Chapter 1

Ivy

The trickle of the stream had turned to a roar. The water pulled her down, forcing her to gasp for air, flailing her arms uselessly against the crashing waters. On the shore so far away, people screamed her name, calling her back to them. But what saved her was not their voices, screaming for her to return to shore, but arms that wrapped around her waist, pulling her back to solid ground.

She laid on the ground, the soft grass caressing her body. The voices were back again, telling her to wake up. But it wasn't the same voice as before, no, it was someone else. They told her to wake up, shaking her shoulders, but she didn't want to wake up, so she didn't.

Ivy bolted up in her bed, her green and violet eyes wild and her breathing ragged. She looked around her, feeling as though the water from her dream had chased her in her wake too.

"What time is it . . . ?" She asked to seemingly nothing. It looked as though there was nobody in the room, as far as anyone could tell. Brushing her oil black hair away from her eyes, Ivy looked straight up at the figure standing at the foot of her bed.

"Time to get to school." The cloaked figure snorted, walking through the wall beside it. Sighing, Ivy pulled her heavenly warm covers off her, throwing her feet over her bed in an attempt to chase the sleepiness away. There, in the perfect undisturbed grey wall, the cloaked figure had just walked through, a ripple distorted it and the bare bone of a skull spoke.

"Do hurry up."

The black-hooded skull retreated, back to the other side of the wall, into the hallway off to do whatever it wanted around the house. Ivy could hear the smooth wisp of a cloak as her Reaper took to the stairs.

⚜

Her kitchen was completely empty, save for the Reaper casually sitting at the counter, it's fingers of bone clinked against the ceramic mug it was holding. Its bones clinked against the counter, as if a clock slowly ticking, counting the seconds as Ivy packed her bag.

"Your parents are still asleep, and they're going to be late. You're going to have the same problem soon if you don't hurry up." The Reaper lifted the mug to its face, clinking against the white glistening of bone that would be its lips.

"Where does it go?" Ivy pointed to the coffee the Reaper drank. Reapers were practically dead, and the dead couldn't consume food, could they? Her hands moving, but her eyes glued to the black coffee pouring from the mug, into the empty skull. The Reapers paused, the liquid still flowing down what would have been its throat.

"I don't know. I just like the feeling of consuming this stuff, it makes me feel human." The Reaper shrugged as if it were normal. For a Reaper to feel human. Even when you aren't? Ivy asked herself silently. The Reaper turned on her as if hearing her thoughts.

"Are you coming with me today?" She asked, slinging her onyx backpack over her shoulder carelessly. The Reaper seemed to consider this but never answered, as if on the way to its response, it lost its way. Ivy waved her hand, a silent farewell to the Reaper, it's hooded skull un-moving when she closed the door.

⚜

The university Ivy went to was only a walk and a bus ride away. She loved school and all, but she loved the walks to her bus stop the most. It gave her time to think, to mull over what had happened the day before and the day that awaited ahead.

"Good morning, Ivy." Ivy didn't need to turn around to know who it was. What could have passed as a shadow brushed past her, walking, floating.

"Hello."

Ivy didn't talk to people much, but these people were different. If you could call them people. Considering it then, Ivy couldn't really count Reapers as people. Although she could and did talk to them, it wasn't like anyone else could or did.

"What's wrong?" The Reaper asked, concerned. Ivy shook her head, dismissing her previous thoughts.

"Just a dream I had last night. It's weird, you know? When you dream something, it happens just the very next day, as though you had predicted it." Ivy lamented.

"I've never dreamt before. Is it fun? Scary? Annoying? All three?"

Reapers didn't sleep. Ivy had noted that much about them, so it was logical of course that they wouldn't know what dreaming was like.

"It can be fun sometimes. Beautiful dreams, painted in the bright hues of dawn, and the glowing shades of dusk. Or nightmares, marred by the sickening waves of blood, or the screams of those passed on."

The Reaper seemed to take this in, considering Ivy's' words.

"Then what are nightmares?" It asked, curious.

"I suppose creatures meant to take blood, wouldn't understand," Ivy laughed dryly, "it means something that you fear. Something�"or someone�"scares you. That's what a nightmare is. The things you fear, the things you hate, and maybe even the things you love." Ivy explained further. The Reapers around her soaked in her words like a fine wine. Something they didn't and would never understand told to them by someone who did.

"Why would nightmares, that show a mortal's fears, have something you love in it?" One of the Reapers that had gathered around Ivy asked, falling into step with her as she paced to school.

"Because sometimes, they're the same thing."

⚜

The first bell rung just as Ivy stepped into the building. In a flurry of rushing to class, and students dashing to their classes, Ivy melted into the crowd. She joined the whirl of students again after pausing, waiting for a group of students to pass, before falling into the rhythm of their steps. The second bell chimed just as Ivy took a seat at the back of the lecture hall.

Ivy couldn't help but sigh, leaning her head against her propped up fist, waiting for class to end. The teacher droned on and on, an endless monologue. Her next class wasn't any better. But there, sitting on a bench in the campus yard as she looked down, was her Reaper. So it did decide to come, Ivy thought to herself, not noticing it had lifted its head to look at her through the window. Also not noticing it had appeared right beside her. The seat below and in front of Ivy was empty too, as were most of the seats around her. That was normal though for her. Nobody wanted anything to do with the Witch after all. One who could see the Reapers. Not just her own, but others as well.

The closer a Reaper is to its charge, the sooner they will die. Ivy mulled over the Death Commandments. Her Reaper had told her once, they were like law. Rules that had existed since the birth of Time, her Reaper had said. Reapers cannot talk. That rule had Ivy's brain working. They couldn't talk, yet they all spoke to her as if it was normal. For her, and for them. Mortals can only see their own Reaper. Another rule that had the gears in Ivy's mind turning. Assuming everyone only had one Reaper, it was odd that she could see them all, even when they weren't hers.

The shriek of the bell interrupted Ivy's train of thought, screeching chairs coming out from desks, the fumbling flipping of paper as students collected their things. Ivy went with the flow, eyeing her Reaper from the corner of her eyes.

⚜

"I thought you were staying at home today," Ivy said, her Reaper following her all the way to the roof. The stairs she was about to climb looked like the steps to heaven.

"I got bored."

Ivy snorted, taking the steps by two to her usual lunch spot on the roof. The faint sounds of laughter echoed down the hall she'd just left, and Ivy looked back, the rushing of people fast in the halls.

The wind was like a blade through her hair, the green of the trees in the schoolyard tickling the skyline. The Reaper behind her stood silently, watching her every move as she stepped onto the roof of the medical building.

Ivy tilted her head, glancing at the Reaper. She said nothing, yet her eyes asked her question for her.

"There's someone here." Ivy spun around on her heel slowly, her eyes roving around the flat rooftop. At that second she turned around, there seemed to be missing something. Like the absence of animals in a forest. Abnormal. Ignoring the Reapers warning, Ivy sat down on the edge of the school building. Her back facing out to the schoolyard, she bent to reach for her bag.

"Leave them." She said.

The only sound that Ivy heard on her entire time on the roof was that of her Reapers cloak, dragging along the smooth ground of the school building and her fingers clicking against the keys of her laptop. The lid of her laptop glistened in the afternoon sun. The bright blue of the sky, the perfect canvas for the glowing shine of the sun.

Ivy padded to the stairs after finishing up her work. The only thing disrupting the flat plain of the roof was the stairs leading down to the hallway below. She strode to the stairs, nothing seeming amiss. Until she passed the door, looking down at blazing violet eyes.

She was drowning. In the deep, fierce sea of the boy's eyes, they engulfed her. That feeling of the helpless. . . Drowning. It was the same as when she looked into her Reaper's eyes the very first time. The haunting endless black pit of darkness in its empty sockets. The same like all those years ago. Ignoring the onslaught of memories and thoughts, Ivy turned on her heel and descended the stairs. There was no sound coming from the roof, and Ivy didn't look back to make sure. All she needed to do was get to class. That was all she was here for.

Students in the halls parted ways for her. Either disgusted or scared of Ivy, she didn't know.

"Are you just going to ignore that boy?" The Reaper asked. "Nobody is ever on the roof. Not with you there." It pointed out, and Ivy ignored it.

People faze, in and out through the Reapers cloaked body, walking behind Ivy. People couldn't touch Reapers. Be it theirs or someone else's, if they could even see someone else's. But of course, Ivy could touch her Reaper. And on the seldom occasion, will get it to do chores for her. That was something that made her unique. She could tell the Reapers what to do. Albeit they didn't always obligate, but Ivy treated them as equals. One of the same. But of course, they were not the same. Not in a single way.

Ivy didn't see that violet-eyed boy again that day. Not in the school, or outside of it. The sky had already begun to sleep, and the glowing shades of dusk that she had told the Reaper about that morning, had come to meet the blazing sky.

Murmurs around her engulfed her, and Ivy didn't realize she had accidentally tuned in on another girls' conversation until they had noticed her behind them. Their conversation hazy, Ivy remembered something about a 'purple eyed hot boy' but she could have just been hearing things. Purple eyes weren't that uncommon. Were they?

Ivy thought back to that boy her entire walk home. His flowing short jet black hair, his pale ghostly skin, that put Ivy's light skin to shame. And then, of course, there were his eyes. His eyes, Ivy mulled over that one factor of his perfect face. All these foreign thoughts clotted her mind.

In the quickly darkening sky, a single light in Ivy's' house was alit. On the far side of the house on the second floor. Avery, her one and only sister. The door was already unlocked, confirming Ivy's suspicions. Her steps through the house were non-existent like a cat prowling the ever falling night outside.

⚜

There was a thick silence in Ivy's room. Hands shaking, Ivy pulled her knees to her chest, curling herself into her plush bed holding down her own limbs. Not only her hands but now her arms. Her legs, her head. Everything shivered as if a chill had just swept the world. A bomb had gone off in her head like a war-ravaged mind.

"Ivy! Are you okay?!" Avery sped into the room, snatching an orange bottle off the dest to the side of the door.

"Here, it's ok. Take these�"" Avery shook the bottle and two snow-white pills came tumbling onto her palm. "�"see? You're fine!" Avery coaxed Ivy, handing her a glass of water that seemingly came out of nowhere.

Ivy's shaking ceased, and her breathing steadied, to a slow intake. In, out. In, out. Ivys' clenched hands loosened on her shirt, the crumpled fabric the only thing left in her wake.

"Thank you, Avery, I'm alright." Avery looked skeptical, holding Ivys' shoulders in a soothing way.

"You're never alright after an attack."

Ivy looked towards her Reaper, standing a the foot of her bed.

"You're never alright and you know it." It repeated, laying a hand on her head.

"Is your Reaper talking to you? I told you not to talk to it! That's why you get all these seizures!" Avery complained.

It had started after their parents passed away. Her scarce memories of them were vague. The government told her they had drowned. Avery hadn't even been two at the time, Ivy five. And it all vividly flashed violet in her mind. And then after that, everything flashed in her mind. A neurodegenerative disorder called epilepsy had taken over her head. Seizures attacked her often, provoked or not. They came whenever they pleased, and Ivy had no power to stop them, only ride out the pain until it was gone.

"I'm fine. I just want to sleep." Ivy sighed, pushing her head off her arm, only to collapse on her pillow again. Avery pursed her lips and puffed her cheeks.

"Fine. But if you need anything, make sure you call me, okay?" She said, pointing an accusing finger in Ivy's face. She only laughed, rubbing her head against her pillow, beginning to dream before she was even asleep.

⚜

Reapers have names, Ivy remembered as she thought of her sister's Reaper Rem. She had learned that from hers, but her Reaper never gave her its name.

"Reapers don't have genders, you know." It had said to her once before randomly. Though they had names, oddly enough, they didn't have a gender.

"Then how do you come up with your names?" She had asked in return, only to receive a shrug.

"We've never had the need to talk to mortals the way I do unto you. There has never been a reason, it just is." It replied. Today was but a Saturday, so Ivy had nothing to do. Knowing the people at her school�"from always watching them from the afar�"Ivy knew they'd all be at the mall, or at some salon they would splurge in.

"What is the Underworld like?" Ivy asked, her nose still in her book. The Reaper that had been pacing around on the carpet stopped and Ivy looked up only to see those lifeless sockets trained on her. For a second, Ivy thought she had done something wrong. But not moments later, the Reaper continued it's pacing, answering as it went.

"We are not permitted to speak of the Underworld. Though generally, we cannot speak to mortals, either." It said. That was the thing, too. Reapers couldn't talk to mortals, so why could it talk to her?

"I didn't know you had friends."

While Ivy's attention had slid back to her book, she hadn't noticed the Reaper glide over to the window beside her bed. Now, it pointed it's boned-finger out the window, a soft clink as it touched the sealed glass.

"What do you mean?" Ivy threw her legs over her black covers, stalking over to the window. "See? There's no one�"" Ivy paused. Because there was someone. A boy, standing outside her house. Right against the fence, his face without emotion.

But his eyes danced with a violet glow.

⚜

"Who is that?" Ivy hissed under her breath, darting to the side of the window before the boy could see her. Too late, the Reapers dismembered voice in her head. Out. Out of my head. Not now, Ivy dismissed the Reapers warning in her mind. Light tapping became louder, as what Ivy would assume was the boy, strode up to her home. He rapped his hand on the door politely before silence ensued once more. Open the door, Ivy mouthed to her Reaper in the corner of her room, already crawling into her bed and pulling the sheets above her head. The Reaper sighed.

"People already know I'm the Witch. Would that really be so weird for my door to magically open on it's own?" She said, and the Reaper heaved a sigh once more. The sound of the door swinging open filled her ears, and she held her breath.

"Can I help you?"

Ivy's chest tightened further. It wasn't her Reaper that had opened the door, she realized, but Avery.

"Is Ivy Sime here?" Presumably, the boy asked. Ivy couldn't help but delve further into her sheets.

"Umm. . . Why do you need her?" Avery asked suspiciously. She'd seen people coming to her door only to haunt her with words forever etched in her mind. Witch, Witch. Lucky as a black cat, they taunted.

"I just need to talk to her." The boy replied insistently.

"Sorry, she's not here." She stated firmly, slamming the door in the boy's face.

"So, are you going to tell me who that was?" Avery said walking into Ivy's room, prowling like a cat in the night. Her eyebrow raised in question.

"I don't know. I saw him once on the roof yesterday." She explained.

"Why was he on the roof? Nobody is ever on the roof. That's why you hang out there, isn't it?" Avery asked. Ivy only shrugged and Avery left, deciding not to push Ivy about the topic at hand.

"Hey, Romeo's still here." Her Reaper said after Avery had left.

Deciding she couldn't hide from the boy anymore, Ivy left her perch on the bed and looked out the window. Without meaning to, she looked him dead in the eyes.

Author's Note

How was it? It’s kind of long but please review!!!