Page 10 of Architecti
I’ve always wondered how they do it.Is it because they have no certainty?Perhaps, rather than let the doubt eat away at their sanity, they stay in denial about death.What else can they do when none of them know whether the end is today, tonight or thirty years from now?
But reapers know.
Our clock is an incessant beat.A reverberation too quiet for humans.It hums through our veins like a second heart.A persistent threat, a constant reminder of the choice we made.
Ten years.
Five.
One.
A few more of the reapers I hang with appear, but each one of them has more years than me.And now I can’t think of anything worse than celebrating.Who wants to be reminded that there’s one day less remaining?
Robin, another reaper, flings an arm around my shoulder.“Happy birthday, chump,” she says, squeezing my shoulder and plonking a kiss on my cheek.
We fucked once.
Or tried.We rapidly realised we weren’t compatible in the bedroom, each as dominant as the other, and way better off as friends.
I smile and hug her back, and then she’s prancing off with a group of girls.She has six years left.I’d bet she barely feels the weight of her clock.
Reapers need each other.No one else understands the relentlessness of the job and the fact we appreciate every day in a way that normal humans don’t.
There’s something about that collective limitation that glues a group together.
“Nasty gash on your cheek,” I say to Darwin.
He nods, “The grinner’s wife wasn’t too pleased to see me.But what was I going to do?”
Ah.I get it.That’s the other thing that unites us—the hate from fellow humans.
It makes sense.We’re reaping the very souls of our people.What humanity forgets is that we will have ours taken one day, too.After all,Omnia mors aequat—death renders all equal.
He drags me towards the dance floor, and I go reluctantly.We hop over long-since abandoned graves and avoid those dug for the dead that were never used.Hardly the safest not to have filled them in before the rave.
The music cranks up a notch, and as is the way with raves—or at least the raves I attend—the clothes lessen.Bodies grind up against each other too close and too rhythmically to bejustdancing.
The hours drift by.As we pass 1 a.m., the bar is drunk half dry, people fuck openly over gravestones, on the grass, in seats, leaning against fences, and I thoroughly enjoy the view.
I soon forget that it’s my birthday until the gods drop a gift on my lap in the form of a stunning black-haired woman striding towards the bar.Her long, dark locks flow down past her shoulders.It’s straight, with the slight hint of a wave.She turns and I catch flame-red streaks framing her face.
Fuck me.
She is both the most angelic and sinful being I’ve ever laid eyes upon.
My mind heads straight for the filth, envisioning her on all fours beneath me.Those red locks wrapped around my fist.
My pussy tightens.
I throw the thought away.I should wait until I know her name before I objectify her, it’s only polite…
And yet,it ismy birthday, and I won’t get another one to treat myself.
She catches me looking at her.I smile to myself as her eyes roll down my body, very definitely checking me out.
Minx.
Her tongue glides along her lip.
