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Another shift ended with the thought: "Just a little more, and I would have gone myself". Reaper, to be honest, didn't expect this at all when he was hired. Yes, agreeing to a contract with Death, he didn't think that not a couple of people die every day. If only, duh. As a result of his ignorance, he received two hundred thousand customers daily. And that's if you don't count those souls who couldn't get to the distribution point. Who didn't rest with peace. And thank God, damn it.
So, being hired by Death, Reaper naively believed that the job here is not difficult — just wave your hands and click your fingers. But again — if only. Every day the conditions became tougher, and the boss's requests became more meticulous. For example, at the beginning of the week, he orders to send all sinners to Hell, and then he already thinks that not every one of them fully deserved it. Wipe off the blood from one, take away the weapon from the other. Maybe they will repent. Such people should be exiled to Purgatory. And then he takes it into his head to check everyone who goes to Heaven, and the mindfuck starts again. But it's up to the Reaper to deal with all this, not his highly respected employer.
Of course, the labors were rewarded with frequent promotions of rank and salary, but all this money had to be returned to the boss for his own needs. Although, there was even some sense in this: Death was also sometimes too lazy to do his job, and he stood up for people and for them to die as rarely as possible, that's why he tried to divert the attacks of his fellow Horsemen from them.
Famine, Pestilence and War also didn't sit on the sidelines. All they did was try to lure Death workers to themselves, promising solid rewards for fulfilling their requests. But Reaper didn't even want to think about how things were going at the headquarters of the competitors. Every Reaper worked to Death beyond measure, and these three Horsemen, given their acute shortage of personnel, are not doing well at all.
Generally, Reaper himself didn't understand how he even managed to survive every shift. He was no longer surprised by the new conditions for checking clients, doing the work almost automatically, but often the well-established process was spoiled by the machinations of these very Horsemen. They either complicated the poor intern's work in every possible way through catastrophes, during which the flow of the deceased doubled, or even made a mess directly in his "office", taking up his time. Also, he often received the chain letters right before the start of the day: "You have strange calls turned on", "The guards are lazy today", "The right to make a mistake has been canceled", "An elevator mirror has been installed"... And to turn it all off, what do you think you need to do? Pay, of course. And quite a lot. No matter how he tried to complain to Death, he couldn't do anything: he was too busy with his own affairs, and in general had no power over the Harbingers of the Apocalypse and those who was installing all these barriers and taking the last penny of the worker. In short, figure it out yourself, Reaper.
Despite all the hard work, he was one of the best in the entire staff. He has almost reached the rank of the Hand of Death, which not everyone could boast of. He wondered if he would be able to take the post of Death himself after all. And how much, in this case, will he be paid? The Apocalypse is the Apocalypse, but he still had to eat something. Damn Hunger got the better of even the Reapers.
And then one working day, something turned over in the judge's head: but it's not Death who is to blame for such a turnover of souls. In fact, he's just an intermediary. There is someone else who is a real killjoy. Someone who rewards all these people with special signs, making them saints, murderers and other parasites. Someone without whom the duties of a soul conduit would be extremely simple. Without this "someone" there would be no three dimensions — Hell, Heaven and Purgatory. All the dead would just go... somewhere. They would all sit amicably together. Or maybe people wouldn't have died at all? And no Reapers would be needed. And there would be no Horsemen. And the entire "Apocalypse" Inc., besides.
And then the intern understood everything. This someone was... Life.
From such a discovery, he couldn't even finish the shift properly. So he missed the last dozen clients and got a "C" grade, but somehow he wasn't interested in it at all. It was the first time he thought about such a simple, and at the same time insanely complex thing.
After all, he himself is nobody without Life. Funny. He has been working for her since he was born, but he has never received a penny from her. But he's grateful anyway. And why had he never seen her? Oh, yeah. Right. What should she do in "Apocalypse"?
He would like to see her. He already appreciated her sense of humor. Well, how can one not laugh at the priests who squeeze the Necronomicon and don't want to renounce Satanism? Or over crazy mortals who have every chance of getting to Heaven, but who vehemently insisted that they weren't worthy of it? After all, these are all the tricks of Life. What else is her fantasy capable of?
Life must be beautiful. Reaper, who was no different from billions of the same Reapers, was surprised every time by what a variety of visitors came to him. People looked much more interesting and aesthetically pleasing than the inhabitants of the afterlife. First of all, he, hiding his face under a mask, admired human emotions. And considering that Life flows only in mortals, it means that she's the one who gives them all these excellent faces that don't need disguises.
And what a blessing that she collaborates with Death exactly! After all, if she was with War, or Plague, or Famine, then the Reapers simply wouldn't exist. Although, would that be a problem? If there would have been no Death, then there would have been no whole exhausting thing with the distribution... But there would be unhappy people forced to suffer forever. And so they are amused by the hope that at least in the afterlife they will be rewarded with a carefree existence in Eden, but not everyone can get there. Thank Life, guys.
Maybe he's devaluing her work for nothing? Knowing how many dead mortals they take in the "Apocalypse", it was scary to imagine how many of them must be born every day in order to maintain balance. And for every person, Life has to be torn, divided, quartered hourly, secondly. Surprisingly, but... there is enough Life for everyone! And it's still enough! Incredible strength.
And in the end — it's not worth badmouthing her either. Without all these intricacies of Life, thanks to which people acquire all their characteristic features, the work of the Reapers would be as boring as it is difficult because of its diversity now. And the first option is much worse, Reaper could tell for sure. Boredom is worse than fatigue. It was because of it that he went to this bureau.
The mask suddenly rearranged itself, depicting a smile under the glowing eye sockets. Reaper was grateful to his boss. She's the one who arranged everything for him. And even if it's difficult, but still he will stand. So that she can continue to be proud of her best employee.
***
Less than a week has passed since Reaper started thinking about Life, and now she herself has come to him. Straight to his table.
Don't trouble trouble til trouble troubles you, huh, Reaper… But it's too late anyway.
He immediately realized who it was. Like Death, she radiated some special waves that made you want to tremble. Only if in the case of the boss — from fear and hopelessness, then in hers — from delight and inspiration.
Life was even more amazing than Reaper had imagined. She was all kind of mobile, blooming. Flowers literally grew on her body, and butterflies fluttered above them. There were animals at her feet, such as the clerk had never ever seen. She had a magnificent hairstyle, but it didn't consist of hair, like her mortal wards (cause hair, as you know, is dead cells), but of some elusive light, the threads of which wrapped around her head and gradually dissolved into air.
An intern would have admired the unprecedented picture for a long time, until he realized something that for some reason he didn't notice right away. In the hands of Life was a scythe. A scythe. A damned scythe, like Death's! Not a sickle, not a hammer, but a scythe!!!
“U-u-um... What can I do for you?” sobered by what he saw, the judge muttered.
“Howdy, Reaper! No pressure, it's only one small easy peasy problemmaah...” the guest's voice sounded like a delight, like languor, like a real symphony, and Reaper even forgot that this woman, oh, what a woman, came here with a fucking scythe. And obviously not because she decided to remove some grass in the fields.
The stick of the terrible weapon suddenly spun sharply, and now the blade lay on the floor and didn't sparkle terribly over the back of the worker's head anymore. Reaper moved away anyway, just in case, but when he looked at Life, he saw that she was smiling good-naturedly. It seems she realized that he was afraid of her toy, so she changed its position to calm him down.
“Look, Deathie recently sent you one little man... One wrong little man. He missed, ya know?” Life explained. “Give me this poor thing back, before he takes root there, heh.”
“But ma'am, I'm really not supposed to...”
“Death sometimes makes mistakes,” Life continued, still benevolently, “and he admits it himself. Don't be afraid, you won't be left at a loss. And if ya want, I'll even help a little,” at the same moment, the counter of accepted clients began to rapidly crawl up, as did the eyes of Reaper.
“Sink or swim! I'm no stranger to taking risks,” the woman's laugh was like a hundred bells.
After that, the judge just couldn't refuse. His work plan has just been fulfilled and even exceeded, so it would be obscenity not to fulfill one small request, especially from such a person.
“Okay, just a minute,” he mumbled and started dialing. “Get that astronaut gardener from Paradise back to me, quickly!” the clerk shouted into the phone and dropped it without explanation, staring at the visitor with all his eyes.
“I'm sorry for all this fuss,” Life grinned guiltily. “When I light a flame in people, the last thing I want is for it to die out in the first few years. No matter how hard I try to drag out time for you guys, not everyone dies in old age. This is thanks to Pestilence, and to War, and, of course, don't forget about Famine. Death and I fight with them all the time, but it's no use. They strive to arrange something every day, and then we working like a dogs, so that there is work for them themselves. Why did the Father create them at all?” she sighed.
“No problem... I'm not offended at all...”
“Well, look at this lil lying liar!” the God's daughter narrowed her eyes slyly. “You are really offended. Like all the Reapers. You're all created only for this work. Deathie distributed souls only twice, to Heaven and Hell, respectively. Do you know Cain and Abel? Then things have gained momentum: I came up with hard workers Reapers for him, and Dad agreed to help revive yall.”
“It means... we're all your projects?” Reaper was thinking in a daze.
“I prefer the word "children",” a light hand gently touched the judge's shoulder.
While the intern was trying to come to his senses and realize that, it turns out, he met his mother, the phone rang, but the receiver picked up by itself. This meant only one thing — the boss himself was on the wire.
“Howdy, Reaper! No pressure, it's only one small easy peasy question: what are you doing there, dragging mortals back? Haven't you been reprimanded for a long time?”
Life suddenly changed in the face, becoming even more vivid and gorgeous. The flowers on her body began to bloom, two scarlet poppies grew on her cheeks. She swam up to the device and spoke herself:
“Hello, darling! Don't blame the boy, I asked him to do it.”
There was a slight silence on the other side, and then some noises were heard, and the voice of Death, already unreasonably cheerful (Reaper really didn't understand how, with such work, the Horseman managed to be a resilient optimist and joker), became even more joyful and satisfied:
“Wowie, my soul, did I hear right? Are you in the "Apocalypse" right now? A historical moment! Wait a bit, I'll bring him myself in seconds!”
“Waiting, dear.”
Reaper could only scratch the top of his head in incomprehension. Why are they chirping to each other like that? And how easily Death agreed to the request of Life! Shouldn't they be eternal opponents?
Death really showed up at the office no later than a couple of minutes later. He was leading a disgruntled man in a blue bulky astronaut suit. He was still holding the flowers that Reaper had allowed him to take with to Paradise. Look what it is, he can't part with them in any way! Why did he need them in space at all? And how did he managed to die with bouquet in his hands?..
Leaving the client, Death suddenly flew towards Life, and they merged in an embrace, kissing each other (or trying, at least). The scythes of both flew off somewhere to the side, and while the unearthly entities were making out, Reaper and the former settler of Eden watched this, supporting each other's jaws.
“Damn job! Remind me never to let the Plague play with bats again...” Death rustled, placing a bony palm on the guest's cheek. “You're so overworked, my gal.”
“Look at yourself,” Life chuckled. “You even mixed up the soul because of overexertion; we needed person from another cabin. The one with a watering can.”
“Well, I'm sorry, sweetie. It won't happen again.”
“You've been promising me that for thousands of years...”
Life sighed, but the smile never left her lips.
“Why are you so lost, Reaper? Well, although it's not surprising: not every one of you will be lucky enough to meet my wife,” the boss grinned.
His wife???
Are they married on top of everything else?!
“Sure,” Life bowed her head, and only then the judge realized that she could read minds. “Eve was made for Adam, and Death appeared after me, and we couldn't help falling in love. We're made for each other! I let people have fun on Earth, and he saves them from being the eternal slaves of the other Horsemen. We don't let each other's existence devalue. And we decided on a prank — people call it "marriage". We exchanged something so that everyone would know that we belong only to each other. Show him, my heart.”
As it turned out, the last phrase of Life didn't contain a cute nickname, because Death, obediently nodding, lowered the robe from his shoulders, exposing the ribs inside of which was beating... a living heart!
“This is my gift to him. In turn, he gave to me this,” Life hinted at her scythe. “Sometimes I get confused about deadlines and I'm in too much of a hurry. And then I have to take my fire from people with my own hands, so as not to distract my husband. While they haven't yet come out of the mother's womb, I take my piece out of them. It's not about good manners, but mortals are very capable of reproduction anyway. They worry, and then they make children again. They're so hilarious. But more often I use this scythe to fulfill my primordial duties. You'll see for yourself now.”
Life beckoned the poor gardener with a finger. As if spellbound, he obeyed. Steel flashed in the hot from the endless movement of customers air, and Life pointed the blade at herself. Reaper didn't even have time to make a sound, as a strand of the woman's hair fell on her hand, cut off with a precise movement. After a few moments, the strand lit up with a scarlet flame, which Life put into a person's chest. Tongues of fire spread out in different directions and reached his very heart, which began to beat again, and the man, inhaling sharply, woke up already on his ISS.
“Aren't you afraid that he now knows in detail how the sacrament of the birth and death of the human race is arranged?” Reaper stammered.
“No, of course not. After all, he will forget everything or take it for a dream,” Life laughed. “Well, that's it, we figured it out and it's okay. Now, please, make no mistake,” she looked into the eye sockets of Death with tenderness.
“I'll try,” he sneered.
“He'll try, ah-huh.”
A gentle hand suddenly pushed the Horseman in the shoulder not at all gently, but he wasn't angry. Taking his wife by the arm, he went with her to the exit.
And then an even more shocking discovery befell the judge: from the back, Life was unbearably ugly. As if all the worst that existed on Earth was collected by this side. It was covered in blood, cracks, some garbage, pages from "The Twilight Saga"...
“Oh, by the way, you will forget everything too,” she suddenly shouted instead of saying goodbye, and Reaper was left in an empty room with an empty head and a misunderstanding of where he got such a large number on the counter and why he absolutely doesn't remember how he achieved such a number.
***
Life must be beautiful. Reaper, who was no different from billions of the same Reapers, was surprised every time by what a variety of visitors came to him. People looked much more interesting and aesthetically pleasing than the inhabitants of the afterlife. First of all, he, hiding his face under a mask, admired human emotions. And considering that Life flows only in mortals, it means that she's the one who gives them all these excellent faces that don't need disguises.
And what a blessing that she collaborates with Death exactly! After all, if she was with War, or Plague, or Famine, then the Reapers simply wouldn't exist. Although, would that be a problem? If there would have been no Death, then there would have been no whole exhausting thing with the distribution... But there would be unhappy people forced to suffer forever. And so they are amused by the hope that at least in the afterlife they will be rewarded with a carefree existence in Eden, but not everyone can get there. Thank Life, guys.
Maybe he's devaluing her work for nothing? Knowing how many dead mortals they take in the "Apocalypse", it was scary to imagine how many of them must be born every day in order to maintain balance. And for every person, Life has to be torn, divided, quartered hourly, secondly. Surprisingly, but... there is enough Life for everyone! And it's still enough! Incredible strength.
But how cruel she is. This lady could have provided tickets to Heaven for all people, but she loved to mock them, prescribing insanely cruel plots of their destinies, and then laugh at how mortals went to Hell after an already lousy life. They are clearly a good tandem with Death. Almost like spouses. Reaper wouldn't even be surprised to find out that it is.
She could create monstrous faces as well. After seeing some of them, Reaper couldn't sleep for weeks. After seeing more of them, he thought that it wasn't worth taking off some people's masks. She created criminals, those very priests with Necronomicons, kings, mobs, buffoons. And she rewarded people with signs that they didn't want to part with even on Reaper's carpet. They held on to their tools and habits to the last. She was breaking them so that even after death they remained convinced that they didn't deserve Paradise, although they had long reserved seats there.
Yes, she is definitely beautiful. But also ugly. Yeah, she's ugly from the back, which she was turned to some poor mortals. They weren't even noticing it, but for some reason Reaper was sure of it, although he had no proof.
Perhaps.