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Posted on July 23, 2017 at 01:07:52 AM by harmony
There were whispers in Death City.
Rumours were on every street corner. All across Zone One, or One One as Harmony liked to call it, the dead huddled under shop awnings to gossip: the reaper has returned. Nobody had seen him, but everybody had a story that had been told to them by someone they knew, who knew someone else who had seen the great cloaked figure, eight foot tall, striding down the docks. Nobody had seen him, but everyone agreed that the atmosphere had shifted. The wind had a chill to it. The endless fog seemed to have lifted a little. Harmony had spent the better part of an indeterminable amount of time crouched underneath the One One sign at the docks. The sign had once said Zone One, but the letter ‘Z’ had fallen off and been stolen long ago. Just a few feet away, two of the ferrymen were having a hasty, low conversation. “You’re sure?” One hissed. “My girl was there when it happened.” The other insisted. “The statue in the library just collapsed. Then, went they went through the rubble, there was no evidence of the staff. I tell ya, the staff has gone. What if it was the real – ?” A cool wind snatched the rest of their conversation away. Harmony turned and sprinted back into the city, her bare feet pounding against the dusty pavement. She’d run out of colour long ago and so had had to trade her shoes and jeans for a ticket to Death City, as Zone One was colloquially known. Fortunately, her baggy t-shirt was long enough to cover everything important, although she did clutch it cautiously as she ran. Her thick, curly black hair, streaked grey with dust, bounced on her shoulders with more life than it strictly ought to have. Harmony had been dead long enough that her body and clothes had turned entirely grey and her memories were lost. All that remained of her life were the words she’d scribbled upside down on the hem of her t-shirt back when she’d first died: Ciara, Damon, Ithuriel, Shaman. Harmony kept a map of Death City in her head. She leapt over rubbish bins, careened past the drifting dead and ducked down into alleyways few others even noticed. The central square was always busy, so she hopped nimbly up onto the edge of the fountain and ran around that, ignoring the pointing and nudging of the fresh corpses headed to the bureau. She finally skidded to a halt in front of a dilapidated building with the windows boarded up, her breathing heavy, her hands coming to a rest on the wire fence. Angel Academy. The Great Library had attracted attention among the curious lately, but nobody had thought to come here yet. More than anywhere else in Zone One, Angel Academy looked like a place of death. The empty, gaping doorways and crumbling pathways gave it a real haunted vibe. Shaking off her shudders, Harmony swung herself over the fence and crept up to the old school building, scanning it carefully for a way in. The doorway nearest was open, the door itself missing, but it looked like there was the outline of a figure standing in it. Maybe this place was haunted. Get a grip, Harmony scolded herself. We’re all dead here. She jumped a mile high when the figure stepped forward, emerging into the light. It was a man. Small, bookish, he had half a dozen textbooks wedged under one arm and was nervously pushing his glasses back up his nose with his free hand. His beady, dark grey eyes searched the immediate area and blinked rapidly when they fell on Harmony, who had frozen in position only a few feet away. After a moment, she broke the silence with an awed whisper. “Are you the reaper?” The man seemed to relax. “No,” he said after a minute, smiling. “But I know her.” He inclined his head back to the building, inviting her in. “I don’t know, Brock,” cautioned the strange woman Harmony’s new friend had introduced as the Guide of the Dead, “I thought we weren’t telling people yet.” She turned her penetrating blue eyes on Harmony and studied her in a way which made the young girl feel completely undressed. Aura was nothing like Harmony had expected. For a start, she was a woman; for a second, she was really small (like, really small, like smaller than Harmony); and for a third, she was dressed in shorts and a tank top like a teenager. If it wasn’t for the black scythe lying on the desk behind her, emanating pure power, Harmony would have thought Brock was pulling her leg. “We have no idea what we’re doing.” Brock said quietly to Aura. She frowned. “Exactly. So – ” “So, maybe we need some help.” Aura’s blue stare fell on Harmony again, this time tinged with scepticism. “From a little girl?” “Age doesn’t matter that much in death.” Brock shrugged and turned to Harmony. “Do you even know how old you were when you died?” “No.” Harmony admitted honestly. Based on her reflection, she guessed she was around ten. “I’ll keep researching here,” Brock suggested to Aura, “you carry on doing what you’re doing, and take Harmony with you. Show her what you do. Maybe she and I can compare notes and work out how we’re going to teach a new generation of angels.” Aura didn’t seem convinced, but she was persuaded to agree when Brock pointed out that just continuing the way they were was getting them nowhere. She stood up and grabbed her staff, transforming instantly into the image of a reaper which fitted better with the vision in Harmony’s head. Her shorts and tank top vanished, replaced with flowing, pale blue robes. She held out her free hand as if to say, time to go, kid. Harmony’s heart skipped a beat. “You want to go now?” She asked doubtfully. “No time like the present.” Aura glanced at her scythe. “Besides, someone’s about to die in a world I have a soft spot for.” Harmony took her hand. “Where are we going?” Aura answered with a single word which almost made Harmony drop her hand in shock. Her mouth fell open and her breath caught. “Shaman.” |
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