opening in the glass. their was a woman her blond hair in a ponytail, her eyes hidden by sunglasses. she glanced up at me from behind the glasses and smiled.

“hello dear, what can i help you with?”

I stayed quiet.

“you must be new.”

I nodded.

“okay hun”
she pulled a hat out from under her desk and placed it in front of me. the hat was filled about a fourth of the way with folded slips of paper. “pick a paper out of the hat, the person that you pick will be your partner for about a thousand years pick wisely, and hope that luck is on your side.” she grinned.

i stared at the hat for what felt like an eternity. reaching my hand over i dug my hand into the bag and pulled a slip of paper out.

Vincent Clash my eyes widened as I saw the name of the group this person was in.

Death Angel. he had either murdered some one, or raped them. Maybe even both.


CHAPTER TWO



The woman snatched the paper out of my hand she looked at the slip and gave me a glance with an unreadable emotion.

"Vincent Clash."

her eyes searched around the room landing behind me. I followed her gaze and sure enough the guy i had seen earleir kicked himself off the wall and walked over toured us.Of coarse I would get stuck with an emo dude.

I thought to myself. he glanced at me and rolled his stormy blue eyes. Ooh sassy

.

He glanced at me again before taking his I-pod out and turning it off. He pulled out his ear bud and looked at the women behind the desk with an annoyed look on his face. She gave him a flirty look before slipping him some paper work and nudging his hand a little. He looked as if he was trying to hold back a look of disgust but he wasn't succeeding.

I rolled my eyes. so this is what I'm stuck with?

I thought to myself. Sassy,emo,crazy and stuck up.

he gave me an annoyed look before passing me the paper work. I filled it out until I came to a point where I realized we were going to be sharing an apartment. I could feel a blush creeping up to my cheecks.

I don't even know this guy and I'm expected to share a house with him?

I screamed in my mind.

Vincent cringed. He slapped his palm over his ear as if a speaker had just been put on full blast and pressed to it. A look of pain crossed his face.

Is this guy bipolar or something?

I thaught to myself as I began to fill out the paper work again. A list of possibilities of why he was here passed through my mind.

He's a death Angel so he must have done something along those lines.

I just hope I'm not his next victim

My eye's widened at that last thaught.

I glanced over at him to see him roll his eyes and fiddle with his I-pod before thrusting the small square music player back in his sweater pocket.

one thousand years with a murderer I could live with. But that long with a rapist?

No.

I pushed the paper work over to the woman once it was finished. In one quick motion she slipped it into a filing cabnet and locked it shut. She gave Vincent a flirty smile as a last attempt to get his attention but failed misserably.

From what I could see he wasn't a very social person. That was one thing we had in common.

He couldn't exactly kill me because I'm already dead but raping,that seems oh to possible. I cringed. Just the thaught of it sent horrible chills down my spine. I sighed closing my eyes.

This is goinng to be a realy long thousand years

I The woman handed me a slip of paper with our new address on it. I thanked her and made my way out of the building barley noticing the dark-clothed siloet following closley behind.

The appartment was only seven blocks away but it seemed farther. The akward silence between the two of us as we walked to the place we would have to share was unbarable.

Imprint

Publication Date: 01-12-2010

All Rights Reserved