(Or more commonly known as; shit to never do unless you want to get tortured by Kevin for the rest of eternity)

Part 36: The Motherload

Ah finally, now that we've gone through a grueling thirty-freaking-six chapters of do's and don'ts we get to the grand finale. The Battle of Hogwarts. Tossing the Ring into the volcano at Mount Doom. The worst possible screw up you could commit as a Grim Reaper. Yes even worse than the previously mentioned... pistachio incident. And here you thought it couldn't get worse than that. Well, in the immortal words of the idiots of the internet: bitch you thought.

Now before we get into the gory details, if you are here to simply get informed on the specifics of your job, feel free to ignore the ensuing profanities. If not... ah who am I kidding—I know all you idiots only read this manual after you've screwed up. I guess you hope you can somehow fix your mess before I find out, to avoid me chewing you out.

Well, think again.

If you mess up this badly, nothing in the world will save you from me.

So let's start, shall we?

You idiot. You absolute fool. How could you mess up this badly? This is why your mother never loved you. You were your father's greatest mistake. Your birth certificate was an apology from the condom factory. You are proof that evolution can go in reverse.

Of all the idiotic things you could have done: set a building on fire, kidnapped Liam Neeson's daughter, stolen the Declaration of Independence. Anything but this. The one thing, the one thing I specifically screamed at you NOT to do.

What? You scared? Well, you should be.

Before we get to the why first we need to clarify what type of stupid you've become. Because yes, there are types.

First, we have Sainty McSaint face.

Ah yes, the special kind of stupid. The one who thinks that, for whatever unfathomable reason, it is their job to stop a death, instead of cleaning it up. Perhaps, because you had all the inside info, you thought you could somehow prevent the series of events that would lead to your reap's end.

Whether by giving them CPR, taking their killer out, Batman-style or by getting the health inspection to temporarily close an entire restaurant to prevent your reap from choking on those sweet, sweet peanuts he's allergic to (if this one seems oddly specific, there's a reason for it. And the proud lady this section of stupid was named after, knows exactly what it is).

Or you decided to climb deeper into the asshole of stupid and told your reap about the fate that awaited them. Because his Holy Saintliness thought they somehow had the power to alter the course of destiny.

To once again repeat the adequate internet quip: bitch, you thought.

The Death Ledger is never wrong. Definitely get that tattooed on your damn forehead. Once a name pops in there, the person is done for. Even if you somehow change the specifics that would have originally killed them, that will not, I repeat, will NOT save them. Even if you pushed them out of the way of the oncoming truck, taken a bullet for them, hell even if you had locked them up in an isolated room, with nothing but four walls around them, they still would have bit it. And it would have been a needlessly convoluted and maybe even absurdly painful death, all thanks to your sudden urge to play Jesus.

When people get marked, that's it; their life is over. Maybe we all have some kind of built-in shut off system that turns off at a designated time. Point is, when it's time, it's time. And no amount of misplaced heroism is going to help. Not you, and most certainly not them.

The best you can do in this scenario is to be kind and reassuring and guide them to their ultimate destination. Though I can't tell you exactly what that is, I've been told it's a hell of a lot better than needlessly suffering down here, after your time was up.

So, to reiterate; no more Batmaning for you. Keep it straight from now on. If you be responsible and come straight to me after finishing up with this read, then maybe, just maybe I'll forgive you for going all Jesus-on-a-toast on your reap. Provided you continue doing your job correctly from now on, without any whining or complaining, you will be fine.

However, if you've committed the second kind of stupid, then, you best hope you don't end up as a taxidermied puppet mounted on my office wall. Because this one... well, let's just say, is marginally worse than pretending you're God's son.

The Self-absorbed-slacker.

Being the reincarnation of a divine desert hippie is simply not enough for your golden moral standard. No, Mr./Mrs. I'm-so-good-I-fart-world-peace-and-food-for-starving-kids-in-Africa simply cannot fathom doing something so heinous like getting involved in somebody's death. So you have decided to keep your hands clean and simply remain idle.

That or you're just a selfish twat who cannot get over your death and are putting up some kind of silly protest, in the hopes that it will get you out of this gig. Either way, you have chosen to be a self-centered prick who thinks of no one but themselves and decided to do nothing.

So you're thinking, over and done. Your person is dead, and you didn't even have to get a whiff of them for that to happen.

Wrong again.

See the one comfort humans have when faced with the inevitable end of their existence is the possibility of something beyond. Life after death, a place of eternal peace and love, where they'll get to see their loved ones again, and enjoy existence in ways they never could while they were still walking the shitty world of the living. It is a small hope, uncertain and fleeting, but it is powerful.

And you, the absolute fool that you are, have just squashed it.

Your job may seem hateful and thoroughly disgusting to you, and yes, you might even feel like a monster at times. But to them, you are in fact, the hero. Our job isn't just to guide people to the afterlife after they've bit it. It's to pull out their souls from their bodies before they've died.

Remember what I said about a shutoff system? Well, the soul works in much the same way. While the person is alive, it exists along with it, in various states of health, depending on the kind of life the person was leading. However, when that person dies, the soul starts to die with them.

It's not a physical death, like the shutting down of vital organs. It's more like a fading of sorts, which continues the longer the soul is trapped within the dead body. If the reaper doesn't manage to extract the soul some three hours after the person has died, then that soul will disappear. Fade away, into absolute nothingness. No bright lights, pearly gates and reunions with grandma. Just absolute, infinite nothingness.

Forever.

Feel bad yet? Guilty, distraught? Oh good, because it's about to get so much worse.

This time, it's your ass on the line.

Death is like your mother-in-law: fickle, bitchy and unforgiving towards any mistake you make. And precisely because our dark god hates screw-ups, it has built a fantastic little system to, how should I put this mildly... discourage—terrify beyond your wildest nightmares—us from messing up.

If you were to direct your attention to your left wrist, you will find three distinct marks there. These little lightning thingies became a part of your skin when you un-died. And they represent the number of chances you get to do your job right as a Reaper. You might wonder what happens when the last line disappears. That's simple. You'll get the same thing the reaps you've failed get: the Nothing.

Yes, it's exactly what its name suggests it is—absolute, infinite nothingness, that will swallow you completely and destroy everything you once were.

Relax, relax, only large screw-ups, like the aforementioned cases that result in the harm or destruction of your reap, will incur this penalty. For everything else, you'll just get my red hot rage.

So for this reason, don't, don't repeat these mistakes. Not only will they result in your untimely end, but they will also end up destroying someone else. And yes, as unimaginable as that is, this whole thing isn't just about you and your butthurt ass.

Like it or not, other souls, innocent souls depend on you now, both for getting their afterlife and ensuring that it's a peaceful one. As such, it's your responsibility to make sure that they get those things, and get them safely. It may suck, you may hate it, or think it unfair, but it is your job now.

So go and do it.