Whispers of Death

by Alicia Rivoli

  Eleven

  I watched as their faces dimmed and eventually disappeared from my sight. I was back in the graveyard, and this time Death wasn't alone. There were concourses of Spirits surrounding me, more than I had ever imagined. They all stood looking at me with hope and pain. I turned toward Death; he stood amongst them, and his own face held the same look of hope.

  "Your presence here has been much anticipated. Spirits through the eons have told your story.,” he explained.

  "My story?" I looked at him with confusion. I had never heard of anything that told of a woman so weak that she couldn't hold a tear at the simplest video or commercial.

  "Your story is one that people from all walks of time and from every known world have been telling their kids," he said.

  My head spun. "How can my story be told when I don't even know it?"

  He smiled slightly. "Earth isn't the only world. Humans aren't the only race. There are many others, and all have the same story."

  I thought about that for a minute. It was a lot to take in. If someone would have told me that a year ago, I might have laughed and pushed it aside, but now, with everything that had been happening to me in the last few months, it was completely believable.

  I looked around. "Are you Death in all the worlds?" I asked.

  "In a way, yes, I am." His gaze shifted from me to all the Spirits surrounding us. "My image changes with each world depending on what they see me as. Earth is the only place I'm considered the Grim Reaper. It is the only place where I'm thought of as a dark fearsome creature, dressed in black robes and said to take the lives of those that are innocent. In some worlds I'm seen as a white angel of mercy, with large wings like that of an eagle. I am said to come down from the heavens on a cloud and bless those that have lost ones they love. One world sees me as a half goat man that takes the lives of children and elders." He laughed at the last one. "However, each world has one thing in common, my scythe. It's a part of me in every world."

  "Your scythe helps you relieve the pain and suffering of those that are dying," I said, remembering from before.

  "Yes, but that isn't all it does; it also allows the deeds of the person to be presented and shows them the path they have forged for themselves in their world. They will either have forged a path of good and go to Heaven, or they will have made too many bad choices and follow the path of darkness."

  I thought about that for a moment before moving on. I didn't want to dwell on the thought of Death deciding my fate. "Okay, so how have others known about me?" I asked.

  "Eons ago, people from another world told the story of a creature that held the key to the Whispers of Death. The key would allow this creature to communicate and travel freely among the Spirits trapped in between worlds. It was a hope that their loved ones would be free from fear and pain in death. The story became a beacon for all worlds to free them from the grips of Fear." His face darkened, and he continued.

  "When Fear stole my scythe from me, it started a domino effect in many worlds. With no help to relieve the person of pain and fear as they were dying, he quickly rose to power, taking their lives and trapping them in prisons of pain. There is no relief for them without my scythe. So their souls get trapped in Limbo, unable to go to Heaven or be punished for their sins, and they are in constant suffering. Each Soul that is trapped in Limbo gives him more power."

  My mouth dropped open. "You think I'm the creature from the stories?" I squeaked. "I can't be. Have you seen me? I can't do anything special."

  "For a while we just thought it was a legend that people told their children to help them through the death of a loved one. However, your world was created, and we started seeing more people try to communicate with their loved ones that had died. A lot of them weren't ever able to get through to us, but we started getting more and more people trying it, and some eventually learned the art of communicating with the dead. They have been known as many different names, sorcerers, wizards, witches, demons, but most recently they are known as psychics or mediums."

  My whole body shook with fear. "I don't consider myself to be either of those. I didn't even know I could do this until you showed up."

  "Several months ago a woman wrote down how to find you while she was dying. She pleaded for her husband to find you."

  "Vanessa?" I said loudly.

  "Yes, it was I."

  I jumped at her voice. I turned around; she still had the same look on her face that she always did, pain and hope, just like the others around us.

  "I had a dream one night while I was in the hospital: it was a vision of you. It showed me a woman giving my daughter a beautiful doll, but before that, showed me a power deep inside you that would save all souls lost in Limbo. I knew that I would never get a chance to find you. I could already feel my body losing the battle, so I wrote down the few simple words on that letter to James when I woke up, and that's the last thing I was able to do."

  "Who showed you a vision of me?" My fear was so out of control, I was sure that it would overtake my whole body. I knew that it wasn't Fear trying to take me though, just me being afraid of myself. It was a feeling I was all too familiar with. I had always been the weaker link in our family. Olive was always so strong. Even though I was older, she was the one that always took care of me, stood up for me.

  "You were chosen before you were born to help those that have passed get to their final resting place," Death explained.

  His voice came from every direction. As I watched his shape would change from the Death that I had known to many other forms, including the half goat man.

  "I...I don't..." I sputtered.

  "Yes, you can. You are the chosen one. Without you, no one will ever have peace," Vanessa said, circling me. "Including you and your family."

  I stared at the ghost of the woman I had come to know over the last couple of days. She stared at me; her beautiful face even full of pain was beautiful. Her eyes still sparkled, but would dim as the pain would find her. She had so much trust in me, trust that I wasn't sure I would ever be able to give her. As I watched her, however, I knew that I had to try. I didn't know how, or what I would have to do, but I knew that if I didn't try, I would be stuck here, leaving my family without their mother and breaking my promise to Hunter that I would be back.

  "How did Hunter hear me?" I turned and asked Death.

  He smiled a crooked smile at me, which made me feel slightly uneasy.

  "Hunter is an exceptional child. It was him that led me to you," he said grinning. "The day he was born, he was special. Hunter never lost his ability to see me as others have. He has always been able to see me and has been drawing me for the last few years. At first I believed he was the creature from the stories, but after some time, I realized he had been blessed by this gift from one of his parents. He couldn't see other spirits; he could just hear them. That told me that he only had a partial gift. It wouldn't allow him to travel to Limbo."

  "Hunter has been seeing you his whole life?" I said in shock.

  "When I realized this, I started looking at the other members of his family," he continued. "Mark showed no abilities to see me or hear any of the spirits that followed me. Abigail, although she could see me, saw me as a light and nothing more. That is when I came to you. At first you didn't show any signs that you could see or hear any spirit, including me. It wasn't until Vanessa's vision that I decided to push you a little further. I started by just giving you dreams and nightmares, and then I progressed to the graveyard. You immediately started seeing me in the graveyard. When I was able to physically touch you and had my touch affect you the way it did, I knew that you had a special gift. I wasn't sure of your abilities completely until I tested you more. Vanessa insisted on seeing you after her husband came to you. It was then that we all realized that you were the one that had been talked about for eons."

  Somewhere in the middle of the story my mouth had dropped open in a gaping hole. I tried to speak, but all that came out were clicks and grunts.

>   "It's time for you to take your place," Death explained.

  "You tested my family?" I finally uttered.

  "Amelia, you need to understand what all of this means. It's time to start your journey saving the souls lost in Limbo."

  His voice still sounded like it was coming from multiple directions, but I understood why now; he was never in one place at any given time, so he was really speaking to me from all worlds. I looked at Vanessa, who stood nearby; her long white gown flowed behind her with grace and elegance, and for the first time, I saw not just hope and pain, but also love in her eyes. Not love for her family, but for me.

  I nodded. "What do I do first?"

  Twelve

  Deciding to go with Death wasn't an easy decision. I had learned that the graveyard I was seeing was only a mask to cover the true place I was standing. Limbo was nothing like I had expected. At first it was just a never-ending wave of Spirits waiting for me to save them. After walking with Death, it became so much more. The darkness began to lighten and open into fields of long green grass with a mixture of colorful flowers scattered here and there. There were no mountains, or sunlight that I could see, but light flowed into the grassy plains on its own, as if the sun were hidden in the grass. It felt warm and comfortable all around, almost like a warm summer day. The Spirits waiting for passage to their final destinations walked among the flowers and stopped and tried to smile as I walked by. The same hope was in their eyes as every other soul here.

  My own appearance was something else I hadn't noticed before. Much like Vanessa, I was dressed in a long flowing white gown. My hair was long and straight, and my body seemed to glow, giving off a faint hue of golden sunlight. Death had explained that because part of my Spirit had been left behind to keep my body alive, I would feel like I was being pulled in different directions, and he was right. With each step I took deeper into Limbo, I felt a part of me being pulled back to my family. I didn't mind though; it reminded me that I had a family to get back to.

  As we continued to walk, we came to a place in the grass that opened into a horseshoe shape and contained three different pathways. A path made of sand, a path of rock, and the final path was made of a smooth white marble. Each pathway was blocked by a large iron gate. In front of the three pathways, centered between the gates, was a large golden stone that shined as bright as the noonday sun. The light reflected off every surface, and I realized this was what gave light to Limbo. I squinted out of habit, but the bright light didn’t bother my eyes. Atop the golden stone were two marks, a handprint and a long wedge shape.

  "What is this?" I asked Death. "Which way do we go?"

  "This is the Path of Judgment," he explained. "Each path represents the choices you made in your world. Every soul that enters Limbo has to find this place."

  "How do they know which path to take?" I said, staring at each path with uneasiness.

  "The Golden Stone is placed here to be your guide. The Spirit seeking his or her path will place their hand on the stone here," he said, pointing to the handprint in the center of the stone, "then I will place my scythe here." He pointed to the other slot. "As the scythe and the Spirits hand connect with the stone simultaneously, it will open whichever of the iron gates you are to enter through."

  "Which path is which?" I asked. "How do the Spirits know where they are going to go?"

  "Most Spirits already know which path the stone will open. They know the choices they made in their lives and whether or not they made the right ones," he said sadly. "I'm afraid more and more souls have been given the Path to Eternal Prison." He pointed to the path of stone, sadness clear in his tone of voice as he spoke.

  I looked down the path. My eyes focused, and I began seeing darkness swirling at the end, darkness that I knew no amount of light could enter. I felt the fear and pain that lurked beyond that gate. My body felt tired, a little sore, and my mind was full of regret.

  "The path of sand is the Path for Lost Souls," he continued, either not noticing my look of horror at the first path, or maybe he did and had seen the look so many times, he just continued. "This path is for those that don't believe in life after death and have made decisions in their lives that can be forgiven. Their judgment hasn’t yet been determined. They will be taught there of good versus evil and how to make right choices, and either they accept it and are forgiven, or they still refuse and are moved to Eternal Prison.”

  I pried my eyes off of the stone path and looked down the path he pointed at. At the end of this path was a faint light, like a flashlight at the end of a dark tunnel. The light represented hope for a better future. Where the stone path gave me a horrible lost feeling, the path of sand gave me a feeling of optimism, not quite happiness, but not sadness or a feeling of being lost.

  "Is that the path to Heaven?" I asked, turning quickly away from the Path of Lost Souls.

  Death looked down the final path of marble. His body seemed to relax. "That is the Path of Eternity," he explained soothingly. "It will lead you to the gates of Heaven and eternal peace. It is a place I wish for all Spirits. A place where they can truly find happiness. A place of hope, love, and safety."

  I looked down the pathway; the marble seemed to go on forever meeting no ending. The path was well lit, by what I don't know. I felt my body relax, my mind, cleared of all fear, and I could feel a peace I had never experienced before.

  I smiled. "That is where I hope to go," I said dreamily.

  "Yes," Death said. "It is where most hope to go."

  I turned and looked at him; he had propped himself against the golden stone. His body seemed to droop.

  "You can't open these gates," I said knowingly. "Your scythe is the key to each gate." It wasn't a question. I understood.

  "Yes," he said sadly, "like I said, a lot of Spirits were taking the path of Eternal Prison. It created so much fear in those that remained in Limbo that they became too frightened to place their hand on the stone and are now prisoners here because Fear himself was born. As more and more Souls refused, he became more powerful, and eventually I could no longer control the power in the scythe, and he took it straight from my fingers." The sadness turned to pain and anger, then back to pain as he talked.

  "Why couldn't you hold it any longer?" I asked.

  "I get all of my strength from Spirits that leave Limbo. As they find their final resting places, especially those that enter the Gate of Eternity, they leave behind all their emotions they needed in their lives, and it gives me strength. With so many taking the Path to Eternal Prison because of greed and sin, it didn't leave me with enough peace to hold the scythe," he said. "When remaining Souls refused to touch the stone at all, it took all my power away, and the scythe fell into the hands of Fear." His voice was sullen as he talked of Fear.

  I looked down each path again, noticing that each pathway, although they seemed different, had something that was the same. They each held the destiny of the Spirit that walked down the pathway.

  "How am I supposed to help you get the scythe back? The world is so full of darkness and evil. What am I supposed to do to help them?" I asked, confused.

  "Your Spirit is full of hope. It is full of life and forgiveness. Just having you here has given each of these lost Souls a desire to come accept their fates," he said, pushing himself away from the Golden Stone and walking toward me. "Look, they are already lining up."

  I turned and looked at where he was pointing and saw again the huge concourse of Spirits. They stood watching me, some trying to smile, others in so much pain that they pled for my help.

  "We are all ready to leave and take our places where we belong. We are empty here, unable to move forward and incapable of going back," Vanessa said as she appeared from nowhere. "Limbo wasn't meant to be a resting place, only a place of decision."

  I twisted my fingers around a lock of my hair, something I did a lot when I was put on the spot. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to help Death get back his scythe or help these Spirits.

 
; "Why me?" I pleaded with Death. "Why am I the chosen one? I can't do this!" I'm sure if I would have been in my human body I would be crying at this point. I felt so much pressure to be someone that I knew that I wasn't.

  He looked at me and gently laid a hand on my shoulder. I could no longer feel the cold that normally rushed through me at his touch; this time I felt something else: a surge of power rushed through my soul. The warmth radiated through me, giving me a feeling of hope. I inhaled deeply, realizing for the first time that I didn't really need to breath here. The air filled my soul, making me feel lighter than normal. I raised my head and looked out over the thousands upon thousands of Spirits that watched me. I knew in that moment I was going to have to become what they needed me to be. I was going to have to become the power that brought back the scythe. I released the air that had seeped into my soul and turned and looked at Vanessa. Her face seemed different to me now. She was still beautiful, and her features still poured out with pain and hope, but I finally saw who she really was. She was a mother, just like me. She had left behind her daughter and her husband. I also understood something else. Something that if I hadn’t taken the time to see, wouldn't have recognized it.

  "You are forgetting your daughter and husband," I said. "This place makes you forget."

  Relief rushed across her face. "Yes. I need to move on so I don't forget," she whispered. "I can't forget." Her head dropped, and I'm sure that if she could, she would have also cried.

  I went to her and wrapped my arms around her. I wasn't sure I could touch her, but as our Spirits touched, I could feel everything she was feeling. Her pain pushed away from her and attached itself to me. As it entered my soul, I watched as each memory she had flashed before my eyes. I watched as she fought with her parents as a child, I looked in the mirror and saw her looking back, dressed in a white wedding gown and the vows that she and James had made to one another.

  I felt the pain of Mindy's birth and the joy that her smiling face gave Vanessa as she watched her grow from baby to toddler. I felt Vanessa's joy as Mindy took her first steps and felt her heartache when Mindy was sick for the first time. I felt the sheer pain that she’d felt as she went to the doctor and they found her cancer. I had temporarily become Vanessa, or at least that was how it felt. The final memory that I watched and felt was Vanessa's final scream in agony as Fear entered through her heart and pushed the cancer through her body, ending her life. I doubled over in agony, eventually dropping to the ground. Our connection pulled apart, and I was released from her pain. I sat on the ground for a minute panting before looking up at her.