❝Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires.❞

-Macbeth by William Shakespeare

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It feels like months before I wake fully again, although I know it's less than 24 hours.

The whole night, I sleep fitfully, tossing and turning, waking up and tensing at every little sound. I fear Mor will show silently again like the man of shadows he is, and I will have to face him. But as my morning goes by, the reaper is nowhere to be seen.

The sun rises, but I don't get out of bed. I find myself continuing to go in and out of nonsensical half-asleep dreams. Young Will and I making sugar-on-snow, only for the maple syrup to turn into blood. Preteen Will and I visiting Texas, only to have him run away and become a cowboy, leaving me stranded in the middle of nowhere. Teenage Will and I in a truck, the night of prom, laughing like nothing is wrong as the guitar riff of (Don't Fear) The Reaper begins to play on the radio.

It always comes back to the reaper, doesn't it?

Once, my thoughts of Mor and my memories of Will could almost be separated. Once, I could make lists of my emotions, and identify what triggered me, and try to be happy even when I was not. But today, my feelings are jumbled up and unknowable and on fire.

I want to stay inside all day. I can barely get out of bed.

But I have things I need to do. Letterman jackets I need to wear. Graves I need to take flowers to.

Today is October 29 - the 5 month anniversary of Will's death.

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Getting up and ready is a challenging task, but before I know it, I'm sitting in my car outside The Eternal Garden. I stopped by the florist on south Main Street to get a bouquet of lilacs, and the cashier - Violet from Drama Club - gave me a slightly fake sympathetic look as she took in my black and red jacket.

Sympathy. As if that ever did anything for me. If only my town knew what I've seen.

Slowly, I get out of the car, and make my way to Will's grave. It's all the way at the back, tucked in against the fading brick wall. Autumnal leaves are scattered across the plot, along with all the land around it, as Ashdown's oaks and maples slowly die in the overcast, chilly weather.

It might've been pretty, if it weren't for the occasion. I know Thanksgiving is coming soon, and after that, Christmas. Girls will be planning secret Santas and dressing up in boots and scarves as boys ambush each other with snowballs outside of the school. Groups of friends will flock to ski resorts to hit the slopes, before coming home to drink hot cocoa and decorate the Christmas tree.

Who knows if I'll ever see a Christmas tree again. Who knows how much longer I'll live. Somehow, I wish I could go back to last Christmas and tell Will and I to enjoy it while we can.

Because soon, we'd both be trading plastic stars for avenging angels.

Trying hard not to think about the past - or the future - I wipe the inevitable tears from my eyes as I lay down my flowers. But there's no use. There never is. It isn't long before I'm sobbing.

Images of statues and spires, ancient languages and glittering wine mesh with my usual memories.

I'm distracted when a rustling noise emits from the nearest sugar maple. The hair on the back of my neck stands up and my heart thumps as I watch the tree for any more signs of life.

I nearly have a panic attack when a flock of screaming blackbirds sets off out of the tree, like a firework of ebony feathers, cawing until they disappear into the distance.

My skin goes cold. Only one thing could have made them do that - some sort of disruption. A new arrival.

Immediately, I snap my head back down, away from the tree to face the grave. That's when my entire body goes absolutely still.

Mor is standing there, no snarky smile on his face, no sarcasm on the tip of his tongue. Only regret, plain and obvious. I can feel it radiating from him.

"Hello, Lila," he says gently.

"What do you want?" I spit. "You come to kill me once and for all?"

"No."

He steps forward. I step back. He sighs, slumping, most likely realizing there's no way I'm getting close to him again.

"I'm... sorry about last night," Mor starts. "There's a reason I took you there. I just- I can't tell you. Not yet. I'm already risking my future by being here."

After I don't reply, he shifts uncomfortably. Under his eyes, his dark circles - usually faint - are a deeper shade of grayish black. His bruised lip still hasn't gone away, and I have to wonder, if he's already dead, will it ever? Or is it just a wound on a corpse?

Pity blossoms in me, but I stay quiet.

The reaper continues, "I don't know what's going to happen to me because I told you part of the truth prematurely. It's one thing to tell somebody on their death bed, but you still have a small amount of time left, believe it or not."

"A small amount? How long is that, until Thanksgiving or something?"

Mor avoids my eyes.

"It doesn't matter anyway," I add. "I have no desire to live or to die. I wish I could just cease to exist."

It's a semi-lie. With how off-putting the idea of death is now that I realize Will wouldn't be there, half of me is relieved I'm not dying just yet. But that doesn't mean I want to live, either. I just want to fall into an eternal sleep and never have to look someone in the eyes ever again, unless they're hazel and accompanied by a boy in a red hoodie.

"Lila..."

There's something tender in Mor's voice that makes me wish I could relax and just talk to him, banter back and forth as we tick off boxes on my bucket list. But I know I can't fall apart now. I'm tired of half truths and incomplete answers, and standing strong like this may be my only chance at getting him to tell me everything.

If only I could go back to Finland, that first trip we took together, and re-live it. But there's no point now. My forecast is forever cloudy. Never lightning and never sunshine - just grayness, onward and upward.

I glance at the flowers on Will's grave. Pathetic, I tell myself. You're pathetic. These will just get cleaned up by the groundskeeper within a day. Will doesn't see it. There's no point in this.

No amount of bouquets are going to bring Will Nyquist back.

In the distance, I hear what sounds like more crying from the birds, although slightly altered; at this, Mor tenses up, quickly saying, "Look, Lila, no matter what, while I still can, I need to tell you the full truth."

I blink, my chest rising in anticipation.

"I do know who 'killed' Will. But it wasn't me. It was-"

Before he can finish, a long, gray hand reaches around his face and shoves a satin gag into his mouth. Mor immediately starts screaming, yelling, but it's so muffled that the loudest sound I can hear is my rapidly-accelerating heart.

The hand is attached to an arm, and then a body, covered in ebony robes. I can't see the creature's face, as it's obscured by a hood, but I can see its wings. There's 2 pairs of them, each grand and feathered, and as I take them in for a split second I conclude: it's an angel of death.

"What the Hell?!" I exclaim, before I feel an invisible force knock the breath out of me. Before I can even double over, a gag is being tied around my mouth too.

Oh my god oh my god oh my god

There's another angel behind me. I can smell its rancid scent of flesh and sulfur, and for fear of what the gag will make me do if I throw up, I try to hold down my stomach acid.

Mor lunges for me, but his angel grabs him back and starts to lift him off the ground. Soon, my angel is following, and my heart drops as my shoes leave the dirt.

MOR! I try to scream mentally, but it's no use, because I can barely even think. I'm suddenly so tired that there's no way I can get through to him. It's like every minute spent around these beings is killing me slowly.

As milliseconds pass, I find my head lolling. It's hard to focus - to wonder what the hell is happening and where the hell we're going - but as I push my eyelids to stay open, surprise glares through my head's fog.

Mor really does have wings, just like he implied all those weeks ago. They're black and leathery and larger than him, stretching out of his shirt and curving around his long body in an attempt to block the angel. But as much as he struggles, his captor has a vise-like grip, and won't let go in the slightest.

Mor...

Just like at the reaper party last night, I can't stay awake. As my conscious slowly shuts down, I look desperately at Mor one last time.

He looks back. Streams of black flow from his eyes as he runs out of energy to fight the angel. He's crying again.

As saltwater rolls down my cheeks, I realize I am too.

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A/N: Oh snap. What do you think Mor was going to say about Will? And where are Lila and he being taken?

You'll just have to stay tuned to find out ;)

(Also, can we just appreciate how short this chapter is? Some of my chapters are wayyy too long. I don't know how y'all have the patience to read them.)

Positive vibes, stay awesome!

xoxo, Athena

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