12:07 Tue, Oct 7
Chapter 196.
6:0
465
I work through the list. Witch after vampire after soldier, their stories flicker in my hands: a son who never saw his child, a woman who fought until there was nothing left, a priest whose faith shattered mid–battle. I give each their last line, the last clarity before transit. I don’t sermonise. I don’t lie. I tell them the truth, the way Noah told me to, sharp, honest, a hand extended so they can choose to take it. It’s physical, this labour. Each reaping leaves a weight behind, like a stone lifted off a submerged shoulder. It doesn’t erase the ache of Macey’s face or the way she left tonight, but it slows the spin. It keeps my fists from finding the wrong thing to crush. When the last name on the tablet clears, I stand in the middle of the battlefield, the air cooling around me. The sun, or whatever light filters down in this place, leans low, and for a moment, there’s a hush of something like absolution. I run my hand over the scythe’s haft, feeling the dents and the smudges of work. It’s honest. It’s necessary.
But the hush doesn’t stay. I wait for that feeling that usually comes, the small flicker of release, the quiet after I’ve done something good, something right. It doesn’t come. My chest still feels heavy, the ache sitting just behind my ribs, the same restless burn that drove me down here in the first place. I glance down at the tablet. The screen is clean. List complete. For a second, I almost close it. Almost. Then ! swipe down and refresh. A new line appears, new souls flagged, new coordinates. Another portal blooms in front of me, humming like it’s daring me to step through.
So I do. Another field. Different scent. This one reeks of ash and seawater, burned ships, merfolk dragged onto sand, witches drowned in salt. Screams still echo through the air like ghosts of thunder. I move through them in silence, the scythe heavy but familiar in my hand.
The next.
And the next.
And the next.
Every swing blurs into the one before it. Every soul feels the same: lost eyes, broken memories, relief, and release. And still, none of it helps. The ache doesn’t ease. The noise in my head doesn’t stop. The portal spits me out into what looks like an old city this time, with crumbling towers and cobblestones slick with rain. I reap a child still clutching a stuffed wolf. A witch whose grief has kept her looped for three centuries. A vampire still begging for forgiveness that will never come. Their words filter through me like static, fading as the light takes them.
Another portal.
Another battlefield.
Another soul.
On and on and on, relentlessly I move, yet I still feel empty. I’m just lost without her.
