Prologue 1 (Grimm)

It’s cold and dark in Seattle when you’re up on the rooftops at night. A melancholy swirl of gray mist topped off with a painterly black sky, sprinkled with tiny stars. There was no cluttered human speech, no deafening screeching of the cars, and no one blaring music from speakers. Just the subtle whistling of the wind.  There was a reason it was Grimm’s favorite thinking spot.

Who is Grimm, you ask? Well, to some, he is a debt collector. To others, a force of nature. Those in the know, however, call him what he truly is: Reaper.

Tonight, Grimm was dressed in uniform. To be fair, this was how he was dressed most nights, but that was beside the point. The point being that the long, flowing, hooded robe, and the smooth white skull mask signaled that Grimm was on duty. A fact that meant Grimm didn’t have as much time to ponder philosophical questions as he would have liked, and that the final verdict on whether ghosts could actually be considered dead or not, would have to wait.

Today, he was going to help his brother guide two souls to the after life. They would be ready for harvest in only twenty minutes, a fact Grimm had known since noon. He could stop their deaths, but would he? Should he? No, it was not his place nor his duty. His charge was was to simply make sure they made it to the afterlife without incident, a job which needed to be done very soon.

Grimm called forth a dark energy, which began to ominously swirl around his chest. Reaching into the miasma of shadows, he slowly pulled out a scythe, forming a straight, smooth cedar handle, with a clean, black steel blade, shimmering in the starlight. Grimm turned for one last look at the moon before heading off. The night sky was striking, as always. He hoped that those about to die were paying attention. It would be a shame if they were to leave this world without witnessing such beauty.

A note from the author ninja:

This chapter. Oh boy, this chapter. It did not make this easy for me. Now, I’m not really the type to write drafts, I just make sure the first go works out. This little piece of sasquatch however, took four tries (with a month or two between each attempt) to meet my standards. Hopefully, I never have to write a chapter this uncooperative ever again.