Reaping the souls should've been my first priority, I knew that, but I couldn't help it. I could help but be sucked in. There was something magical about yard sales, and their ability to suck you in to look at and buy other people's junk. One man's trash is another man's treasure, right? Though I doubt it was meant to be taken literally. I saw a man digging through his trash can and putting stuff out for sale. I shook my head and passed on to the next sale.

Half in a garage, half on the lawn boxes and tables held whatever stuff the owners wanted to pass off for a quick buck. For as many sales as I went to, I was surprised by the lack of diversity. Every single sale was filled baby clothes, old person stuff that they probably inherited, and boxes full of poorly made toys. Occasionally, there would be boxes filled with trading cards or filled with copies of books which looked like they'd never been opened. I'd never heard of half of the titles.

Why I kept going through them, I had no idea. Why I kept going through them visibly, I had even less of an idea. Maybe I did it because I found ten dollars in one of Death's pockets. Maybe I did it because I wanted something to call my own at Death's place. I might've felt guilty about spending his money if I got paid and if there was anything good to buy. Since Death didn't pay me, I didn't feel bad. Nothing caught my eye anyway.

At least, until something did.

I was making a second lap around a particularly junky yard sale, one with broken bikes, broken lamps, and everything no one would want to buy. The only reason I stuck around was because the wife sat out new boxes, filled with things people might actually want. One overflowed with paintings, another was filled to the brim with DVDs. She put out another box, one full of glass stuff, and I would've ignored it, if I didn't have a strange fascination with bottles. Not soda bottles, though I did have a few of those when I was alive, no, I preferred old shoe polish, Iodine, and perfume bottles.

I knelt next to the box, trying to ignore the wet grass soaking into my pants. I wasn't able to.

I dug around in the box, glass clinking as I moved vases, soda bottles, and Mason jars around. I almost gave up on anything I'd like when my eyes caught on a flask. I wrapped my hand around it and pulled it out. Swirls coated the glass and it had a cool shape; that was why I picked it up. It wasn't why I bought it for the fifty cents listed on the neone orange sticker.

A string of energy led off of it.

I stared at it. Sunlight glinted off its polished surface. Not a speck of dirt was to be seen inside or out. What was this thing going in a yardsale? Why would Clara let it survive? I mean, it had to be hers. She was the only immortal left, the only one who that thread would connect to.

Walking away, I tucked it into a pocket. I couldn't figure out what it was doing in a yard sale or, more specifically, a yard sale filled with scrap. The only explanation I could come up with is that things constantly change hands. Someone might get something as a gift and then regift it. That person might then put it in a box by the road labeled free, and someone else might pick it up and give it to someone. The only things remembered about it might be that it's old, not when exactly it was made or who owned it. It wouldn't be far fetched for something of Clara's to end up in the same situation. I chuckled.

Harper lost one of her ribbons, Kai left behind a trap, Ivy basically had a stalker, one of Jacob's weapons made it into my dad's collection, and Clara is going to be found out because I happened to come across something at a yard sale I technically wasn't supposed to be at.

I tightened my grip on my scythe. I had no idea how people didn't see it, or maybe they did and they thought I bought it at a different yard sale. The sounds around me dulled as I focused my energy on returning me to the right side of the veil. Returning should've been easier than leaving, but things rarely made sense after I died. Only after I had trouble hearing even the loudest sounds did I warp back home.

Walking up the porch steps, I ran a hand through my hair. It was damp, though I had no memory of it getting wet. I rested my hand on the door handle and tried it. It was unlocked. I sighed; he needed to be more careful. Once inside, I dropped my scythe into the umbrella stand and hung up Death's cloak next to mine. At some point, the next holes and tears had repaired themselves making me wonder if Death kept the closk tattered for aesthetic reasons.

In the living room, Death laid sprawled on the couch. He hadn't moved much since I left, except the blanket zi spread over him was half on the floor. I picked it up and fixed it. He may have had his eyes closed, but his smile was a dead giveaway that he wasn't sleeping.

"You couldn't have done this yourself?" I asked.

One of his eyes cracked open, staring at me with a mischievous glint. "Hi, kid." He wiggled his fingers in a form of wave.

I rolled my eyes. "Hi." I grabbed his crutch and carried it towards the door to the sunroom. I leaned it against the wall, before heading into the sunroom. Sitting by myself sounded better than finding a way to sit on the couch that didn't involve hurting Death. Who knew my afterlife would include worrying about hurting Death? Not me. Though that worry didn't prevent me from getting a laugh from Death's attempts to reach his crutch. Payback for nearly pulling me down the stairs the day before.

I sat on the comfortable cloth couch and pulled the flask from the pocket of my sweatpants. My fingers drew absently along the glass as I stared out the large windows. The sky seemed darker than usual, like more clouds decided to cover the sky and allow only a trickle of light through. I kicked my feet onto the coffee table. I realized I hadn't taken my shoes off, and I groaned. I probably tracked mud through the entire living room. A distraction, a welcome one, but a distraction nonetheless from the brutal truth.

Neither side wanted to help me. The angels and demons would rather let the world end, than help me try to stop the apocalypse because helping me might trigger it. How that logic made sense, I didn't know. but I wasn't in the mood to argue with them. Since they refused to help, that left...me.

Death couldn't get around the house without help or a crutch; he couldn't do anything. Life still had his scythe, and Clara was the one who had the key, she had to have it.

I sighed, and it became a long drawn out sound which slowly morphed into a groan. Reaping souls wasn't a walk in the park, at least unless someone died in a park. Over the last two days, I had been doing Death's job and I had only one question.

How in flipping flapjacks did he do it?

I get that he has time hopping abilities but it was so annoying! Everytime the clock hit twelve I'd have to come back and have Death send me back to the beginning of the day. Each time he had to do that meant more time he'd have to spend recovering. I wasted so much time at yard sale, even if I came away with a way to track down Clara. I couldn't let Death know. He'd want to come with me, and he'd only get hurt worse.

"Kid?" Death asked.

"Yeah?" I paused in my pacing. I had no idea when I got up, or when I started walking from wall to wall, but that was the least of my problems.

"How'd the reapings go today?"

Flashes of the day's events appeared in my head: nearly getting stabbed, barely avoiding an angry dog, and of course the yard sales.

"Uh, fine, I guess." I tucked the flask behind a pillow and sat down. "One guy didn't want to go quietly, he tried to stab me with floral scissors."

Hiding the flask turned out to be the right move, even though saying it that way made me sound like an alcoholic. I say it was the right move because the couch in the living room creaked. I heard Death muttered mom approved cuss words, along with stuff crashing to the ground.

Including Death.

After watching him crawl across the floor to the crutch and somehow managing to pull himself up, I sat down. He limped into the sun room, the sickly yellow light doing nothing to make him look better. Most of his weight rested on the crutch, but I didn't feel bad for him. He was the one who decided, 'hey, I think I'm fine, I'm going to stand up,' despite me telling him that he was very much not fine and needed to stay laying down.

He moved in front of me, eyes scanning my face. They glimmered like dim searchlights; something lurked deep inside them. It wasn't worry. It wasn't concern. It wasn't annoyance either. I didn't know what it was. Death tugged at his gloves. "Do you need me to heal you?" he asked.

"Nothing more than a scratch from a bush." I waved a hand. "Besides, you shouldn't be offering to heal me. You shouldn't even be up. You need to rest."

Death snorted with a smile pulling at his lips. Sinking onto the cushion next to me, he rested the crutch beneath our feet. "You're going to get yourself destroyed if you keep saying you're fine."

"Death, you are being such a hypocrite tight now."

"Do as I say, not as I do, kid. Now do you need me to heal you or not?"

"I'm fine, just tired. I might take a nap," I said, slipping my feet out of my shoes.

"Don't let me stop you, I'll just read a book." With a wave of his hand, a book from the nearby shelf flew into his hand. I almost groaned, but caught myself.

I wanted to leave, no, I needed to leave. I didnt fully understand everything going on, but I did know that Death didn't deserve to possibly die because of his sister. I sighed through my nose, there was no use trying to escape with the flask. I only had one option.

""Do you mind if I lean against you?"

"Why?" he asked, keeping his eyes on his book. I moved until I could see the title, Pride and Prejudice. I had a vague memory of someone telling me about the book, maybe it was one of the kids who had Mrs Follson for enriched English? I quickly chased the thought from my mind.

"You're warm." I rubbed at my eyes, before trying and failing to stifle a yawn. I wasn't lying. I was tired. Day in, day out, I've been reaping the souls of the innocent and the damned with only the smallest naps for rest. I was beginning to see why Death drank so much coffee. Speaking of Death, he looked at me. He lifted his arm and let me lean into his side. I sighed as his warmth seeped into me. "Thanks."

His sweater was surprisingly soft against my skin, and he radiated the amount of heat I expected so it didn't take long for me go start drifting into the safe, welcoming arms of sleep.  Moments before I fell into the blessed wonderland, Death had to say something.

"You're such a weird kid."

"Like you have any room to talk," I mumbled, pressing myself closer against him, partly to enjoy more of his warmth, partly to make him get the message to shut up.

"At least I don't decide to lean against anything that's warm."

"I like hugs, okay? Or is that a crime now? Should I wear a jacket not a friend?" Leaning against him didn't technically count as a hug, but it would've been one if Death didn't have his one arm awkwardly sticking up in the air. Even if I didn't like hugs, there was something that made me want to be close to him. I was pretty sure I didn't say anything about it, but in my half-asleep stupor it must've slipped out since Death commented on it.

"It's my aura," he said, as if that were a perfectly natural thing to drop into the conversation. "Since I own your soul, you're connected to my realm. You feed off of it, off of the energy I give off. Souls in Heaven and Hell settle for residual energy or the stuff radiating from angels and demons, but you don't have to settle. I'm surprised I didn't realize this earlier, are you hungry? I can make you something to eat."

"What does that have to deal with anything?"

"Do you know nothing about any afterlife? Eating the food of a realm binds you to it, because it's filled with the energy. Why do you think you get hungry?"

"I thought it was just a weird being dead thing. Can I take my nap now?"

"Yeah, sorry, kid."

"Thanks," I said. More of my weight rested against him while I showed zero care that I was potentially laying on one of his injuries. I wanted to sleep and I wanted to be warm as I did so. If he couldn't muster basic concern for his own wellbeing, I was entitled to lay against him, hopefully, making him realize he should care in the process. For some reason, I had a feeling it wouldn't work.

Falling asleep was the easy part, waking up on the other hand took a lot more effort. Probably because my body was screaming at me to get actual rest and not a nap. After each of my naps, I'd get a brief burst of energy that would soon turn to my eyes being unable to focus and me shambling around like I was in a horror movie.

Considering the people I've met, I could've been.

It was a struggle to move towards conciousness. The darkness around me was sticky like syrup, trying to hold me back, trying to keep me from opening my eyes. Floating in an ocean of inky black molasses, I wanted to wake up; I don't even like molasses.
Several painful moments later and I managed to force my eyes open. The warmth of Death was still present, if more intense and enveloping. Extracting myself from under his fallen arm took longer than I wanted, and the amount of time I stared at him only added onto that. It was the first time I'd seen him truly asleep.

The corners of his mouth twitched and his eyelids fluttered. His face lost all of the heavy weight it held while he was awake. He really was the youngest of the immortals wasn't her, barring Jesus of course. He mumbled in his sleep. His body fell sideways. I drew a sharp breath. He didn't wake up. I slowly exhaled, before tucking the flask back into my pocket. I picked up my shoes.

Sliding my feet over the tile, I tested each spot before putting my weight on it. I stuck close to the furniture and managed to avoid any creaky bits of floor; I found myself grateful for my lack of footsteps.

I grabbed Death's cloak, long absent of the heat it held from his body, from its peg and slipped it over my clothes. The sleeves hung past my hands, allowing me to flop them around like an oversized hoodie's, and the hem dragged across the floor. I moved to the cabinets and stashed as many snacks as possible into the pockets. How many snacks exactly? All of them.

I had no idea how long it would take me to find Clara, much less get the key from her, and I still had no idea what I would do with the key when I got it. Would I bring it back her and let Death figure it out? Probably not, so I had to plan for an extended trip.

Dread settled in my stomach as I walked to the door. I looked at my scythe, at the way its blade seemed to glow. I reached for it, before dropping my hand. If I had to go get Death's scythe, I wouldn't be able to carry two, but I still needed to get to Earth. I clenched my jaw. Death said you only need to swing the scythe when on Earth, right? Which meant I should be able to get there just fine, getting back will be the problem.

Well, so will getting the key from Clara, but I'd burn that bridge when I came to it. Not to mention I didn't even know if I could kill her in the first place.

I shook my head. No. No, I couldn't psych myself out of this. Not now. I needed to do this. Pressing my hands together, the same way I had with the piece of paper, I focused. I didn't know what I was focusing on, whether it was on my powers or the energy drawing me to Earth, but, whichever one it was, it did the job.

Chapter: 3,003

Book: 69,884

How'd you like it?

I finished this at 11:30 last night. And...

Four more chapters guys!

See yah