1.29 — So, Not A Death Pill

“That pill,” she pointed at the small drug gripped within my palms, “is basically meant to give you strength.”

…like steroids? Is she doping me? “Why would I need strength?”

“Well, that ties into why we came here, specifically,” she said, looking up in the sky. Was she searching for something? I looked up too and tried to spot something unusual but couldn’t find whatever she was searching for. “We’re here for a rescue mission.”

“A rescue mission?” I asked.

“Yes, a rescue mission. Does the word mean something else in your language?”

“No, no, I get what the word means. What I don’t get is why I am here for that?”

“…Because I asked you to?” She said as if that was the most obvious thing in the world. Like I should be ashamed to not know that.

I swear, I haven’t been with her long enough but for all the short moments I have had with her, I’ve felt myself becoming dumber and dumber.

And also more irritated. And angry.

In her defence, my default state most of the time was just being irritated and angry.

But even then, at the end of her every sentence, every word—I just feel like throwing something at her. And considering where we were, I had a lot of options. Lots and lots of options.

Sure, she was dead too, technically but she was also a Grimmer so who knows, maybe things work differently for them.

I tried looking for my stress rock anyways, just in case.

Wait a minute...violent thoughts on kids, violent thoughts for ghosts, violent thoughts about a girl who I barely know anything about

…am I the dreaded bad boy of romance novels? I don’t even own a leather jacket though. Nor do I know how to ride a bike.

Unless you considered my bicycle as a bike. In which case, I guess I’m a bad guy, lite version.

“Okay, look here Barbie monk, I don’t know what goes on in that weird grim reaper head of yours but let me tell you again—I, that is me, am not going to become a grim reaper,” I said loudly and slowly as if speaking to a little child.

And it honestly did feel like I was speaking to a child based on the blank face she had right now.

“Okay, sure.” She had a real talent for ignoring what people said to her. Almost fascinating in a way. Wish I had that skill too. Probably wouldn’t have been in this situation if that were true.

“What do you know about this place?” She asked looking at the half-finished building in front of us.

That…seemed like a weird tangent. Guess there’s no point in having any sort of argument with this woman.

With a sigh, I answered her in a bored tone, since I really was at this point, “Not much. There was this old building here. They broke it down and now they’re trying to build a new one.”

“Wow. That’s the most boring and unenthusiastic answer I’ve heard.”

“Well, that’s because that’s what I am. Plus it’s a boring tale of construction. Hardly the appropriate material for an epic story.”

“Doesn’t excuse you from giving it some flair of story-telling, you know? Don’t blame the tale, blame the storyteller.”

“What do you want me to say? That there was a murder here involving gangsters and mafia and some drug deal? Sorry to disappoint you, nothing of that sort happens in this town.” I think. It’s not like I know everything that happens in the town.

Plus neither my Uncle nor is Idris’ mom—yeah, she’s a police officer too—big on sharing the details of their cases.

“See? You had good ideas. You’re just lazy to speak too much.”

“…So, you wanted me to lie to you?”

“I don’t know. Is it a lie if I don’t know if it’s a lie?”

“…Yes. Yes, it is. Do you really not know what a lie is?”

I take back what I said. I’m not the dumber one.

She is.

And somehow, that makes me feel better.

And a bit worried.

Are these really the people saving souls from those monsters? The last line of defence for the souls from becoming food for some Rakshas?

“Eh, let’s agree to disagree,” she swished her hand in the air, dismissing the legitimacy of the discussion.

“Okay. Great. Glad to know we’re now on the same page. Been an exciting time getting to know you. A day of great revelations, I say. Now, if we’re done with the field trip, let’s go back. I’d hate to not do my homework consecutively for 2 weeks.”

That was a lie. I haven’t been doing it for 3 weeks but 2 seems like a less pathetic number.

“Yes. Let’s go. After just one little teenie-weenie question. You know something else too, right? About this place, that is...” She asked, looking up at the unfinished building of open walls and cement pillars. Lots of examples of unfinished work. Stones, red bricks and dust were scattered all over the place.

The site was devoid of any workers too. The construction had been on hold for about…a month, probably. Maybe more. I don’t remember.

Not sure why. And I don’t intend to know why.

Projects like these always get delayed in this town for unknown reasons.

But that wasn’t why she stared at the empty half-finished building.

“...Why? What about it?”

That being said, while the site was entirely empty of any breathing life except us and possibly a few rodents—it did have two more souls standing in the vicinity. Two dead souls, that is.

She stared at the ghosts who were standing on the top of the building. A pair of mother and her son.

The mother wore a white saree with her eyes clear and unresponsive as though she were blind. And the boy wore nothing but white shorts.

They both looked sick, pale and thin.

As if there was no semblance of meat between the bones and their skin. Even their eyes were dark and sunken in.

One thing I had noticed over the years is that the appearance of the ghosts always resembled what they looked like in their final moments.

Any injury, any scar, any disabilities—they also showed up even as ghosts.

So if this is how the mother and son had looked before death, one could say they were already living as ghosts. The living dead.

“Hmmm,” Reizumi looked at me, assessing me to see if I really could see them, “guess you being able to see the dead wasn’t a lie, huh.”

“Yes, well, I don’t lie,” I, ofcourse, lied.

Oh, get off your high horse!

Tell me one human being who hasn’t lied even once in their entire life.

I noticed them before when we entered the site. Noticed them peeking at us from the top, probably listening to our conversations.

And I didn’t mention it before because of my good habit of ignoring such souls. Yeah, just one look at them and I knew they’d annoy me to death if they realised I could see them.

“Are they the ones you’ll be rescuing? Send them to heaven or something?” I asked, pointing at the ghosts above as I joined the dots in my head. Soul extraction is what she said it was called, right?

The boy stared at me with a blank expression. And so did the mother.

Dammit, they know that I know that they’re real.

Now generally, I’m not scared of ghosts.

They’re as normal to me as dogs are for everyone.

That being said, stray dogs exist that scare the living shit out of me.

And right now, these two were like those stray dogs for me.

“Yes and no. I’m not the one saving them. You are.”

...You know what? I’m not even gonna deny that anymore.

“Hmm.” I’ll simply ignore her and her bold unreasonable statements.

Seeing that I gave no response, she moved on to looking at her weird phone again.

“Is this the soul extraction you talked about before?”

“Yes and no.”

“Do you ever give a straight answer?”

She looked from the screen and gave some thought to her answer. With a nod of determination, she said, “…Yes and no.”

“Ofcourse, Great! Well, again, thanks for the enlightenment and while this has been fun, I’m leaving now!” I made my way to the half-opened gate but stopped when she said her next words followed by a nightmare turned reality.

“Calm your tits down, Elsa. It’ll be here soon.”

“What will be here—?”

A loud screeching sound pierced the air and as if materialising from thin air, a huge beast came into our view with its membranous wings and huge body blocking the sun in the sky.

It flew around in circles until finally shooting down on the ground like a meteor and crash landing onto it, creating a pit and a wall of dust in the air.

The creature’s face shook to get its bearings right and craned it to look above and high at the two dead souls standing on the roof of the unfinished building. Having its target in sight, the creature gave yet another ear-piercing screech.

“The Rakshas you will be rescuing the souls from.”