Chapter 28 : Nightmares

Monster! Unloved! Freak! Jinx! Merciless! Waste of space! Weak! Powerless!... YOU KILLED US!

Again and again, the voices of the souls that had once been reaped by Snow echoed in the enclosed hall. Every words were different from the last but they were just as insulting, causing whoever listened to be distressed. Different voices, endlessly driving guilt into Snow as she knelt in the middle of the hall.

The Snow that was on her knees there had cuts and weapons stabbed all over her torso, arms, legs and her head. Not an inch of her was not covered in warm, sticky blood. Her blood. She could taste the iron in her mouth as her blood continued gushing out from inside her endlessly. Her wrists, ankles and neck was bounded by shackles and chains that was connected to the floor. Her bindings glowed a dark purple aura. If she tried to pull on them, it would glow black and she would feel the searing pain of her flesh getting scorched, smell the burnt smell of her skin. She was wearing a tattered, knee length and strapped white dress. Her hair was messy beyond maintain. Her eyes looked dead, as if she was but an empty shell. As if no soul resided there anymore.

Currently, she knelt painfully on her knees and had her hands on her bowed head as she listened to the repetitive insults she would hear everytime she drifted to the land of unconsciousness. A land where everyone could enjoy pleasant dreams with occasional nightmares to escape from the real world. A safe haven created by the mind to ease its master. That was however not the case for Snow. The land of unconsciousness was hell to her. Nightmares lingered in every corner of her mind, watching her become more and more broken by the days. It had been happening ever since she took her first soul as a reapress.

The nightmares started off small. A sense of fault. A glimpse of their loved ones mourning over their hollow shell lying in a coffin. An accusing look from her victims, staring into her eyes and asking her the question she herself wanted to know the answer to - Why me? Snow hated every details of it. It had always overwhelmed her and she would trash violently in her sleep and woke up in cold sweat as the room around her was but a remnant of the carnage she brought. She had to force herself to sleep in an underground dungeon at one point to ensure she would not harm the people around her during her unpleasant slumbers. But she eventually learnt to control it.

As the days went by, the nightmares became more horrendous. With an increase in the number of her victims, the amount of depressing visions hit her multiple at once. She could see so many sorrow that she had caused. A little girl still holding her little dolly as she cried and tried to wake her mother up. A mother holding onto her son's detached head as she jumped off the roof of a thirty storey building in hopes to see her child again in the afterlife. A soul trying desperately to get her family to realise she was there. It was all her fault, but she did not want any of this.

The worst one yet was when she collected the soul of a loving wife who had lost her husband years ago and mother of a lovely young girl. She was deemed dead for no apparent reasons. There was no history of health problems at all. No horrible sins either. She was just supposed to join the dead because that was her important role in the universe. Her role as the mother to a Keeper. That was the fate of the Keepers. None would have their guardians around for long, 18 years was the maximum. It was to help them be independent and grow up responsible, but at what cost.

As Snow relived the tragedy of collecting those poor souls, she slowly put her hands down and slightly brought her head up to look around the room. The room was packed with previous souls reaped by her. Most of them had minimised in size and some was unseen, but despite that their voices roared as loud as thunders. Snow's eyes scanned around the room until she saw the things she had expected. But still, she could not help but widen her eyes as she looked at the darkling she had killed that day.

The group of darkling souls seemed to be fused together as one. They stretched out their translucent arms towards Snow as if trying to grasp onto something alive, to feel life again. They kept murmuring pleas for their souls to be returned to the land of the living.

"Please... I don't want to die yet..." one voice said.

"Why... Is it really my time... Already?..." another echoed.

"*sniffs*... Why did you kill me?..." one cried.

"Father... Mother... Help me..." one more.

"You monster... Heartless... Foul... Beast..." another.

"You should... Be the one... Who... Dies..." and another.

"What did we ever do to you?... We were just trying to survive like everyone else..." more.

"Is this karma for our faults?..." Snow lost count.

".... Why?..."

That word. That one, single word. It finally made Snow broke into tears. Why? She did not have the answer. She wished she knew but she did not. It was all part of the Gods' plans to give each life a certain period of time to live before taking them back to the land of the dead, erase their memories of the past, force them to reincarnate and suffer the same fate again. Since the beginning of time, this had been happening. Everyone were once dinosaurs, parasites, dodos and other extinct creatures. We were all of that once, and now we exist as human, where in the next life we may be animals or humans again, or maybe a demon. It was all planned by the higher ups, not by mortals.

Although the darklings' death were not detered to be on that day, but somewhere, hidden in a corner of the Book Of Death, their deaths were given then. The life of a person could be altered according to what they choose to do in life. Why else do you think teenagers' souls were much more common now? No Gods would destine so many souls to die so young in such a short period of time.

Snow stared at the souls tearfully as she had to explain to them why, like she did every single bloody night. She knew that they would forget about the pain she had caused and move on, that they would not even hear what she had to say, but she did it to ease her guilt.

"... I-I do not know w-why... I too a-am just doing the j-jobs given to me by... *sniffs*... The h-high-higher ups... T-they wish for you to die and I-I shall a-answer the c-calls... T-the calls o-o-of... Death... F-forgive me, f-fe-fellow mortals..."

The room quieted a little as if they had understood what Snow said and had forgiven her. However, Snow knew herself much better than anyone else. She immediately covered her ears, shut her eyes and bit hard on her teeth as she braced for what was to come.

Twelve. Eleven. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two.

As Snow was about to count to one, a loud boom was heard and she opened her peepers for light to flow into them. She jolted awake and was gasping for air as she looked around her to confirm she was still in the hotel room in the Witch Cavern.

Just another nightmare. Snow said to herself. She sighed with relief and eased a little as she got up and walked towards the door where someone was knocking. She glanced at the clock on the wall of the room to see that it was only 6 o'clock. She opened the door and saw Lyte and Lisa standing outside all dressed up.

Lyte was wearing the same outfit as before. Lisa on the other hand was changed out of the lingerie, thankfully. She was wearing a strapped pastel purple dress which reached her thighs and had a low collar cut, showing a lot of her cleavage. She had on a pair of black fingerless gloves that covered her arm until it reaches a little below the elbows. She wore a pair of black thigh high socks with purple heels. Her royal blue amulet hung around her neck complemented by the baby blue pearl earrings she was wearing. Her makeup was so thick Snow could see them falling off her face as she moved any of her facial muscles, but it was not as bad as Madam Big Bosom's makeup game.

"What brings you two? I thought we were going to grab dinner at 7?"

"Oh, we just thought we should hang out a little before dinner. We have some explaining to do. Plus, Lisa had a question she wanted to ask you,"

"Alright, come inside,"

Snow invited the two inside her room and locked the door after they entered. They all sat down and Lyte began his explanation.