Another Part of Life

     There was something familiar about this person, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Maybe they had seen each other in passing once or twice. It was hard to judge. So many people had come in and our of her life, especially since she always moved around so much.

          “Someone…close to me?”

     She spoke gently, trying to think of who it could be. A significant number of people she had been close to were dead. Was there someone else?

     Oh, where were her manners? She hadn’t even confirmed she was the right person.

          “Sorry, yes, I am Quinn.                I sometimes get ahead of myself.”

   They bow their head before resting a hand on the scythe they carried, cold fingers loosely holding onto the weapon. Once Quinn had confirmed to them they were indeed who they had been searching for, a seafoam spirit flew quickly over to her side and circled her rapidly, almost seeming happy to see her.

     Kyle followed closely after, not wanting to get lost. It was such a big place! On the outside, it didn’t look this big. It must have been the perspective or something. He’d been in places like that before, so he didn’t really worry about it. Stuff like that existed elsewhere. Why not here?

     He wasn’t surprised to see other people, but he was surprised that there was even a place for kids to play. Not everyone considered the entertainment or comfort of children in their establishments.

     He looked up at the very tall librarian and answered them.

          “Well, I like adventures and stuff. Nothing scary, though.”

     Kyle explained as he held onto the straps of his backpack. Believe it or not, he liked reading, and his parents encouraged it because they assumed it was a testament to how smart he was. A silly reason, but Kyle didn’t mind as long as he got to pick up more books. Maybe his friends thought they were lame, but not all of them were bad. It was just they had an interesting experience with some weirdo who preached books.

          “Scary stories make it hard for me to sleep.”

       "Ah, alright, I think I might have something for you..."

   Turning to a bookcase, fingers quickly scanned the many books to find exactly what they had been looking for. Sometimes it was hard to find things, sometimes things came as second nature to them-- it would just depend. For this, it was a bit harder as children made a habit of putting things in the wrong slots, but that was alright, they did not know better, and it gave Thein something to do while watching after them.

   As fingers scanned each section, it stopped before softly counting. 10... 9... 8......... 5...4... 3... 2... Ah-- there it was. Pulling out a book, he blew lightly on the cover before handing it over to the small boy. On the cover was a boy riding on a large dinosaur seemingly flying over the Jurassic Period of time. Looking at the title it read--- 'Magic Treehouse: Dinosaurs before Dark'.

“ Oh! “ Her eyes grew wide at that. They were death. Perhaps an extension of death, since the one she knew didn’t appear like this - didn’t appear human - but then again, maybe she didn’t understand. Ari quickly fell to her knees, bowing her head down.

“ Is a pleasure, Death. “

       "O-Oh... there is no need for you to bow... I am... not anyone special... a Grim Reaper, if you will... my Gods created me to be able to keep the balance of Life and Death. To talk and sooth spirits... if you can understand what I mean? It can be quite difficult to understand for some..."