The first thing I noticed about death was the queue.
It stretched endlessly into fog, filled with people muttering, sighing, checking invisible watches despite not having bodies anymore. No one seemed surprised by it. A few even looked… resigned.
Because this, as I would soon learn, was part of the process.
A tradition, in a way.
Before anything else, before whatever came after, every soul had to pass through a single, unavoidable step: complaints.
At the very front of the line stood him. The Reaper.
Tall. Cloaked. Skeletal. Exactly like the stories. In front of him sat a plain wooden desk, worn like it had been there longer than anything else in existence. On it rested a thick ledger, its pages endless.
He slammed a bone-white hand onto it.
“Next!”
A man floated forward. “Yeah, uh, I think there’s been a mistake. I was supposed to die at 87, not 27.”
The Reaper pinched the bridge of his skull.
“We’ve been over this. You stepped on a rake.”
“It was dark!”
“IT WAS YOUR OWN GARDEN.”
A few people in line shifted.
The man opened his mouth, then closed it again.
The Reaper scribbled something angrily into a ledger labeled COMPLAINTS (UNENDING).
“Next!”
A woman drifted forward, arms folded. “I demand a re-death. That wasn’t cinematic at all.”
The Reaper froze. “A… re-death?”
“Yes. Something dramatic.”
“You slipped on soap.”
“That’s not iconic.”
The Reaper stared into the void for a long, long moment. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled. The woman waited, expectant.
The Reaper did not move. “…Next.”
She drifted away, unsatisfied.
The line crept forward.
“Next.”
A teenager floated up, hands in his pockets, looking far too comfortable. “Yo, quick question: are there like… side quests here?”
For the first time, the Reaper didn’t immediately respond.
Then—
He slammed the book shut.
“That’s it.”
The sound echoed far into the fog.
He stood up slowly, cloak rippling like a storm gathering itself.
“I harvest souls across eternity. I embody the end of existence. I am the inevitable silence beyond time—”
He paused. “and today...”
The teenager raised a hand slightly. “So… is that a yes on side quests?”
The Reaper stared at him. Then, very slowly, he reached for the scythe resting beside the desk. The line went quiet. The teenager lowered his hand.
The Reaper sat back down.
Opened the ledger.
“Next.”
This story is inspired by this prompt.
