Why is the reaper grim? Is it from a life lived lonely Or from choosing, her or him Death belongs to the reaper only

Good versus Evil Young and old All of the people Will one day fold

Darkness surrounds The people are in fear Down into the ground Their day draws near

Is it at random Or maybe by reason We all enter the kingdom In his own season

Sometimes it’s fast Others it’s slowly But we all breathe our last Death belongs to the reaper only

Fredrick could barely see a thing, the intense glare of the afternoon sun bounced off of the sheets of mirror-like ice and rendered his eyes near useless.

The feeling of touch was relatively useless as well. Sensitivity wasn’t much of an option when coated in four layers of polyester and wool. But removing that meant instant frostbite, which seemed worse than not being nimble.

Even worse than the loss of vision and feeling, was the sensation of being suffocated. Or maybe it was more like being forcefully strangled, gentle suffocation actually sounded like a relief at this point.

While he didn’t consider any of these things pleasant, they were all certainly tolerable. Well, If he had been walking down a familiar NYC street they would’ve been but he wasn’t. Frederick was navigating a precariously perched, flimsy metal bridge that spanned thirty five feet across a bottomless ice cavern. This definitely wasn’t a walk to Central Park, he was actually 23,482 feet higher than the highest point in Central Park, Frederick was attempting to climb Mount Everest.

Everest was a lifelong goal. A captivating peak that Frederick had summited countless times in his dreams, he was ecstatic to get his shot at the top. When he first arrived at basecamp his was blown away by the vivid scenery of the snow capped peak. However, his spirits were dampened during the first storm. The highest peak on earth is challenging enough in great weather, but it was life-threatening when it wasn’t. When he waited out his first storm he realizes the severity and implications of the weather and had made a promise to himself to never get caught out in it if he could help it.

As he stepped off the rickety ladder he thought to himself, “Promises are made to be broken”. His time on the mountain was running out and he decided to make a risky ascent, racing the clock he knew he could only afford to be half an hour behind schedule or be caught in a storm. So far things had gone according to plan, he wasn’t exactly comfortable, but he was making progress.

It seemed as if his risk would lead to reward until he gazed out across the skyline and saw the cloud coming in. “Shit that’s early” he thought. Frederick knew he was being faced with a potentially lethal choice , he could turn back to safety or push upwards and risk his life for a lifelong dream.

A vitally important question with countless variables was decided in just two seconds.

“Summit”

Cassandra was a living, breathing stereotype. Her spindly frame was swallowed in her baggy hand-me-downs and her thick glasses never sat straight on her crooked nose. But those things didn’t matter to her, even at a young age she knew what mattered and what didn’t.

Appearances? Not important.

Taunts? Mattered even less.

Imagination? Now that was everything.

Cassie had consumed her eleven years with things that mattered. Her single mother, who was a mirror image of her daughter, had began reading her the greatest fantasy works of all time in the cradle. Now that she was capable of doing so independently, she was consuming the library the way a wildfire inhales a hundred year forest. Wonderful worlds, great adventures, heroic exploits and dazzling magic were all at her disposal. While her reality wasn’t a fairytale she knew how to escape to a place that was.

It was good that she knew these things, that she had an imagination and could escape to a different world, because the goblins and trolls that surrounded her on a daily basis at her grade school didn’t make the real world easy for her.

“Four eyes” wasn’t so bad.

“Loser” didn’t hurt too much.

“Crazy Cassie” cut a little deeper though and the monsters knew it.

There is a quaint comfort in routine and Cassie had developed one. Get up, shower and dress then throw herself into a book. Board the bus, ignore the jeers then escape into a different literary realm. And this repeated throughout the day, imagination was an effective coping mechanism except during recess. “No books on the playground”, the teacher would say and Cassandra was left defenseless.

The taunting would start then , helpless to escape, the tears would come. As hard as she tried to escape and imagine herself into a different place she just seemed trapped in an endless battle where she was hopelessly outnumbered.

Until she crossed into a new world. When sharing her troubles with her mom, Cassie learned a new way to use her imagination. She put down the books and picked up the pen, she was going to create her own story. “Write your way out of it” her mom said. “But the key is really believing”

In her imagination she came up with a wild tale in which she was no longer Crazy Cassie, but the powerful witch Cassandra. In this world she was no longer powerless as her tears fell, in her imagination she was able to transform her emotional storm into a powerful electrical current which she could wield as a weapon and vanquished her foes.

The monsters didn’t stop coming. Cassie never quit imagining.

The routine repeated itself into adulthood, until one day she received an email. As she read she began to weep, her imagination was becoming reality. She was about to embark on her first real adventure and escape her world, an agent was ready to give her a lucrative book deal. Cassandra was coming to life.

Michael nervously checked the ramshackle locks on the door of his cheap motel. He’d lived a rough life, had committed unspeakable crimes and was typically the kind of person who broke locks rather than used them, but tonight he was the one who was scared, the tables had turned.

All of his life he’d been a hunter, stalking his prey from afar and waiting for a moment of weakness to strike. Theft was his first crime, he enjoyed the thrill of taking what he wanted and knowing others were powerless to stop him. But the thrill of his conquests was short lived, the rush he felt was soon replaced by an emptiness, perhaps it was a mirror into his own soul and Michael couldn’t handle it. Longing to fill the void he had decided to up his ante and began taking what could never be replaced, people’s lives. What he relished even more than the kill was watching the family members unravel, as the threads of their minds pulled apart he felt his own torn soul patch itself together.

For years he repeated his pattern. Stalk, Attack and Observe. Repetition honed his skills and he became an expert in his field. He had taken the lives of twelve and had no intentions of stopping. Until he got the call.

The phone in his seedy motel didn’t ring often, so he was already startled but he went into pure panic when he heard the voice on the line.

“Michael, this is Terri, you know the girl you stabbed six times and left in a ditch. How are you?”

He began to stammer uncontrollably and the caller interrupted “That’s okay, I didn’t expect a scumbag like you to remember every lady he’s been with. But I hope you’ll recognize my face when I stop by. You see I haven’t stopped thinking about you since last time, I want to do it again, except this time I’ll tie you up” and the line went blank.

Michael couldn’t think straight. He had no idea how to handle the new emotion that was bubbling up inside of him. For once the emptiness was gone, but he wasn’t experiencing the thrill of the chase, he was getting a taste of the fear he put into his prey. And he loved it.

Of course he remembered her, she had been his fourth. He remembered all of them vividly, especially the grisly details. He remembered the rush he felt as he sank his blade into her back and the days long high he was on when he finished. The crystal clear memories vividly flooded his mind and he felt his newfound fear subside as it was being replaced by another even stronger new feeling, genuine excitement.

With childlike glee Michael unlocked the door and thought to himself with a hackle, “I’ve never had round two”.

“I think it went too far this time” she sighed.

“I’m not sure if it was the screaming, throwing the plate across the kitchen or storming out of the house. Hell maybe it was all of them” she thought to herself.

While she was unsure of what the final straw had been, she did know it was time to pack up her things and get ready to leave. As she slowly climbed the stairs she experienced and all to familiar feeling, overwhelming sadness.

Of course this wasn’t the first time she’d taken things too far, relationship after relationship had ended much the same. A screaming match had killed one dream, a sharp slap across the face had stopped another. They had different causes but they all ended with the same result, a broken home. She proved time and time again that each “I’ll love you forever” promise that initially sounded so sweet would turn out to be a lie and she felt her resentment towards love grow exponentially each time.

Raw emotions poured out of her like water from a broken dam, and she couldn’t control the ensuing flood. Although she truly only wanted to be loved, the constant failures of others had forced her to grow a rough shell around a tender heart. At times she felt that the only person she would ever be able to rely on was herself.

“Maybe I am unloveable, or maybe I’m broken” She thought to herself as she shoved her few belongings into the black trash bag she was all to accustomed to using as luggage. Unable to understand why she did the things she did, she began to weep uncontrollably. Of course she knew that things she did were wrong after the fact, but she couldn’t stop the rage from running out.

The first two times she had ruined a relationship she just knew it wasn’t her fault. “They’re just awful, they lied and never cared about me” she had told herself. But this was the third time in a year this had happened, and she wasn’t so sure anymore.

While she had once thought of herself as bright, funny and full of life. She was realizing that she was dark, bitter and bleak. At that moment she made a promise to herself, “I’m never loving again, if they think I’m bad now I’ll show them”.

Focused on her new goal she drug her belongings across the floor and headed downstairs. She was ready to go on to the next home of “loving” foster parents. Ready to show them just how bad an 11 year old girl could really be.

Jack loathed his job working as the night guard of the Martindale University museum. The hours were terrible and his boss was a complete jerk. But it paid the bills, plus he was usually able to take a nap in the back.

While it may not have been exciting, after he waved goodbye to his usually irate boss, Mr. Andrews, all Jack really had to do was walk one lap around the dimly lit museum and then he could roll up in a sleeping bag behind the counter. That is except for tonight, the flashes of lighting dancing across the sky illuminated the entire lobby and the roaring thunder echoed through the halls.

“Good thing there is SO much for me to do around here” Jack muttered as he clawed out of the sleeping bag. Unable to sleep, he made his way out from behind the counter out into the hallway that led to the first room of exhibits. As he ambled down the corridor he let his mind reminisce on the stern words Mr. Andrews had spoken to him before his departure, “I know you aren’t good for much Jack, in fact I’m sure you spend most of your shift napping, but make yourself useful and lock the door to the third exhibit chamber. I don’t want those sticky fingered children ruining my research during the field trip tomorrow”.

Normally Jack would’ve locked the door in the morning, but since he couldn’t take that nap Mr. Andrews had mentioned he thought he’d stroll down to the third chamber and complete his only task.

He passed the first room which was dedicated to the colony who had established the area. Then the second which focused on local plants. As he rounded the corner to the third exhibit hall he felt a pang of fear shoot up his spine. The door was already locked, he knew it had been left open, he also knew he was the only person inside the building who belonged there.

“Who is in there?” Jack’s mind raced. Heart-pounding he slinked to the door, he pressed his body again the well worn wooden panels and peered through a crack. Immediately his blood ran cold, he began trembling and felt his stomach roll. Thru the door he saw the familiar face of Mr. Andrews, but instead of verbally abusing Jack, he was pleading for his life as a hooded man slowly raised a pistol to his head.

“The hooded man’s voice boomed out, “I don’t have time for this, hand it over”. Jack looked on in horror as the man slowly counted 3.. 2.. 1.., fire spewed from the end of the gun and Jack screamed as he saw his boss’s body crumpled on the floor, but his terror was just beginning. Realizing what he had done Jack’s hand flew to his mouth, but the damage was done. The hooded mans steely gaze met his eyes and Jack’s internal panic grew, he had but one choice. Run.