Chapter 5: First Reaping

The return trip to Kaelen’s apartment was a silent, suffocating non-journey through the folds of shadow. He stumbled out of the darkness that unspooled in his living room, his heart still a frantic drum against his ribs. The spectral image of the Griever’s eyes, ancient and full of a hungry sorrow, was burned onto the inside of his eyelids.

“It knows me,” Kaelen gasped, backing away from the now-normal corner of his apartment. “It saw me.”

Death stood by the kitchen counter, examining the mismatched mugs Kaelen had used earlier as if they were museum artifacts. “You touched its anchor,” he stated, his voice flat. “You established a connection. An imprint. It is a fundamental principle. What you perceive, can in turn, perceive you.”

“So what now? Is it coming for me?” The question sounded childish, but the terror behind it was primal.

“The entity is bound to its anchor. Its influence can spread, like a sickness, but its core remains tied to the locket.” Death placed the mug down with unnerving precision. “Your task is to return to the house and secure the object.”

“Secure it? How? The shopkeeper, Thorne, said the Pembrooks bought a special box and it did nothing!”

“The Pembrooks were amateurs,” Death repeated, the words holding the finality of a death sentence. “They lacked the proper authority. You, Agent Vance, now possess it.” He gestured to the faint silver sigil on Kaelen’s hand. “The Mark of Passage is not merely a key to see the unseen. It is a brand of office. A claim. Use it.”

Before Kaelen could ask what that even meant, Death was gone. Not in a swirl of shadow this time, but a simple cessation of being. One moment he was there, a pillar of ancient darkness in a cheap suit; the next, the space he occupied was just empty air. Kaelen was alone. Truly, utterly alone with the knowledge that a grieving, drowning god from a forgotten time now knew his name.

He needed a drink. He stumbled to his fridge, ignoring the container of cold chow mein, and grabbed a beer. The cold bottle was a comforting, solid weight in his trembling hand. He twisted the cap off and took a long, desperate swallow. He paced his small apartment, the familiar space now feeling like a cage. Every shadow seemed too deep, every creak of the building a potential threat.

He checked the lock on his front door three times. It felt like a pointless gesture.

He decided a shower would help. Maybe the hot water could wash away the phantom chill that clung to his skin, the lingering taste of ancient salt and sorrow. He walked into his tiny bathroom, the cracked linoleum cool under his bare feet, and turned the faucet.

A single drop of water, dark and heavy, fell from the showerhead and splattered onto the white porcelain of the tub. Then another. And another. The dripping was slow, rhythmic, like a funereal drum. Kaelen frowned. He hadn't turned the knob to 'shower.'

The air in the small room grew frigid. The scent of lavender and old paper from the antique shop was replaced by the raw, biting smell of a stormy sea. He could hear it now—a low, sighing sound, like waves on a distant, lonely shore. It wasn't coming from the pipes; it was coming from everywhere at once.

He looked at his hand. The Sigil was glowing, a frantic silver pulse against his skin, screaming a silent warning.

The dripping from the showerhead quickened. The water that ran now wasn't clear; it was brackish, dark, infused with the spectral teal of the Stygian residue. It began to pool in the tub, a swirling, ghostly tide that didn't reflect the bare bulb of the bathroom light.

Panic seized him. He lunged for the door, slamming it shut and fumbling with the lock. He stumbled back into his living room, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. But the sound of the sighing waves was louder here. He looked down. The phantom water, black and transparent, was seeping from under the bathroom door, spreading across his floor in a silent, unnatural flood.

It wasn't wet. It didn't soak the cheap rug, but he could feel its crushing, spiritual weight. The air grew thick, heavy with pressure, as if he were sinking into the crushing depths of the ocean. He tried to breathe, but the air itself felt liquid, hostile. He felt a dreadful pressure build in his chest, his lungs aching for an oxygen that was no longer there.

He was drowning. Right here, in the middle of his living room, miles from any ocean.

The figure began to coalesce in the center of the room. A shimmering distortion in the air that slowly took the shape of the woman from the pier. Her faded dress dripped with phantom water, her hair a tangled mess, and her eyes—those sea-storm eyes—were fixed on him with a terrible, possessive hunger. She had followed the imprint. She had followed him.

He scrambled backward, tripping over his coffee table and crashing to the floor. The Griever drifted towards him, her movement silent and inexorable. The pressure intensified, and Kaelen felt water—cold, salty, and utterly real—fill his throat, his sinuses, his lungs. He was choking, gagging on an invisible sea, his vision starting to blur at the edges.

This was it. He was going to die, just like the Pembrooks, a bizarre headline on the evening news.

Desperation clawed at him. He couldn't fight this thing. It wasn't solid. It wasn't a monster he could punch or a ghost he could reason with. As Thorne had said, it was its own history, a living embodiment of grief. How do you fight a feeling?

You possess the authority.

Death’s words echoed in his mind, cutting through the panic. Use it.

He stared at the glowing Sigil on his hand. It wasn't just a key. It was a brand of office. An office he hadn't asked for, a job with no manual, but it was all he had. He couldn't destroy sorrow itself, but his boss's entire purpose was transition. The orderly movement of things from one state to the next. Reaping.

It was a crazy, desperate gamble, a leap of faith into an abyss he didn't understand. He had no training, no idea what he was doing, but the alternative was to die choking on despair on his own floor.

With a final, agonized effort, Kaelen pushed himself up. He stopped fighting the water, stopped trying to breathe. He focused everything he was—his fear, his will to live, his cynical spark of defiance—into the silver mark on his hand. He met the Griever’s sorrowful gaze, not as a victim, but as an agent.

The Griever was only a foot away now, her translucent hand reaching for his face. The crushing weight of her grief threatened to extinguish his consciousness.

Instead of recoiling, Kaelen lunged forward.

He thrust his right hand out, not to strike, but to claim. He pressed his palm, the Sigil now blazing with a blinding silver light, directly onto the Griever’s chest.

“Your time is up,” he rasped, saltwater and pure will pouring from his lips. “By order of The Terminus… you are reaped.”

A silent scream tore through the spectral plane. The Griever’s face, for the first time in a century, registered an emotion other than grief: pure, unadulterated shock. The silver light of the Sigil exploded outwards, not as a force of destruction, but as a hook, a metaphysical anchor sinking deep into the entity’s sorrowful core, ready to pull.