❝Death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints. It takes and it takes and it takes.❞

-'Wait For It', Hamilton

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It's been 3 months since my best friend in the world died.

At his funeral, everyone cried. For weeks and weeks after, people kept doing supposedly nice things for his memory. They retired his number on the football team at school. They put up a plaque outside the gym to memorialize him. They kept giving me flowers. Roses and zinnias and mums and poppies. But no amount of bouquets are going to bring Will Nyquist back.

Still, I make it a habit to bring fresh flowers to his grave at the Eternal Garden Cemetery, a few blocks down from school, once a month. This month - August - the flowers are pure white calla lilies, a stark contrast to the quickly browning nature around the town.

I hold them in one hand, my other hand stuffed in my jacket pocket. Autumn has come early to Ashdown, and even though it's only August 29th, I'm forced to bundle up like it's November. The coat I'm wearing is Will's old letterman jacket, dyed in the black and red colors of "The Forever State Champions... The Ashdown Jackals!" At least, that was how they always announced them at football games.

The first football game of the season is this Friday. My lone remaining friend, Macy, is going, but she's a cheerleader, and after the game she'll probably hang out with my old friend group - the same friend group that promptly dropped me when Will died. I can't tell for sure, but it seems as if they were only nice to me because of him. Or maybe I'm just overthinking it.

I make my way through the rows of crooked, eroded tombstones to the back of the cemetery, where Will's grave is. The Eternal Garden is backed up to a large, brick wall, covered in ivy and lined by reddening shady maples; near the edge of that wall sits Will's final resting place.

Unlike many of the stones around it, Will's grave is new and sleek, the grass just now finally filing out. My flowers from the previous month are gone, but, then again, they're always gone by the time I turn up. It's probably thanks to the cemetery's maintenance crew, who I assume take the bouquets once they've wilted.

Slowly, I kneel, the leaves beneath my feet crunching. My hands are shaking, and I take a deep breath, trying to steady myself, but it's no use. The flowers fall from my weak grasp to land lonely in the dirt. If they make a noise, I don't hear it. I'm too lost in thought.

At first, I wasn't the only one to leave him flowers, or to visit his grave, but now it's just me. For being someone everyone claimed to love so much, it seems they've gotten over him awfully quickly.

Before I know it, tears are pricking at the corners of my eyes. The words on Will's gravestone - "William Reid Nyquist. 2000-2017. Gone, but never forgotten." - start to blur. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hands, trying desperately to stop crying before it turns into full on bawling. This happens every time I come, but I come anyway, unwilling to give up on the love of my life.

Suddenly, I flashback to my last conversation with Will. It was in his car, on prom night. I'd just gotten into a fight with the queen of our friend group, and we were deciding whether we should go to the dance on our own, or just split and go down to the New Haven River.

"It's up to you, baby," Will said. He had his tawny hair slicked over like he was going to a USO party, and he wore a red bow tie to match my crimson dress. His eyes, which were a deep hazel, were glowing with joy as they glanced to me. "I'm happy with anything, as long as I'm with you."

I grinned, but punched him in the arm. "You're so corny."

Will shrugged. "Sure, but it's the truth. I'd drive you all the way down to Disney World if that's what you want."

A flush crept up my neck, even though he'd been talking this way to me since we were in 9th grade. Will and I were one of those couples who everybody expected to live together forever. If only we'd known the truth.

"Let's just... go to The Fox," I said, referencing the cozy little Mom and Pop restaurant off of Route 7. "I don't want to do this anymore."

"All right, fine by me," Will replied, smiling. He turned the radio up, and the air was filled with the sounds of a vaguely familiar guitar riff. I couldn't remember the name at that moment, but it was some classic rock song by Blue Öyster Cult, and it made the whole thing seem like an adventure.

"Thank you," I said sweetly, reaching over to give him a kiss on the cheek. "You know I love you."

"I lov-"

And then it happened. The crash. My memory of it is a total mess. All I remember is glass and warm blood and pain, excruciating pain.

The next thing I knew, I woke up in the ER. My mom and sister were there, explaining that my boyfriend had driven through a red light. There'd been a terrible accident. And Will... he was dead.

Now, I really am bawling, my skin tingling like a thousand pinpricks. I stand up from my view of the grave, not wanting to be here any longer. I'm just about to leave when I hear the rustle of leaves from behind me.

I whirl, expecting to find another cemetery-goer, or maybe my sister, who knows I'm here. But there's no one there. The graveyard is empty, populated only by a hundred rotting corpses, a hundred more marble stones, and a 17 year-old girl crying her heart out.

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When I arrive home, I find I'm alone here, too. There's not a soul to be seen. "Mama?" I call. "Kat?"

If my mother or sister are somewhere in the recesses of my old brick farmhouse, they don't let me know. I slip out of my shoes and make my way through our rustic kitchen to the stairs.

I'm halfway up when I hear a creak in the floorboards somewhere on the second floor.

I pause. "Hello?"

There's no answer. Just the wind blowing through the cracks in the window panes. Hesitantly, I continue making my way to my bedroom, which, just like Will's grave, is all the way at the back of the place.

I've always liked my room. The windows, though drafty, give panoramic views of the rolling hills and foliage of western Vermont. Yes, the floors are old and knotted, and my mom hasn't allowed me to repaint the walls since I chose to make them yellow in 3rd grade, but it's always been home.

Now, it just feels like a shallow, empty shell. Everything I see reminds me of Will. His favorite part of the year was early Fall, when indian summers came and went and football was in the swing of things. Looking at the darkness outside makes me think of how much he hated the concept of Winter, the time when everything withers and dies.

And my bed... I remember when Will used to sneak through the cornfield seperating our houses when we were kids, climbing up the trellis to reach my window and laying with me on my bed as we stared up at the plastic stars I stuck to my ceiling. I'd taken the stars down years ago, but I could still see faint outlines of where they used to glow.

I drop my school bag with a thud, all my newly-received textbooks spilling out onto the hardwood, and flop down onto my bed.

As soon as my head touches the mattress, the bedroom door hurriedly swings shut... and locks itself.

I sit up immediately. "Who's there?" I exclaim. "Kat, if this is a prank..."

But my younger sister isn't home. I just now remember - she had soccer tryouts after school today. And after everything, she wouldn't pull my leg like this.

I get up from my bed and tip toe over to the door. I start to reach for the door knob, and then...

A gust of wind howls like a lone wolf on the night of a full moon, making my house shake.

Shadows descend upon my room as the sky outside grows dark and thunder rumbles loud and clear in the distance.

I pivot on my heel and see a storm has formed upon the horizon.

Lightning flashes, and I nearly have a heart attack. Just like that, a dark figure is leaning against my window.

I'm too shocked to even think, What the hell?

The figure is tall and lean, almost skeleton-like. He wears a black suit and a cloak with a shadowy hood that covers his face. In his right hand, he holds a scythe with a point that looks sharper than any knife I've ever seen.

I gasp, my hand flying to my mouth as I nearly back myself into the door.

Then, the figure tips back its hood to reveal a man's face straight out of my nightmares.

His skin is as pale as snow, his hair platinum white, his cheekbones high and the resulting cheeks sunken in. But the worst part are his eyes. There's no color to them - they're all black.

Before I can scream, before I can scramble to find something to defend myself with, the man grins, revealing perfectly straight, sharp, pearly teeth. "Well, hello, Miss Lila Cabrera," he says in a voice like gravel. "How pleasant it is to see you again."

I scream, a scream most would consider "bloody murder".

The man - if I can call him that - peels himself away from the window, says, "Oh dear, that's not necessary," and snaps his bony fingers. My mouth clamps shut without my wanting, and I start making grunting noises instead.

What is happening? Is this all a bad dream? I ask myself. Did I actually die, and I've been in limbo the whole time, and now I'm finally being taken to hell?

Who is this man?

Fear courses through my body, and I wrench on the doorknob, but it's locked from the outside. I can feel my skin going cold.

"I don't like muting you," the man says from behind me. "If you promise not to scream, I won't do it again."

I turn to face him, nodding eagerly, so he snaps again and my mouth opens with a pop.

"Who are you?!" I shout, halfway between anger and terror. "Get out of my house! Get out right now!"

"I'm afraid I can't do that," he says. "I'm only here to do my job. It won't hurt to listen to me."

He begins to glides towards me, his movement not quite a walk. Fearfully, I run to the other corner of my room, inadvertently slamming into my desk and knocking a ceramic raven I painted in 6th grade off of my desk in the process. The minute it hits the floor, it shatters into a hundred pieces.

"Aw, what a shame," the man says as we both look down at it. "That looks like it was a pretty piece."

That wasn't just any pretty piece. I'd painted that with Will, before we went to our 5th grade graduation. Will's piece, an electric guitar, had accidentally been chipped a minute after we received them, but he'd stayed positive, saying that "Not everything that's perfect has to be flawless."

It's funny how I remember little details and quotes like that.

Who am I kidding? It's not funny at all.

Looking up from the mess at me, the man pulls out a black piece of paper from his suit pocket and throws it in my direction. My skin goes cold when it stops and levitates in mid-air right before my eyes. In a silver, skeleton-like font, it reads:

Reapers Association of America
Mor of Vermont
Junior Reaper

When my eyes flicker off the card and back to the man, the paper disappears, flying back and landing squarely in its original suit pocket.

"They call me Mor," the man says. "And I'm here to-"

"Kill me?" I ask, my body trembling.

He frowns. "Not quite. But I am here to warn you about your death."

The man - Mor - pulls another paper, this one out of his inside coat pocket, and reads it off to me: "The Fates Hearby Predict... Lila Aleja Cabrera Diaz, aged 17, will pass on to Heaven before her 18th year begins."

My heart skips a beat.

Mor continues, "The Reapers Association of America assigns this charge to Junior Reaper, Mor of Western Vermont. Mor shall help Miss Cabrera achieve any and all life goals before collecting her soul on the date of death. Approved by council leader, Thanatos."

Thanatos... from my vague memories of reading Percy Jackson in 7th grade, I recall that Thanatos was the Greek God of Death, who worked with Hades in bringing souls to the underworld.

Which means one of three things: 1. I'm dreaming or otherwise hallucinating, 2. This guy is a wild, telepathic goth kid, or 3. A Grim Reaper is standing in my bedroom.

Mor doesn't look like what I'd always imagined The Grim Reaper to be... more like a teenage boy, starved down to his skeleton, who got most of his clothes from the fancy corner of Hot Topic. Still, there's definitely something terrifying about him. He seems like he radiates death.

And there's something else there, too. A feeling I can't put a finger on.

"You're..." I try to find the right words to say, and end up spluttering, "You're, you're trying to tell me you're the Grim Reaper?"

"You think you're dreaming, don't you?" He asks in response.

"Of course," I reply, smiling one of those grins that you wear when you're more hysterically scared than happy. "In fact I'm going to wake up in 3, 2, 1..."

I blink a few times, then pinch myself, hoping beyond hope that I can raise myself from the deep pits of sleep.

But when I open my eyes again, the sky is still dark, my body's still shaking, and a Skeleton of a Man is still looking at me with a expression somehow made of pity, amusement, and annoyance all at once.

There's a glow in Mor's cold, dark eyes as he says, "Oh dear, I'm sorry, but that's not going to work. You're not dreaming."

He sweeps forward again until he's only a few inches away from me, close enough that I can smell his scent of smoke and metal and, strangely, soap. A weird kind of chill inches its way down my body, making my muscles tense up and my bones go cold.

I wonder what Will would do in this situation. Would he be scared, too? Or would he face the Reaper bravely?

And then I remember. Will's dead. Had he... had he already seen this deadly sight?

If Mor can sense my sadness, he doesn't say anything about it. He gives me another odd look, then says in that gravelly voice, "Do you have a bucket list somewhere around here?"

"W-why do you care?" I spit out in an attempt to seem brave.

Mor rolls his eyes. "Did you not hear me read the paperwork? I'm here to 'help you achieve any and all life goals'."

"Why? Wouldn't you rather just collect my soul now?" I question. I know I'm treading into dangerous waters here, but I'm too stunned to care.

"That would definitely be easier. But I don't make the rules."

"And who does?"

"As you read, I come from the Reapers Association. We're responsible for helping souls fated to die cross over properly. My bosses are the ones who make the rules, and I only carry them out." He flashes a toothy grin at me. "So. Life goals?"

My mouth agape, I stare at him. He stares back.

I don't give him an answer. Instead, I slowly press my lips together, clench my fists, and try my best to play myself off as brave. I imagine Will in this scenario, in his tuxedo and red bow tie, but it just confuses me more. Did he know he was going to die, like I'm learning about myself now?

Or maybe this really is just a grief-stricken fever dream.

Mor is growing annoyed. He starts tapping his bony fingers on my desk, the click-click-click sounding like a mechanical spider.

"You don't believe me. You still think you're dreaming."

"I think maybe... I was drugged today at school, and now I'm hallucinating."

Mor lets out a spine-tingling laugh. "Ah, yes, because lunch ladies are always putting shrooms in the Mystery Meat." Within an instant, his laughter is gone, and he looks me dead in the eye. "If you want more proof, take my hand."

He holds out a slender, gloved hand. I look at it in disgust, then at his inky eyes. They're as dark as a black hole, but there's now a pale shimmer in them. Like he knows something I don't, which he probably does.

"Baby, take my hand. Don't fear the reaper," he says in a sing-songy voice, then winks at me. He's quoting a song - the song. The one that was playing on the radio in the car before we crashed.

In surprise, I almost choke, and before I know it, I trip towards him. It's a mistake, because he lunges forward and grabs me by the wrist.

His grip is freezingly cold and painfully tight, like I'm being held by the wind itself. There's no point trying to get loose, because within an instant, he's sweeping towards the window, dragging me with him.

He taps his scythe against the floor, and like Moses parting the Red Sea, the windows fly open. I scream again, but the thunder now is too loud for me to hear myself.

Mor is still humming (Don't Fear) The Reaper, but he pauses to say, "Hold on tight."

Without a second thought, he leaps through the window, pulling me along for the ride.

For a split second, we're falling, and Will's jacket blossoms around me like a parachute. Before my life can flash before my eyes, before we plummit to the ground, Mor surges upward, toward the ever-darkening sky.

My heart drops into my stomach. The wind whips my hair around as my head spins. We're not falling... we're flying.

Mor leads me across the cornfield behind my house, his hood flying behind him, trailing dark shadows in his wake like foam behind a boat.

In the near distance, I can see Will's house on the other side of the field. Lightning strikes beyond it, a beacon shining through the shadowy clouds. I'm so in shock that I don't even have the capacity to be sad.

Mor doesn't say a word as he drags me past the cornfield, into the forest-covered hills we always called "The Hundred Acre Woods". I don't know how far we go; the woods start to blur after a few moments. It's only August, and already, the trees are fading into hues of fire and blood. My guide dips down into the canopy, gliding us along the leaf-strewn ground until we reach a clearing lined by ash trees and land gently into the dead grass.

Rain starts falling, its descent so loud on the foliage that I can't hear anything else. Mor swings his scythe, and everything freezes. Time stops. Raindrops float in air. Thunder ceases halfway through a rumble. Lightning is hung in the sky like a prop on a theater set.

I look around the clearing in absolute awe, my mouth dropping, and Mor notices.

"Is this proof enough for you?" Mor asks. "Or shall I take you straight to Hell and back, as well?"

"You can fly, you can stop time, you can control nature..." I trail off. "You're more like a god than a Grim Reaper. Isn't the Grim Reaper one person, the embodiment of death itself?"

"It's more systematic than that, dear," Mor says. There's a small bit of snark in his voice. His endlessly shadowy eyes narrow as he says, "And I'm not qualified to talk about my powers, especially to a Charge, though I appreciate the fact that you think I'm mighty enough to be a God. But I'm just a Reaper, one of hundreds, and all we do is collect souls."

"Oh." Suddenly, my stomach hurts.

We stare at each other again. It's extremely unnerving, and I look away.

I clench and un-clench my fists, my nails digging into my palms so agressively that they leave red marks. My mind is starting to have a pulse of its own, throbbing like a wound. It's similar to the feeling I felt when I was recovering from the severe concussion I received in the crash.

"I'm going to die." I say breathlessly. "Soon."

"It didn't take you long to absorb it, huh?" Mor replies. "Most people wait days until they decide to cooperate with me. Most people are much less... believing."

"In what?"

"In The Grim Reaper. In Gods and Monsters. In fate and destiny and belonging."

I've always believed in fate. I believed I belonged with Will, and he with me, wherever either of us went. We were each other's destiny, fated to be together forever.

Then again, we all know what happened to that.

"Yeah, well, I may believe, but that doesn't mean I trust you. I've seen enough tragedy to know that if there is fate, it's not in my favor," I retort darkly, my eyes glancing to the ground.

"Oooh, aren't you an edgy one?" Mor shakes his head. "You make me laugh, Lila Cabrera. I'm guessing you're going to go out kicking and screaming."

Why would I? What more is there for me in Ashdown to live for? Will is gone, my mom is always busy, my sister hates me, my father is long dead, and my only friend only hangs out with me because of pity. I have no plans for the future, no plans for myself. I'll probably end up working in an office my whole life and marrying a man I don't truly love. I'll never be satisfied again.

Finally, I face Mor and his cavernous, shadowy eyes. I think he knows what I'm about to say. But before I can say it, he speaks.

"Do you have a bucket list, Lila?"

✕✕✕

Mor flies us back to my bedroom. Neither my mom nor my sister are home yet, which I'm relieved for. My mom would be astonished just to find me with another boy... and if that boy looked like a living nightmare and radiated death, she'd probably faint.

The minute my feet hit the floorboards, Mor lets me go, and I stumble away from him, nearly collapsing on my desk. I breathe heavily, my head still hurting like hell, my heart still beating much too quickly.

Mor is silent behind me as I catch my barings, but somehow, I can feel his cold, dark, twistedly alluring presence.

"I-I think I have my bucket list around here somewhere," I tell him once my head starts to clear. "I haven't written a new thing on it since..."

Since before Will died. I decide to leave that part out, instead just rephrasing, "I haven't written a new thing on it in a while."

I wait for Mor to reply, but he doesn't.

Picking myself up, I start to dig through the drawers in my desk. I find a few pictures of Kat and I circa 2005 and 2006, and then a love poem I wrote to Troy Bolton in 3rd grade that makes me cringe. One drawer is completely filled with a mess of crayons and markers.

I discover the list in the final drawer, a single piece of loose leaf lined paper that's been ripped and crumpled over the years. Messy, child-like scrawl lines the top of the page, slowly evolving item by item into my current handwriting.

I read the title, written in pink and purple crayon: "Lilas Bukit List!!!!!!! Writin Febuary 1st 2009!!!!"

I was 8, nearly 9, and terrible at spelling when I'd started the thing. I hadn't wanted to do it, but my friend at the time, Veronica, had convinced me to. The hearts drawn in red around the title were courtesy of her.

Veronica was friends with Will, too. In fact, she had always claimed to love him like a brother. But I'd seen her at school today, and she'd seemed perfectly fine - as fine as small town teenagers can be, at least. I wondered what was going on in her pretty little mind.

"Here it is." I lay it on the desk, turning to face Mor, who's leaning against the now closed windows. The storm is back to raging on outside, and the rain is hitting the glass like a metal bat snapping against a ball.

Mor raises his eyebrows, twirling his scythe. "That's it? A measly, crumpled note?"

"Oh, would you rather have a full 10 page essay in MLA formatting, with Works Cited and in-text citations?"

Mor snorts. "I'm just surprised. Most people have lots of things they want to do, even if they don't have it all written down."

"Well I'm sorry I'm not like everyone else," I say, using sarcasm as my lone defense against this man of death. "Like you said, I'm 'edgy'".

This is a joke, of course, but Mor just frowns.

"Anyway, there's only 17 Items, so-"

Before I can finish my sentence, I hear the sound of a car pulling into the driveway, gravel crunching beneath its wheels.

"My mom's home," I say, turning to listen for the sound of the front door opening.

"That means I'll be leaving." Mor shucks his hood back on. "We'll be seeing each other again, Miss Lila Cabrera, just like before."

I pause. Just like before. "Before?" I ask. That was like when he first saw me and he said, "How pleasant it is to see you again".  And then I realize.

"W-wait. Were you there when-"

I turn around to face the Reaper, but he's gone, and I trail off.

When Will died, was what I was going to say. But there's no one there to say it to. My heart sinks.

Maybe this was all a dream. There's no sign Mor was ever here. My room is as pristine as it's ever been.

Except for the raven sculpture, still lying in pieces next to my desk. And then there's my bucket list - it's missing from where I set it down. The Reaper must've taken it, and in its place there's only an old desk with all its drawers pulled out in a frantic, pathetic mess.

All at once, emotions come flooding at me.

Will is dead. The Grim Reaper(s) is real. And I am going to die by the time I turn 18.

It's been 3 months since my best friend died. I don't know how much longer I have left. But I know something weird is starting, something strange and stirring and dangerous.

Still, there is a lot I do not know.

What have I gotten myself into?

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A/N: Hello! I highly doubt there's any one reading this, but if anybody did happen to stumble upon it, I hope that you're enjoying it!

Have a magical day! Keep positive vibes and stay awesome :)

(Edit, from future Athena, circa July 2018 - hi! I just wanted to say this chapter is dedicated to StephRose1201 !! She has consistently supported DFTR and her comments always make me so happy. So shoutout to her! And thank you so much!)

xoxo, Athena

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