Death isn't so much my mum's name, but her job title. Like senior executive officer, or partner, it's kind of what she does for a living. But not for the living. Ha ha, the dad jokes are a thing I got from dad, but I guess that's in the name.
Anyway, I finish the test, and pick up the book I'm reading. Some utter, juicy romantic trash that definitely does not belong in a chemistry class. I press the spine onto the desk, hiding as much of the cover as possible. I don't think anyone cares what I'm reading, they're too busy thinking about themselves. It's fine I guess, I'd much rather be on the edge of popularity than have to be that exhaustively nice the whole time.
I peer over at my chemistry teacher. He's probably marking the latest booklets we've had to hand in for homework. He's one of the good teachers, most of them are, but some of them are worse, like my maths teacher, Miss Decimal.
Anyway, because of her job, mum isn't around a lot, at least not in person, but she's there in the notes she leaves around the house, or the scent of cherry blossoms lingering somewhere, or the other special moments in my life. It's nice to know she cares, but I wish she had more free time.
The symbols of death are the scythe and the cherry blossom, the taking of life and it's regrowth, hence my name, and the cherry blossoms every where. I live in Green Hills, which is the most normal name ever for where death resides.
The job of death is hereditary, so I'll be death one day. Death is immortal, untouchable, until they have a kid, then they have a timer, so when I'm old enough, mum will 'die', and go where ever dead deaths go. Death can only ever have one child, so I guess that gets rid of questions about the future for me.
The job of death itself involves cleaving someone's soul from their body, and then taking them to the Cherry gate, this weird gate made of two cherry trees growing and twisting into each other. Then they go to wherever should go after death. You cleave a soul using this special scythe you get when you become death. I don't have mine yet, and to be honest, I don't really want one until I'm out of secondary school.
The most solemn part of being death will be taking mum's soul. I guess she'll die when I become death, but it's not something I really think about. Especially at school. I'm only fourteen, so nowhere near becoming a death, but I still have some weird powers.
I can see souls, like this fuzzy aura around people. It's weird, like mist around them or something, that moves a little bit, and it can change coulor. I could see ghosts, but there are never any around. Also, if I focus really, really hard, I can make a cherry blossom flower appear in my hands, but it's pretty useless, and costs way too much energy to do anything. My powers have gotten more and more sensitive as I've grown up, so now I can do some basic stuff, like detect emotions, a vague sense of why they feel that way, and conjure a few petals, but nowhere near good enough to take over yet.
People are pretty calm about me, surprisingly, but they can be too much. Especially when some new kid moves and finds out immediately who I am from a quick Google search, and then it's endless questions that I can't answer, because 'secrets of the trade'. I can't really get any alone time though, because of the 'kid of death thing' I'm a safeguarding priority, so I have to check in absolutely everywhere with a card I got from the school. Like I'm going to go to the bathroom, take some souls, and then go on a rampage, but I guess the school will do what it will.
YOU ARE READING
A Tale of: Ravens, Scythes and Cherry blossoms
General Fiction'All it takes to consult the dead is a pen, some paper, and a secret you've never told anyone else' Hana is the daughter of death, a hereditary position that has existed for as long as mankind has. She lives through each day with the caw of ravens i...
