"So, did you actually get me a donut?" I asked, walking over to Death. He leaned against the wall beside the gift shop with his hood down.

"I did, but you took too long so I ate half of it. You want the rest?" He offered me half of an apple Bismark. There were no bite marks; he had obviously broken it in two. I took it and the napkin it rested on, before taking a bite.

"Tastes good."

"Well, that's good, it's all they had left." Death turned, cloak catching the air."We can't waste time, we have a lot of people to reap today."

"How many?"

"However many people decided to kick the bucket." Despite the incredibly vague response, I nodded. We stood in front of the automatic doors and Death waved his arms. They didn't open. He sighed, grabbed my arm, and ran through the door. I shuddered once we were outside, rubbing at my arms.

"What was that?"

"Phasing. How do you think I get into places? Not everyone has a doggie door or a spare key. Just, uh, don't try it on your own. It took me years to figure out how to do it without almost losing an arm." Death started walking. I trailed after him, not wanting to be left who knows where. Even with noise being muffled, the streets were oddly quiet. Only a few cars passed us. Death flipped through his book as we made our way around the town. We made the occasional pit stop to reap someone with Death turning into a teaching opportunity. Thankfully, there weren't many of those. According to Death, not many people in the area were scheduled to die that day, but he said he'd rather get them while we were there than have to come back for them later.

Each hour seemed to pass at a snail's pace, and it was a welcome relief when the sun finally neared the horizon. As we walked out from a house on the opposite side of the town, Death pulled down his hood. He turned his face to the sky.

"We should probably go home and get some rest. We can pick this up later," he said.

"Aren't there a lot more people that need to die?" I looked at him. We had stopped at sixteen different houses, all as far away from each other as possible. There was no way the twenty-some people we reaped were all that had died.

"Time's weird, kid. It only flows foward, only moving in one way, but not everything goes with the current."

"Let me guess, you're going to compare us to salmon swimming upstream or something?"

"Actually, I was planning on saying we're like waterfowl, but I like yours. Less chance of Anser getting offended and biting me. Again." Death sighed and grabbed my sleeve. His scythe flashed through the air; we appeared outside his front door. He pulled out his keys, unlocked the door, and let me in. He shrugged his cloak off and hung it from the coat rack. Pulling his book from one of the pockets, he tossed it onto the table.

He sat down and flipped open the book. "There's spaghetti in the fridge," he said. I nodded and warmed the leftovers up for us. I carried the plates over, along with forks. Steam rose from the spaghetti, and it's warmth filled my mouth. Neither of us said anything, only ate as Death crossed name after name out of his book.

"How many people did we reap?" I wiped my mouth with my hand. Death threw a napkin at me.

"Less than I normally do."

"Uh, can I get a number?"

"No." Death closed the book, cover thumping against paper. He walked to his cloak while my eyes followed after him. The book disappeared into the inky darkness of the cloak. He glanced back at me, eyes glowing. "You don't need or want to know, even though you could probably count them if you thought hard enough. Telling you how many deaths your responsible for finalizing doesn't seem like it would be a good idea, you mortals get too upset over things like that."

I couldn't deny the truth his words held. Even though I asked, I didn't want to know. Severing the chain between people's body and soul is one thing, to acknowledge what doing that meant was another. To know that meant to know how many people I killed, to know how many families I effected.

As if he knew I wouldn't be able to eat anymore, Death took my plate. He dumped the spaghetti into a new container and wrote a note on it before shoving it into the fridge. He came back and picked up his empty plate, before washing the dishes. The moment he finished he wished me goodnight, and he disappeared into his room.

I sat there, staring blankly at the table. I don't know how long I stayed up; eventually I got up and hung my cloak next to Death's. My scythe leaned against the wall, so I put in it the umbrella stand before heading upstairs. Each step I took towards my room sent another wave of dread through me. I wasn't cut out to be a reaper, or even an apprentice to one. I couldn't distance myself the way he expected me to. I felt horrible, and it was only my first day on the job. There was no way I could survive an eternity doing it.

Once in my room, I turned on my table lamp, despite being able to see. I pulled a book from the bookshelf and opened it. I sighed. The language made no sense to me, and, to make matters worse, not a single page had a picture on it. The cover had what looked like winged pigs on it, but that didn't help me figure out what the story was about. Letting the book drop onto my blankets, I flopped backward. My eyes followed the silver mobile in its lazy rotations. It shouldn't have been moving, there was no wind, but it wasn't the weirdest thing I'd seen. I wondered what Death would do if I left, if I disappeared. What would he do if he woke up and I was gone? The whirlpool of my thought kept me occupied until I decided I didn't want to know the answer. Crawling under my blankets and wincing when the book hit the ground, I tried to get comfortable. Once I did, I turned off the lamp and fell into an uneasy sleep.

When I was alive, I thought the worst way to get woken up was with a pitcher of ice water being poured over you. As it turned out, I was wrong.

The worst way to be woken was by being brutally beaten with your own pillow by an overcaffinated Grim Reaper.

"Wake up!" The pillow slammed into my face again, even though I had sat up as was clearly awake.

"I'm up; stop hitting me with that thing!" My hands closed around the pillowcase. I pulled it from his grip, and I immediately started beating him with it. Gray feathers flew through the air.

"Stop." He put his hands up. I didn't stop.

"You beat me with it, so now it's time for payback," I said. Just as I had pulled it from him, Death pulled it from me. He tossed it to the side. Feathers stuck in his messy hair and a few clung to his ruffled sweatshirt. "How much coffee did you drink?"

"I think I had four cups, plus an energy bar or two. We have a busy day ahead of us, and I need all the energy I can get."

I sighed. I didn't get paid enough to deal with him; I didn't get paid at all. "Why do we have a busy day?"

"Remember that fight-" Death put air quotes around fight. "-God and Lucifer had at Paradise? And I'm talking about the bar here. Well, turns out they're still going at it and that means a lot more dead people, so we need to get a move on."

"Did you make breakfast?" I asked.

"Here." He shoved a granola bar into my hands. "Enjoy. I'm going to get a shower." Before I could blink, he was gone. I found myself staring at the place he had been, before slowly shaking my head. The wrapper of the granola bar crinkled in my hands as I ate the food inside. I tossed the wrapper and half of the granola bar in the trash. I could've dealt with the s'more flavor if I hadn't woken up less than ten minutes ago.

By the time I made it downstairs, Death's voice still flowed from the bathroom along with the sound of running water. The fact he wasn't done surprised me since he moved faster than a four year old with a sugar high earlier. To occupy myself until he finished, I rooted through the cabinets, trying to find something better to eat. I ended up eating another granola bar, swinging my legs as I stared at the bathroom foor.

The door swung open, and Death walked out half dressed. He used a towel to dry his hair on his way to his room. I didn't wait to see how long it would take him to get ready; instead, I decided to get a shower myself. I piled my clothes towards the door, despite there being a washing machine and dryer pressed against one wall. Out of the linen closet, I pulled a wash cloth and towel. The water didn't feel warm and it didn't feel cold, exactly how I expected it to be. Fifteen minutes and one stealing of Death's shampoo later, I stepped out and put on my dirty clothes.

"Thought you'd be in there all day, kid," Death said as I walked out. His hand closed around the handle of the coffee pot and my eyes widened. I sprinted over and smack it from his hand. The glass shattered on the tile and hot coffee spread across the floor. Death glared at me. "That was uncalled for!"

I almost shrank from his glare, but I squared my shoulders. "I don't like getting woken up by being beaten with a pillow. I may be a teenager, and dead, but I like having an actual sleep schedule."

"What, two am to one pm?"

"More like eleven to seven. Sometimes six. Now, come on. We need to get going."

"You've only been on the job for one day, and you're already trying to take over." Death rolled his eyes. "You must've been a joy in group projects."

"You're the one who said we have a busy day, and the sooner we get this over with the sooner I can go back to sleep," I said, grabbing my cloak and scythe. My hand already felt comfortable around the rough wood and it seemed like the material of the cloak had stretched enough in one day to stop being uncomfortable.

"You better get used to not sleeping. Sometimes I can't get enough control to change the time for us."

"Well, I guess you oughta teach me whatever weird language you speak then." I tossed him his cloak and, once he had it on, his scythe.

"I will. Eventually."

"That means I'll eventually stop stop sleeping."

"That's the spirit." Death smiled before tugging up his scarf to hide it. He pulled up his hood. "In no time at all, you'll be drinking eight cups of coffee like you're studying for finals, like you have to constantly reap the souls of the dying, or like you have five immortal children who like wrestling in the middle of the night."

"Yay." I said with faked enthusiasm. "Can we get a move on? We don't want those families to hold onto their hope forever, do we?"

Death chuckled. "I told you, kid, time's strange. As long as you're with me, we don't need to abide by the current. We hop around, do our job, and hope we did it fast enough."

"How far back can you go?"

"No more than the beginning of the day. Although you have no idea how much I wish I could go back in time and just influence that soldier to kill Hitler."

Chapter: 2,063

Book: 11,498

I'm tiiiiiiiiired

But I still have some stuff for tomorrow to do

See yah