Time is precious. I know how important that saying is as the bringer of death. You never know when you will be robbed of it. However, that saying has not stopped me from lingering near the hospital room of a certain young woman.

I call it a malfunction, humans would call it love. Or maybe infatuation. I am incapable of loving, after all.

Strangely, I keep on finding myself watching her when I am not torturing humans with the news of their death. She simply… intrigues me, one could say.

I know me lingering near the little human harms her- but I cannot help myself. She is too tempting to resist and laying my eyes upon her is the closest I can get to her.

She definitely sees me. She knows death lingers close to her but I wonder if she knows why. Maybe she thinks she is deserving of something so unpleasant as death but I do not know, for I can only bring death, not read minds.

I often try getting close to her but it does nor go my way- well- maybe it does considering when I am close to her, she is closer to her death.

So I linger at the door, my scythe in hand and my hood upon my head, watching her.

She is beautiful, I let myself admit. Fiery red hair, eyes green as a meadow in springtime but just devoid of life. Even when she looks so dull, she does not fail to mesmerize me. She truly is beautiful- and I truly should not have picked eighteen to be the age I set into.

I forgot how hormone-driven one can be at eighteen and it does not seem to dull down even when I’ve been on Earth for millennials.

“Are you the grim reaper?” She asks me one day, finally bold enough acknowledge me.

I, however, am not bold enough to reply.

“Do grim reapers not speak?” She asks another day, her eyes burning with curiosity.

Still, I did not respond, only disappeared.

“Are you here to kill me today?” She asks one Friday.

Now, I have gathered the courage to speak.

“No.” I say, my voice a deep, hollow rumble. It lacks any liveliness, any joy. Much unlike the woman in front of me, who puts on her best smile despite the fact that death lingers closer to her.

“Why don’t you? Shouldn’t you be doing your job?” She raises her eyebrows, looking at me piercingly despite her vulnerable position of almost-laying down on a hospital bed.

“I do do my job. Visiting you is just what I do on my time off.”