“Where are we?” I asked, looking around. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought we were in a common temple on Earth? But it was well lit and made out of materials I couldn’t identify. Dark, almost oily stone with deep purple within it that was so vibrant it almost looked like liquid running through the ore. There were windows of stained glass, but they were lit from below rather any sunlight behind them, making me wonder if we were underground?

  “Uuuh, I guess would could call it our church.”

  “Church?”

  Gildebrak nodded. “Yeah, for all the Reapers.”

  I looked around more, trying to figure out if I could identify any iconography. If the Reapers had been around practically forever and had always had an inside scoop about the gods being real, who could they possibly all worship?

  “You look confused.”

  “Just wondering about how it all works.”

  “You know, you present yourself as spacey,” Gildebrak said, “but there’s a lot going on in that head of yours, isn’t there?”

  Her gaze was a bit too keen for me.

  “As if you don’t do the same thing,” I said.

  “What? Little ol’ me?”

  “I know that Reapers can choose their own appearances, so everything about you is a deliberate decision.” I affixed her with my own look. “So, if I’m meeting a several century old woman who chooses to present herself as someone who could pass as being a preteen, I figure it has to be for that reason. Either that, or you’re a pervert.”

  “Whoa, whoa, comin’ in hot there!” she said, holding up both of her hands. “Point taken. I’ll change the topic. And to answer the question you didn’t ask, most of the functional rooms in here, like the induction chamber, are for aspects of being a Reaper, like the induction chamber, the celebration chamber, and the chamber of the endless.”

  “What, is that last one some MC Escher sort of labyrinth to weed out the weak?”

  “No. That’s where we keep dedications to Reapers who fall in the line of duty.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know I joke around a lot,” Gildebrak said, “and I also know that a lot of the powers we have make it easy to feel invincible, but this is the most dangerous job in existence. And if you're good at it, that means you get centuries of putting yourself into the worst peril that we humans can imagine. But in the end, no matter how much you train, no matter how good you are, all of our stories end the same way. Unless we walk away, every single Reaper you meet, will fall in the line of duty.”

  “…oh.”

  What else could I say? I suppose that was a logical leap to make given all the information I had been told, but yet again, I hadn't really thought about that particular aspect. I myself had already been wounded in battle, and the whole reason I’d got embroiled in the whole mess was because I quite literally found a dying Reaper.

  “Anyway, a lot of the side areas are a bunch of individual holy rooms for a bunch of different religions. A lot of Reapers lose their compulsion to worship here, but not everyone, and over the years I guess the folks in charge figured there wasn’t really a good reason to force Reapers to have to return to earth to get their praise on. Especially since most faiths have a community aspect.”

  “I… yeah, okay.” I could see why a faithful Reaper would want to commune with their god before going on a dangerous mission, but it was kind of a strange thing to conceptualize considering they could also just march into their god’s literal office or even their afterlife.

  “Anyway, we’re wanted deeper in, so let’s go. Trust me, you’re gonna love the light show.”

  Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

  “Light show? What light show?”

  Gildebrak didn’t answer, not that I expected her to, but when we exited through the side door, we weren't greeted by another detail-less, banal hall like the ones in the dead offices. Instead, it was made of that same dark rock, with gold scones, chandeliers, fancy doorways, and other intricate details. It was beautiful, that was for certain, and about five times larger than I expected it to be.

  “Why is everything always so massive?" I was mostly making the question toward myself, but Gildebrak chimed in anyway.

  “It’s gotta accommodate all of us.”

  “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but I didn’t think there were exactly a ton of us to begin with?”

  “I mean no, not if you compare us to the grand existence of humanity. But they wanted to build a place that if every single Reaper active or retired needed to be here all at once, they would all fit. The same way that main hub was designed to fit at least half of the entire staff of the in between realms all at once. It would be a tight fit sure, but no one would be crushed to death.

  “And while there aren't a lot of us, our population tends to expand rather than compress. All of us live for an extremely long time, and although yes us Reapers do die, it’s not like it happens often. So, we get a little bigger, a little bigger, and a little bigger. But even with all those little-bigs in a row, we’re still behind the trend with the earth’s population. So, when you throw in monsters increasingly throwing off the balance…”

  “The people in charge are hoping for expansion.”

  “Exactly. But enough of this tutorial stuff, it's all background that you'll pick up as we go. The real show is what’s about to begin.”

  With that, she opened another heavy door in front of us, and we stepped into a room incredibly similar to the first. However, it was much smaller, and both the floors and ceiling were made of mirrors, gold scrolling text carved in swirling patterns all over it.

  At the center of the room stood none other than the Lord of the Dead, holding a truly massive book in his hand. At his feet sat one bowl with incense smoke wafting up from it and the other filled with—

  “Hey, is that the dupioni silk from my project bag?”

  “Shh!” the voice hissed, nearly startling me out of my own pants. She really had a knack for popping up out of nowhere lately. “Nevermind your fabric. This is your new destiny; it’s time to pay attention.”

  “It wasn’t like I wasn’t paying attention before…” I muttered but I did indeed close my mouth and stepped forward into a golden circle on the floor, intricate runes all around it.

  “Bridgette Nelson—” Orson began.

  “Bridges.”

  He raised his eyebrow as if he didn’t approve but I just grinned at him. I was aware of what was on my birth certificate, but if I was about to accept my ‘true’ destiny, I was going to accept it under the name I had chosen.

  “Bridges Nelson, you stand here on the cusp of the beyond, where you must cast off the life and revelry that were owed to you to step into the mantle of a guardian. A caretaker of that which is most dear. A shepherd of the dead.”

  He paused, and I continued to watch curiously until Gildebrak cleared her throat under her breath.

  “Oh, uh… I do.” I said, hoping that was the right thing. And it seemed to be, because Orson continued.

  “You, Bridges Nelson, will know pain. You will know fear and you will know the cold. The blessed peace of death will be denied to you long beyond what was meant for your kind as you provide the exact service for others that you are denied.”

  Huh, he was really selling the premise, wasn’t he?

  “For this, there will be no monetary reward, no gold or untold riches. You will not receive glory, as mortals will not know your name or your deeds. Your peace will be little, and your dreams may be haunted by the horrors you save your fellow man from.

  “But when you lay your head down at night, whether you are returned to dust or return your mantle, you will know that you are just. And when that time comes, you will be escorted in high celebration to your final rest, to a blessed peace earned ten times over.

  “For that is the fate of the Reaper. To work, and toil, and save others with no thought for yourself. Do you accept this mission, Bridges Nelson? Do you accept the pain? Do you accept the fear? Do you accept the cold?”

  “I do,” I said, putting all the conviction I could into my voice. “I’m ready for this. I want to protect the dead just as much as the living.”

  Orson stopped dead, and actually looked up from his book. “What was that?”

  Hmmm, that didn’t sound like part of the ceremony, but I kept going anyway. “I said I want to protect the dead too. The living need our help, absolutely, because there’s dangerous stuff going on. But we’re a shepherd to the dead, and you’re the Lord of the Dead. So I dedicate myself to them too.”

  I didn’t miss how he and Gildebrak exchanged looks. How could I? But Orson recovered quickly and cleared his throat before continuing.

  “Then stand before the gods of death and life and open yourself to the lands between!”

  It didn’t seem like I was supposed to move, so I just let my hands drop to my sides and tried to take a deep breath while letting my guard down. I had no idea what was going to happen, but I let myself just be ready for it with no anticipation.

  That was easier said than done, and for a long, long moment, there was only silence, but then there was a rumble below me and the circle began to fill with a heavenly glow.

  That’s right, Gildebrak said there was going to be a light show, I remembered.

  Well, it looked like it was time to get my shine on, as it was.