Chapter 29: Chapter 29

S Ø R E N

IT LOOKED AS though it would rain soon.

Søren thought about death. It felt appropriate to think of such grim things in the rain. The rain itself seemed to support this, since it nearly always rained at funerals.

It had not rained at his funeral.

It had snowed.

And he felt that it had been an appropriate response from the weather to snow. Because his death experience had been like the snow: the sensation of being dead was exactly as he had thought.

Cold, numb and sort of hollow.

It had not been any different from living.

Søren had been born a day before it had snowed, and he had died a day before it had snowed. It had been a fitting send-off.

“…Hey, Savannah?” he now quipped. She turned to face him as they walked. The highway had come to an end, blending into the urban cityscape as they wandered the highstreets. Nadine and Lewis were too absorbed in being tourists; jostling about and messing with oblivious passers-by; so Søren had the opportunity to talk to his trainee alone again.

“I had only started watching you on the day that you were due to die. How had your life been before that?”

The redhead drew a shaky breath. “Same old, same old,” she murmured.

“How descriptive,” Søren deadpanned.

Savannah’s heels ground into the concrete in a similar way to her gritting teeth. “It was normal, okay?” she snapped. “Perfectly happy and normal. Nothing was lacking. My life was…perfect,” she breathed.

Søren frowned in utter disbelief.

“That’s bullshit,” he huffed. “No person or life is perfect, Savannah. Why do you think we end up dead? Because we were flawless? As if. It’s okay to admit things weren’t great, you know. It makes for a good story.”

“Excuse me?” she huffed, nudging his side. “A good story? What does that mean? I’m not writing an autobiography.”

“That is not what I meant,” Søren assured his trainee firmly. “I’m just saying, that what someone goes through in their childhood and adolescence shapes them into the interesting person they are today.”

“Or a boring person.”

He turned around to meet her gaze. “Who said that ‘interesting’ always alludes to an exciting thing?”

She opened her mouth and closed it again, at a loss.

So, Søren began to tell her something which he had never told anyone before.

“…It was an ordinary day in early November,” he sighed. “It hadn’t started snowing yet, but I remember that I couldn’t wait for it to do so. I had my studies to occupy my short attention span, but something else was distracting me. A girl was going to pay me a visit.”

Savannah blinked before she realised that he was talking about the day he had died. “…Angelina?” she whispered.

“Yes. And don’t let her name fool you. She was the furthest thing from angelic,” the Trainer answered. “She told me her father was hosting a lady and wished her out of the house. So, she came to mine. My father didn’t know, and he was in his study until…until the gunshots.”

“Oh, Søren,” she breathed.

“She was polite enough when she arrived and suggested that we go outside and enjoy what was left of Autumn. We laughed and joked and chased each other and rolled down hills until mid-afternoon,” he murmured. “And pun intended; it was all downhill from there.”

“God, that’s corny,” she sighed, smiling slightly. He did not return it.

“She seduced me,” Søren stated bluntly.

“What?” Savannah hissed. “Seduced you. Like a stripper?”

“Escort,” he corrected, “is the word you’re looking for. And no, not like that,” he muttered self-consciously. “She wanted to try something with me —to see how far I would let her go. I was so in love with her that I didn’t think to say no. I wanted to say no, deep down. But I didn’t.”

Savannah offered the Reaper a sympathetic look.

“Anyway, we didn’t end up having sex, because the sudden sound of gunfire made us pause a few stages prior. Angelina looked frightened enough, but for some reason, she didn’t really look like she wanted to stop immediately —she wouldn’t willingly allow me to go. But I eventually managed to escape my room, then she slipped from the house…and I got to my father just before he was shot right in front of me. The intruders ran out of bullets after I then fought them, but they injured me with shards of broken glass. Then I was left to bleed to death.”

Savannah gasped, but knew not to comment on the deaths. “…What happened when you Turned?” she asked.

“It was strange. I remember thinking, what did I do to deserve this? To not rest in peace. Why had Death chosen me…?” Søren then pressed his lips into a tight line and blinked to get rid of the sting of tears.

Savannah remained quiet for a few moments. “…From when I was born until I was almost seven, I thought that my family was the best and happiest in all the world. We always laughed together and played together, and there was so much love that I now wonder if it was too good to be true. And lo and behold, my father left us —me and my Mom.”

“Well, at least you have an idea of the reason why now,” Søren mumbled, unsure if it would help.

“That’s true,” she sighed. “…I guess I hated him for a long time just because I didn’t know what we had done wrong, if we had even done something. I blamed myself, mostly, because everything seemed to have been going right until I was born —”

“Savannah don’t say that,” Søren then hissed, disbelieving of what he was hearing. “Don’t you ever think that. You know your father probably would have stayed if he had not been leading a double life.”

She blinked, and then looked downwards. “…Even so,” she said shakily, “I can’t help but think that their relationship would have turned out better if they hadn’t introduced children into their lives.”

The Trainer did not respond. He could not relate to what she was saying.

In his original timeline, children had only been for affirming an heir; and young girls had been encouraged to marry wealthy for that purpose. Maybe there was some truth in what Savannah was saying, but Søren could not stand hearing her talk about herself like that.

“You are important, you know that?” he said. “No matter what happened after your father left. You didn’t stop being loved.”

She smirked and shook her head at him.

“I’m serious,” he insisted.

“You’re Søren,” she retorted.

The Trainer said nothing, and shoved his hands into his pockets. He did not know if his pain was then too telling, but he drew a breath, struggling to say the next thing. “…The first soul that I reaped out of training was Angelina’s.”

“What? Seriously?” Savannah’s jaw dropped slightly in surprise.

“It was an assassination job,” Søren went on. “Acting on orders, after Angelina had put her oldest son to bed, a man from her father’s council came into her and her husband’s room. She was better equipped than I thought she might have been. Maybe she understood the perpetual danger of the life she led. She…then fought the assassin until he managed to slit her throat.”

Savannah started.

The Trainer chuckled weakly. “…It had been pretty gruesome. The husband had been in on it, because he had purposely ripped his night shirt and carved out a wound to make it seem as though he had also been attacked.”

There was a pause, and Savannah’s discomfort was overwhelming.

“…Angelina knew it was me when I entered the room. She had seen me around the house before that, as routine, but I wasn’t really watching her. I was watching her life —catching up with everything I had missed.

I suppose that a part of me hoped that she had actually loved me, and I know it sounds cruel, but I wanted to see her suffer. Not in physical pain, but emotionally —for the fact that I was no longer there. I wanted her to feel as torn as I did. Do you know how much it hurt to see that she was perfectly well? Happy, even?” Søren gritted through his teeth. “As though she had completely forgotten me. Like I had been nothing to her.”

Savannah’s eyes glistened with a film of welling tears.

“…Despite that, believe it or not, I still cared,” he admitted. “She might have been wickedly devious, but I still loved her. So, when I saw her three children and rich, cocky husband I felt…I felt —”

“—Completely torn apart?” Savannah offered. He nodded slowly. “…I get it,” she went on. “It's not the same, but that’s kind of what I felt when I reaped Aaron. Like everything had been a lie.”

Søren frowned. Not that asshole again. Her relations were valid, but it felt tainted because of that mortal in particular.

Angelina had never gotten the opportunity to tell Søren face to face that she had started pretending after a certain point. That was also a difference between him and Savannah: Angelina had grown to manipulate, while the trainee had been fooled right from the start.

“…I didn’t think that you would tell me so soon,” Savannah then whispered. “Whatever happened to telling me when you were ready?”

He turned back to her and shrugged. “I guess I just…felt ready.”

“I didn’t really want to tell you about me,” she murmured. “I know that’s hypocritical, but I guess I was afraid that you would judge me incorrectly and jump to all sorts of conclusions. I…I’m sorry.”

Søren paused and thought about those two words. ‘I’m sorry’. He frowned, wondering if he believed that. What was going to stop her from withholding information from him again based on some emotion?

“…Søren,” the younger Reaper said irritably, regaining his attention. “Hello? I said that I’m sorry. Seriously.”

He nodded slowly but did not look at her.

“Søren,” she breathed, walking closer. “We just swapped traumatic backstories. Now all you can do is sulk?”

The Trainer breathed deeply, gathering his thoughts. He turned to face her, and for a moment, he saw Angelina…and then not. She is not her.

He knew that Savannah was her own person, with her own intentions.

His expression softened.

“…Thanks for telling me,” he said. “I know it wasn’t easy.”

“I’m grateful too,” she murmured. “I appreciate you telling me. I can only imagine the hurt you had felt. It’s…probably not entirely fair for me to compare my pain to yours.”

He stiffened. “Probably.”

“But I want you to feel like you can talk to me,” she quipped. “And even I with you. About the good, and the bad. Sometimes things hurt a little less when you tell someone else.”

Søren sulked. He hated how right she was.

They then walked on and Savannah jumped into Lewis and Nadine’s antics, while the Trainer remained in peaceful silence a little way behind them.

A small smile tugged at his lips.

The dull ache in his chest that throbbed whenever he spoke or thought about Angelina was beginning to fade.