The Cost of Mercy

My job is simple, but it is not easy.

I breathe into the moment of stillness, watching over the city I’ve worked in since forever. The fireworks make a beautiful sight from the hospital rooftop, their colorful stars bursting and then dying out with a sizzling finish. New Year’s Eve—my favorite day of the year. It’s the world’s birthday, and the world celebrates. I enjoy the peace of New Year because I know the following months will flood me with work. And I’ve never backed down in my job.

The moment is over, and I am needed in ICU. Room number 319.

It’s an elderly lady who’s been fighting pneumonia for week. Tubes cover her face, attached to a mechanical ventilator beside her bed. At least she’s alone in the room—I hate it when doctors are present. They always blame themselves.

My steps are quieter than the whooshing sound of the ventilator, and the lady—Elizabeth—notices my presence when I am close to her bedside. I always know the name. I don’t even have to read the chart.

“Good evening,” I say in my usual warm, leveled tone.

She removes the mask from her face, silence replacing the whooshing noise of the ventilator machine. Her crystal blue eyes aren’t particularly expressive, but I can sense her reluctance. I’m already ready to answer the usual array of questions people ask me, but she asks a question no one’s ever asked before, and it leaves me astounded.

“What’s your name, darling?”

I swallow my shock away, hoping she didn’t catch it. “My name is Zara.” I almost feel like a lie, since I haven’t said it in such a long time.

Elizabeth narrows her eyes, analyzing me up and down with a slight smirk. I’ve never met someone who was so interested in me. “You know, I expected a skeleton with a black hood, not a pretty lady like yourself. Do you carry a scythe?”

I exhale a breath of laughter, wondering if laughing was appropriate for my job. “You… you know what I’m here for?”

“Of course I do, Zara. I was a doctor in my day.” She lifts her chin proudly. “When a patient died on my table—which rarely ever happened—I always knew the moment they would die, and it wasn’t when the line went flat. A reaper’s presence isn’t something you forget.”

My presence felt among humans can’t be pleasant, and the feeling is mutual. When a soul is to be reaped, their loved ones always cry or scream or beg, and it’s disruptive. No living being is ready to die, but their souls always know when it’s time. They’re always curious, confused, and they shower me with questions. But they are never angry, sad or wishing to stay.

I’m just a mediator, guiding them to peace.

A fireworks display explodes outside, causing my lips to curl into a smile. New Year is officially here, and I’m happy Elizabeth has lived long enough to see it.

I gently place the palm of my hand on her chest, directly above the heart. The soul energy that courses through her physical form envelops my hand, traveling through my arm, all the way throughout my body. The powerful sensation makes me close my eyes as a small twitch of happiness finds me for a moment—normally I cannot feel the entire range of human emotions. I come across a soul from time to time that awakens a feeling in me, though. Elizabeth was funny, selfless, juvenile but also responsible. She’s lived a good life.

I wish I could tell her, “I’m sorry” that I have absolutely no idea where I’m taking her. That I have no control over it whatsoever.

The job is over, and I’m back on the rooftop, where it’s most comfortable. I’m met with the wintry air that pierces my skin, and I shiver as if I know what cold feels like. I can’t let go of that word, Zara. How do I know it’s my name? I just know it. Having a name means that I am someone, but that’s impossible because I am no one. I exist as a lingering trace in the small corridor between life and death, and I only have one rule to follow—never back down on my job.

Moment’s over—I am called again. Reapers don’t have time to think about who they are. Death doesn’t wait, and it doesn’t ask for permission.

—

The next soul to reap is eight years old.

There was a car accident on Alma Street, and young Olivia had flown through the windshield. An ambulance is wailing beside the wrecked car, a steadfast paramedic fighting a losing battle on his knees beside Olivia. I hate this—too many people around. Their hysterical energy is growing stronger around with my each step.

Olivia’s brown, neat curls are bouncing with each chest compression, her face white as a sheet. I think even the paramedic knows it’s hopeless, but he doesn’t dare stop, not when her mother is present.

“Hi, honey,” I greet Olivia in a soft but firm voice. I am kneeling beside her, opposite the paramedic. We’re both here for her but trying to do different things.

Along the shards of glass, I notice a small, pink card forgotten on the wet pavement. It’s an invitation to a birthday party, and Olivia is already an hour late.

She’s slightly hesitant to open her eyes, but she does so eventually. When souls awake from their physical bodies, it’s only visible in my in-between world.

“Mom?” is what she mutters at first. I turn around to see the woman in question, and we share some resemblances—both young, and blonde.

“Sorry, no. I’m just here to help you through.” I know she understands what that means. There’s no difference between reaping an eight-year-old and an eighty-year-old. When it’s time, it’s time, and they know it.

Olivia timidly looks around, to say goodbye to the world she’s leaving behind. Her eyes pause on the birthday invitation.

I hover my hand over her chest, and her soul pulsates underneath my touch. It’s full of anticipation and freedom, as children usually are.

“But… Kathy is waiting for me!”

I retract my hand.

An anger foreign, but strong, flares in me for a moment. Olivia was about to attend her best friend’s birthday party, but some drunken idiot found himself on the road at the same time and ruined her fate.

It’s not comfortable putting the work on hold, but this child deserves another moment.

“Kathy will understand.”

Kathy definitely won’t understand that her best friend is gone forever. Who could possibly understand that? If I placed my palm over her heart, I only felt like I would just kill her again.

I eye the paramedic. Why wouldn’t his rib-crushing compressions overpower my performance? My hesitation creates a moment so heavy it weighs on me like a ton of invisible bricks.

“I don’t think you’ll make it to your friend’s party.” I stand up, pulling away from Olivia. “But she will make it to yours. June, isn’t it?”

Olivia gratefully nods at my act of mercy. The excitement and playfulness that build her soul slowly slip back into her physical form. Now I know what it feels like to give instead of take. This must’ve been what Elizabeth felt like when she saved patients.

The second week of February, heavy plummeting rain replaces the dainty snowflakes. I don’t feel as drained as I do most winters, though. It’s strange how mercy gives me energy. More souls I spare, more emotion becomes accessible to me.

I’m wandering through the streets when my job calls me, even though I haven’t exactly been the employee of the month.

It’s a soul in an ambulance vehicle that needs my help—a woman named Kristen, thirty years of age. I’m not happy with the situation—it’s noisy with the paramedics and her sobbing husband. Her aneurysm decided to burst in the middle of their dinner date. I remember—it’s Valentine’s Day.

A strange thought knocks at the back of my mind. What if I want to fall in love and go on a date sometime? I shake it off. Kristen has my full attention.

“I’m Zara, Kristen. I’m here for you.”

“Can you let my husband know that I’m okay?”

“You can tell him yourself.”

I found her soul too beautiful to pass through. And no one should die on the day dedicated to love, not while I’m in control. I’m not a nobody anymore—I make the rules now.

When Kristen is stable in her physical body and her husband’s face relaxes with hope, the hospital pulls me in strongly for another job.

The maternity ward. It’s too quiet, eerie almost. Normally, it’s filled with loud baby cries and nurses barking orders. I feel reluctant to stay there, like a coward in the face of death. Like a human. Is that so bad?

It’s a birth in process and I’m rather unsure of who I am reaping. I usually just know, but this time I’m confused. I observe the mother to see if her soul was calling me. She is in agony, but she doesn’t seem close to death. The husband is gripping her hand, face blank. I hear the doctor yelling, “Push! Just a little longer!”

Am I here to reap a newborn child? Chills crawl up my spine.

I’ve reaped newborns, but I’ve never felt such restraint. In fact, I feel pain. I’m more aware of my body, the bones in my flesh and the organs sitting in my middle.

I was right. The baby is born, sitting in the doctor’s brawny arms, and its cry doesn’t echo through the maternity ward. It’s blue, still, dead. And the strangest part is, I don’t feel its soul. What’s there to reap if there is no soul?

The pain in my chest intensifies, and I have a powerful urge to cough. I just want this job to be over. Just to send the child where it should go.

The mother is screaming in pain—not the pain of childbirth—the pain of loss.

“You stole my life,” someone’s voice echoes in my head.

It’s an innocent entity, a child. Is it the newborn? I don't know if he is here or just in my head, because the pain keeps my eyes shut.

I’m on my knees, feverishly coughing up blood. My head feels like someone is cutting through it with a chainsaw. It’s Elizabeth’s pneumonia, Olivia’s chest compressions and Kristen’s aneurysm, all at once.

Now several voices are screaming in my head, every word growing louder. “You think you have mercy? We don’t have souls because you kept them away from us! You broke the natural balance!”

I thought mercy made me someone, someone god-like—but it only made me cruel. I denied life to the souls that should’ve lived it, because I spared those whose lives should’ve ended.

“This is all my fault,” I whisper.

I never let the tormented scream escape my throat, not when there is no one to hear me. No one to reap me.