The wind rustles the wheat. The boy walks through the field. He hums a broken tune to himself, little phrases of aborted melody that goes in starts and stops. It's a cool autumn afternoon, and he is alone.
He doesn't know it, but he will die today. He will walk to the river, and he will slip on a rock. The current will bear him away, and he will disappear beneath the water. This is written in fate, and so you follow him.
Humans don't see you. They never see their death, until it happens. Still, most don't realize how long your kind shadows them for. You've watched the boy for a week now. You saw him in class, where teachers scold his stutter, and in the playground, where bullies kick him. You followed him on his walks home through ragged tracts and desolate fields. Not that there's much there; home's a broken down farmhouse with a couple of skinny chickens, an emaciated pig, a struggling crop of corn, and a drunken father who carouses with the flesh licking ladies of the pleasure district.
There are only two lights in the boy's life: his mother, and his baby brother. His mother is a fading woman who grows more insubstantial by the day, and you know that her time is near. His brother is two, and you don't care to speculate on what will become of him when the boy and his mother are gone.
So today, the boy will die. You follow him as he trails his hand through the wheat, still humming his sad, broken melody.
"Why are you following me?" he asks, not stopping his pace. You look around. There's no one. He turns and faces you. He asks again, his voice childish and clear: "Why are you following me?"
This time there's no mistaking it; the boy's eyes look straight into yours. You're surprised by the fire in them; you hadn't thought him capable of it.
"You're Death, aren't you?" he asks.
There are many Reapers, and you're only a junior one. Still, you don't want to overcomplicate things. "Yes."
The boy nods solemnly. "I knew it. But I can't die yet. I need to