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But Nervous lowered the weapon.

“I can’t do it,” he reasserted, incessantly scratching at an itch deep within his arms that he could never seem to reach, an itch that felt like it sat just beneath his olive-colored veins, an itch that grew more maddening with every passing second. “I just can’t.”

The man opened his bleary eyes and smiled, desperately clinging to hope. “Does that mean I get to live?!”

“No.” Grim stole the scythe out of Nervous’s hands and swung it down hard, cutting through the man’s torso. The wound began to smoke, and before he could beg for his life any further, the man evaporated, leaving only the echoes of his screams behind. “Perhaps you will need more training than I anticipated.”

Nervous snapped out of his trance-like state and shouted, “Huh?!”

In his hands appeared a long scythe carved from dark wood. At its end, there was a freshly-sharpened blade. Horrified, Nervous dropped the weapon, and though he heard its clang as the steel met the pool’s concrete decking, it was immediately back in his grasp. He tried to throw it across the yard, but to no avail—he was holding it once again.

“Enough! You will reap his soul. Go on,” Grim said, turning his open palm toward the quivering blond man in front of them.

“But I can’t do—”

“You must.”

“I don’t want—”

“It does not matter what you want. This is what I created you for.”

Shaking his head, Nervous said, “I don’t know how.”

“Yes,” Grim insisted, a smile hidden in his voice, “you do.”

Nervous locked eyes with the frightened man. He thought that he should say something to him, but what could he say? I’m sorry? His words wouldn’t bring him back from the dead. They wouldn’t change that he was leaving his struggling family behind. They wouldn’t do a thing. So instead he just said nothing.

Nervous slowly raised the scythe above his head, still getting used to the weight of the thing. The man recoiled, shutting his simoleon-green eyes tightly, and braced himself for impact.

Grim turned and gave a small nod. “Yes.”

“Am I…”

“Dead?” Grim said, cutting the man off. “Yes.”

“What happened to me?”

“Is it not obvious? Drowning, I suspect.” The reaper grabbed the book that was kept chained to the belt of his cloak, and he flipped to one of its gray pages just to be sure. He let out a low hum as if he’d read something he hadn’t expected. “Fascinating. It seems your pool ladder simply…” He trailed off as he looked right at you. “…vanished.”

The man appeared distraught as he explained, “But I can’t die. I have two sons, and…and we don’t have much. I finally started goin’ to AA. My wife, she needs me.”

“I’m afraid it does not matter. Your timeline has been sealed. This limbo you find yourself in now—time does not exist here. Your death has both not happened yet and happened years ago. Your family will mourn you and has already mourned you.”

“My oldest is the only one home,” the man went on, paying no attention to Grim’s nonsensical explanation. “Dusty can’t find me like this.”

“It is inevitable.”

The man was about to argue or scream or cry, but he simply sighed, apparently defeated, and asked, “So what happens to me now? Is it really over for me?”

“Now you will cross over. My son will assist you.”

With his withered fingers, the creature gestured toward the ground, and Nervous’s eyes followed. At their feet, there was a deceptively clear-blue pool…and near the bottom of the pool, there lay a corpse. Nervous screamed at the sight; it was a man, no older than thirty-five, and his body had begun to bloat and discolor as it soaked up the chlorinated water around it.

“He’s…disgusting.” Nervous retched involuntarily and smacked his palms over his mouth, muffling his speech. “Why are you showing this to me?! Who the hell are you?!”

“You can call me Grim, if you must call me anything,” the wretched thing answered. “I am a reaper of souls. And this soul must be reaped.”

Then, from behind them, a shaky voice asked, “Is that…me?”

When Nervous finally gained back the ability to open his eyes, he was relieved to find that he was no longer stuck in that terrifying black void.

But then he realized that he didn’t recognize the cluttered trailer he was standing in now either. A young boy sat alone nearby, watching cartoons on a blindingly bright television screen, seemingly unaware of Nervous’s presence.

“Son,” the booming voice Nervous had heard before called out. The cloaked creature approached him and ghosted a bony hand over the small of his back, gently guiding him outside. Nervous took one last look over his shoulder and found that the boy seemed to be staring directly at him. Could he…see him? Nervous would never find out—he’d already been led to the backyard. “It is time for you to learn your true purpose.”

Emily went on, “This particular ghost—your cousin—has been quite difficult for me. Some spirits are stuck in a loop, replaying their final moments over and over again like an echo of the past. It is usually those who have suffered especially traumatic deaths, I’m afraid. I wanted to help him find peace and cross over, but he just can’t seem to find his way back to us, and I’m unsure why.”

“I can’t believe this place is haunted, too,” Ophelia mumbled to Ripp. He attempted a sympathetic look in the hopes that he wouldn’t reveal to her just how freaked out he was by all of this. Why did Ophelia seem unfazed?

“I’m truly sorry,” Emily repeated. “You should not have had to see him like that. I should have just been honest with you from the beginning, but I was afraid. I was afraid that…you would get spooked and leave like the owners before you. I really like you, Miss Ophelia, and I just can’t stand being in this place all alone.”

“Why don’t you go somewhere else?” Ripp asked her.

Emily was silent.

Ripp scoffed, his mouth still open from shock, and then yelled, “Hey, Emily, I think you owe us an explanation here!”

“I’m so sorry! I’m so very sorry! I tried to get you out of here before you saw him!” Emily squealed, her shaking fingers woven together near her apron.

“I think,” Ophelia whispered, blinking at the now empty space in front of her, “that was my cousin.”

Emily fell silent and studied Ophelia’s face for a moment before finally speaking up. “I was unaware that he had surviving family members. It has been incredibly hard to break through to him.”

“Okay,” Ripp grumbled, placing a hand on his forehead out of frustration, “WHAT are we talking about right now? Ghosts? Are we talking about ghosts?!”

“Unfortunately, yes. Ghosts,” Emily replied. Her seemingly permanent frown had somehow deepened. “I…have a sort of sixth sense, so to speak. There is some kind of energy in this estate that pulls spirits to it like a magnet. I try my best to communicate with them, but sometimes—”

“There are more than one?” asked Ophelia.

“I…well…”

Ophelia sighed, predicting her answer. “Please just be honest with me, Emily.”

“Yes, Miss Ophelia. There are others,” Emily responded, anxiously fiddling with the lace of her skirt.