It has been a long time since I last visited this place. Before me is a great white chapel. A holy place inspired by the devotion and faithfulness of mortals. This place is a symbol as much as it is a saving grace for us reapers.
A symbol of our servitude, and a saviour of our sanity.
The chapel is enormous. It is as big as what you would expect a king’s castle to be, if not bigger. The front has two massive dark wood doors etched with unknown engravings. Above them the white marble walls form a peak with a single-coloured glass pane near the top. The pane bears the insignia of the goddess Malenia.
Malenia is the goddess of life, death and rebirth. She is the reason we reapers cannot die. She is our captor, and our saviour.
The chapel rests in a different plane than the one I was at before. This place lies at the boundaries of what we reapers call the Gods Plane. The Gods Plane is a large area within the Gods Realm. Original naming I know. But it is all we have to go off because we aren’t allowed to come here unless it is for this purpose only. Everything belonging to us reapers is found at that other place.
We don’t even have a name for it. It’s just some worthless rock located somewhere in someplace. We couldn’t even find it if it wasn’t for those things ability to instantly send us there. Everything for the reapers is managed there. Our weapons, our cloaks and our working rights.
Yes… we do have working rights. If that’s what you could call them.
We are enslaved to the goddess Malenia. We are forced to work collecting souls and delivering them to a gate way which takes them somewhere else. What happens after they reach the gateway? I don’t know. I’m just a grunt worker.
Our goddess Malenia, in all her majesty, bestowed upon us a chance. Our working rights consist of such. For every 1000 years we work, we get 1 day off. If we manage to save 10 billion days without taking any off, we get to request a wish from Malenia.
So basically our ‘chance’ is that if we work for 1 trillion years without rest we can free ourselves from our servitude. And that is before you even consider that the land in between runs insanely faster than the world, so that time needed is probably a few thousand times more than 1 trillion.
Basically, we are slaves.
It’s not like we chose this afterlife either. She chose us.
And when I say years, I’m basing it off Eardh years. Time works differently in different places. Therefore, our time in servitude is based off the place we serve. When speaking to individuals from different places, time is expressed in terms localised to the Gods Plane. But more about that later.
I’m standing in front of a chapel that is located at the edge of the Gods Plane. This chapel is called Reaper’s Rebirth. It’s a sick name chosen by Malenia as cruel joke to us. There is nothing we would like more than to either die or be reborn but as we are servants of the goddess of such, we have no hope of achieving it.
This chapel restores the flesh of the reaper to that of when they were alive. It’s a time-consuming process. It takes a few months of Eardh time to finish. This is an option for us reapers because apart from the ‘chance’ offered to us by Malenia, there is nothing else for us to spend our earned time on apart from this. We reapers are souls trapped within our corpses. After we die our flesh corrodes over time and we are left as walking skeletons. We can still hear, taste, smell and see because of the Malenia’s powers. How they work though… I have no idea.
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This chapel serves as a place we reapers can spend time at to restore our flesh. Honestly Malenia could restore us instantly but that wouldn’t cost us anything now would it? Heck, she cares so little about us that rather than this chapel being at that other place where all other reaper related things are pushed out of site, this chapel is in the Gods Plane simply because she could automate the entire process if its here.
Yes, that’s right. That bitch of a goddess couldn’t even give enough of a fuck to go to our corner of some universe to restore us. She wanted it all to happen without having to do anything.
The time we have available to us is managed by that broken looking skeleton behind the booth at that place. I told him when I was leaving and I’ll tell him once I’ve returned and he’ll deduct my pay accordingly. What a joke.
You might be asking, why would a reaper bother coming here if their flesh is just going to rot again.
The answer is they don’t.
The reason I’m here has nothing to do with ‘feeling flesh again’ or ‘the warmth of blood in my veins’ or anything like that.
We reapers are generally chosen based on one factor. The strength we possessed when we were alive. That way no matter what soul we need to collect, we can always ‘defeat’ it if necessary. For other reapers, the place that they collect souls from is different from Eardh. They are not desolate wastelands. Those reapers have access to mana, soul power and a myriad of other stuff I know nothing about. And when they were alive, they were all powerful individuals in their own right.
On the other hand, I was born and died on Eardh. Yes, I know there was a time when I wanted to ‘defeat’ the gods. It’s such an embarrassing thing to think about now. I knew nothing of this universe or the powers within it. I was just a well-known warrior who fought and one many wars before eventually dying in one. Malenia thought I would be a good reaper for Eardh since putting anyone else in charge of the place was beneath them.
Yep.
The goddess of life, death and rebirth basically called me the lowest of the lowest reapers.
But what does this have to do with other reapers?
Well, other reapers can fight with their supernatural abilities. I on the other hand, have no supernatural abilities. Nor do I even have the flesh and muscle that I relied on in battle when I was alive. In other words, I’m weak. I need my flesh to fight.
Which is why I am here. If I am to defeat that brat, I need my body. Whilst I’m here some other reaper will take care of the general affairs of that place. As long as the brat doesn’t go near them, I doubt they would even notice he’s there.
Honestly this whole thing is a bit on the risky side. Unlike, the brat I can’t improve my strength. My battle skills, awareness and instincts can all improve given how dull they have become after countless years of nothing. However, my strength itself can’t improve. I’m already dead after all. Malenia wouldn’t keep the undead around if there was a chance they could get stronger and overthrow her with time, would she?
Therefore, this is all a bit risky. If the kid keeps getting stronger whilst I’m here then he might become to much for me to handle. Well, even if that did happen what is the worst that could happen to me? I’m undead, stuck as a slave for a bitch of a goddess, stuck in a dark desolate place doing a boring job where my only pleasure is taking to the recently deceased. What are they gonna do, kill me? I WISH THEY WOULD!
Anyway, as I open the doors of the Reaper’s Rebirth chapel I step inside. The interior of this place is pristine and beautiful. As you might expect of a goddess’s chapel. The walls are bright white and is mahogany brown. Rows and rows of dark wood stools move from the back of the building to the front. A split between them forms a path to the front. On a slightly raised pedestal lies a reaper’s scythe made from gold. The scythes edge is stuck into the ground.
Walking towards the front of the chapel I stare at the scythe. Taking a seat I continue to stare at the golden weapon. After some time, I start to feel it. It’s just a little bit but the goddess’s power is trickling over my bones.
The process has begun.