#uh...... yeah

        he’s beautiful,  with raven hair even darker than their own that sweeps at the sands in each swaying step that brings him closer.  clad with tired eyes and a firm-set stare,  they all morph together into a creature so familiar yet not.  their silence is broken after an embarrassing pause that they use selfishly to drink this stranger in.  white robes and a metal lantern. ah.

        “  who…  are  you?  ”     they already know.  ears filled with cotton,  the reaper fails to even meet their eyes:  his attention locks elsewhere,  to the spider’s silk that connects vũ to their now empty heart too weak to beat anymore.  the blood that would shape vessels and bolster muscles seeps to dye the sand where half of it has yet to be washed away.  in a smile,  their name falls like petals but curls sourly as soon as it leaves their lips.  in the reaper’s hands sits a quaint pair of scissors that only peeks from his billowing sleeves when he reaches to grab that fine gossamer.  it hisses at contact and it’s only when they extend to cradle it between the blades that vũ snaps alive.  unknowing as they may be,  their mind races in a panic.  a trigger innate and pre-programmed.     “  that’s… wrong.  you shouldn’t touch that,  it  hurts.  ”

        he carries a razor sharp focus that betrays the grogginess of his motions,  still deaf to vũ's protests when he closes the gap to snip the chord.  their shoulders slump in relief when it's strongly intact but it does little to quell the electrical shock sent in warning.  don't try,  it's dangerous.  yet again, the scissors clip but it comes impatiently this time with a frustrated sigh to signal the start of a furious series of cuts.  looking closer,  vũ can see their soul fraying right where each quick slash breaks through.  delicate and frail,  each dandelion seed's hair breaks away faster now.

        no appeal is sufficient.  

        they try begging,  the last card left in this pathetic little arsenal.  on their knees beside their own body,  they wrap as much of the thread as they can into their small,  shaking fists so desperate to latch and protect.  it’s one promise.  guaranteed at birth and fulfilled in death,  their mother used to say that they would meet again,  would kiss it into their cheek and knead it into their hands every time they parted.  even if they got lost along the way,  she would find them.  but if his journey never starts,  how will she ever dream of trying?  words bubble in panic,  hand and voice trembling alike.

        “  please.  please,  you have to take me there.  you have to take me to the gates or i’ll never find it on my own.  i have someone waiting for me there,  please.  ”

                                           “  i have to do this.  it’s nothing personal,  i promise.  ”

        their heart dies.  the first true stop felt like a slow trickle down an hourglass,  slowly taking form into the shaky,  blundering soul that they occupy now.  it was lucky,  they suppose,  to have died so gradually.  but this second…  oh this second…  something between them shatters and they can feel it in their fingertips.  like the ground fracturing to swallow them whole,  it’s the steady rise before a pitfall drop below.  they feel heavy now.  The place where they had been chained to their body is severed by a beautiful pair of jade scissors held in the hands of the reaper who now looks at them with a chilling emptiness in his eyes.  still watching them,  countenance unchanging,  a cage at his side shakes to life.  even in a choking breath, they cast a net of appeals,  begging all the same.  

        “  why are you doing this?  you  can’t,  you can’t  rob  this from me─  it’s all i have left!  ”

                                      “  i’m sorry.  i hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.  ”

        it happens in a blur.  when he pulls the soul from his cage,  she springs to life and begs him for forgiveness,  makes impossible promises that the princes wouldn’t dare imagine,  tugs on his robes until she falls to her elbows and sobs.  Still unspoken,  he yanks at her broken chain and ties it with the limp end still at their body’s heart.  when her woes turn elated,  she crowds up to him in a hug and vũ hears her whimper:     ‘ thank you,  phòng,  thank you,  i promise to repay you when i see you again in my next life. ’

        she doesn’t acknowledge them,  too blindsided by her own childish joy to mind the dreadful little creature on its hands and knees staring at the two.  the reaper spares them one last  goodbye  before sweeping her away to what they can only assume is the judgement hall.

        no body for memorial and a mortal soul stolen at the hands of someone meant to save.  They’ve lost their ticket into the gates of hell,  swiped from the magnetic map to the kings themselves that manifests when the two souls join together in a reaper’s hands.  tears track the broken lines between their fist and it’s so cold,  the fat droplets that fill each crack.  the moon cries for them,  covers its face in shame with a thick curtain of clouds until its light is filtered and clogged.  left alone and more barren than before,  they freeze in silence.  somehow it’s even emptier,  how the rain that would beat down on their face in a gunfire now passes right through their hands.