Pricked

All my life I've known I wasn't the same as everyone else.

While the other children were running about, playing on the jungle gym and minding their own, I watched my dead third-grade teacher stand silent near the swing set. Her pale, bloody corpse distorted in the noon-day sun, a mangled muffler twisted around her thin neck as her shallow, blank stare pierced my innocence.

She wasn't the first dead person I'd seen. I watch people die on a nightly basis. It's my thing; watching the life drain from their earthly body. And every night, a strange, mysterious cloaked figure remained by their side.

The being was an ethereal constant, lurking in the shadows and comforting the souls as they crossed over spewing energy filled with rot unimaginable for any human to bare. A modern-day Grim Reaper.

I feared him, waiting for the moment he grew bored of my intrusion and made me his next victim.

Turns out the big lug just wanted to ask me on a date.

His name was King; fitting since he ruled over my nightmares. He claims to have been in love with me for centuries and after stumbling into my small Michigan town, he's hell-bent on convincing me to accompany him on an adventure of a lifetime.

Over the course of a summer, King and his two companions grow on me. They tell stories about my past and who I used to be long ago. About the lazy summers we spent in the hills of the warring Scottish Highlands, or when we released the deadliest plague on all of Western Europe. They once called me Atropos: The Fate of Death. My name might have changed, but the job certainly hasn't.

I control the reaper. In this world, I decide who lives and who dies. A target is painted on my back for those who wish to manipulate my newfound powers. Just like the maniac stalking me, begging me to join his side and become the most feared being in the entire universe. Chaos will stop at nothing to win me over. To make me believe that ruling as a villain is more satisfying than surviving as a hero.

The only problem is, I'm starting to believe him.