Between Heartbeats

Avery never saw the truck.

One second, They were stepping off the curb, coffee in hand, the city buzzing around them. The light had just flicked green. She’d been half-thinking about the late email they needed to send, half-listening to the hum of a busker’s guitar at the corner. Ordinary. Distracted. Alive.

Then came the horn. Too close. Too fast.

Headlights flooded their vision, and the world snapped to black before the sound of impact could even reach them.

Avery gasped.

They stood in the street, heart hammering—or at least they thought it was. No pain, no blood, no body. Just… stillness.

The city around them was frozen. A spray of raindrops hung suspended in the air, tiny glass beads glittering without falling. Shattered coffee from their dropped cup was stuck mid-splash, suspended inches from the pavement. Cars sat unmoving, drivers locked in place like mannequins.

“What the hell—” Avery whispered, their voice small in the silence.

“You’re dead.”

The voice came from behind. Smooth, flat, almost bored.

Avery spun, pulse racing though they weren’t sure if they still had one. A figure leaned against a lamppost, arms folded. Tall, draped in a dark coat that swallowed their outline, eyes pale and sharp as cut steel. Something about them pressed against the air, heavy, inevitable.

A scythe rested casually across their shoulder. Not gleaming or ceremonial—more like a tool sharpened from centuries of use.

Avery took a stumbling step back. “No. No, I—there was a truck—” They looked to the frozen headlights inches away. They were standing in the beam, unscorched, untouched. “I can’t be—”

“You can. You are.” The figure’s lips curled faintly, not quite a smile. “Congratulations. Death doesn’t waste. You’re drafted.”

Avery blinked. “Drafted? Into what?”

The figure pushed off the lamppost and walked closer, the scythe balanced with casual ease. “Into the only job that matters, kid. Collecting souls. Starting now.”

The stranger didn’t wait for an answer. With a flick of their wrist, the scythe sliced through the frozen air—not cutting glass or stone, but something deeper. The air split like paper. A gash of shadow yawned open, and behind it lay a darkness thicker than night.

Avery stumbled back. “What—what the hell is that?”

“The door,” the figure said simply. “Don’t fall behind.”

They stepped through without looking back.

Avery hesitated only a second before the stillness of the city pressed too heavy against their chest. The frozen world was suffocating. They lunged after the figure, through the tear—

—into silence.

It wasn’t black inside the rift, but colorless, like a world drained of all but gray and pale blue. Shapes shifted like mist: the suggestion of a street, a building, a sky with no stars. Avery’s breath puffed into the air in a slow curl.

“What is this place?” Avery asked, their voice too loud.

“The Veil,” the figure said. “Between life and what comes after.”

The scythe tapped against their shoulder as they walked. “You’re mine now. A reaper. And before you start whining about how unfair that is—believe me, it’s better than the alternative.”

Avery bristled. “Better than what?”

The reaper’s pale eyes met theirs, sharp and tired all at once. “Oblivion.”

They didn’t give Avery time to argue. Instead, they stopped before a hospital bed that shimmered into existence like it had always been there. The walls around it were half-real, painted with shadows of machines and cabinets. On the bed lay an old man, his chest rising in shallow, ragged breaths.

Avery froze. “He’s… alive.”

“For now.” The reaper angled their scythe toward the man. “Every soul has a time. His is minutes away. That’s where you come in.”

“What do you mean, me? I don’t know what the hell I’m doing—”

“Best way to learn,” the reaper cut in. Their gaze flicked to Avery, unreadable. “Reach. Pull. Guide him through. The scythe will answer you. Try not to screw it up.”

Avery’s throat went dry. Their hands shook as they stepped closer. The old man’s eyes fluttered open—hazy, clouded with fear. He looked directly at Avery.

“Please,” the man whispered, voice barely air. “Not yet. I—I can’t leave her. My wife—she’ll be alone—please.”

Something twisted sharp in Avery’s chest. He shouldn’t be able to see them. But he did.

Avery’s hand hovered above him. The air seemed to hum, something tugging faintly at their fingertips. They felt it—a thread, fragile and shining, tying the man’s chest to somewhere beyond.

All they had to do was pull.

Avery’s breath hitched. “I can’t. He’s begging—he’s not ready.”

“You don’t get to decide ready,” the reaper snapped. “Do it.”

But Avery couldn’t. They yanked their hand back as if burned.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the old man gasped—and the thread of light snapped on its own, vanishing into nothing. His body went still. His soul… did not appear.

Instead, the hospital walls shuddered. The shadows trembled and thinned, like something vast was pressing against them from the outside.

The reaper’s head whipped toward Avery, fury blazing in those pale eyes. “Idiot. You lost him. Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”

A low sound echoed through the Veil. Not a human sound. A growl, wet and hollow, like teeth grinding in an empty skull.

Avery’s stomach dropped. “What was that?”

The reaper raised their scythe, face grim. “That,” they said, “is what comes hunting lost souls.”

And as the shadows tore wider and something vast and wrong began to claw its way through, Avery realized death was only the beginning.