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M'kay, there's this story I've been pulling together for a little while now and I wanted to get some feedback for my peers. This is not a fanfiction, so I can't find a good place to post in on ff.net, y'know?

So, if you wish, you can leave some comments below. Be rough, be picky, be technical, but I also expect constructive and relevant.
( Meaning, say you like it for its structure or something, not because your pet started to rub its face all over the computer screen... Damn cat. >.< )

Enjoy!
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She could feel nothing. Not the wind on her back, not the dry, compacted dirt beneath her dirty, worn tennis shoes nor the heat of the sun on her face or its glare with her dark blue eyes, navy like the aura of the moon against the night sky.

In the distance, she could hear the sounds of painful moans and cries of anger and sadness as heaps of smoke rose from the buildings and roads of the city: the effects of a suicide bombing in a crowded intersection.

Running further from the site, two mist-white silhouettes of men argued, kicking up sand and sputtering in their native gibberish as they replied to each other with growing hostility, wondering why they did not receive what they were promised when they agreed to destroy their bodies along with other people’s lives and exclaiming that they had failed to kill all of the nearby militia and citizens.

She walked up towards them with a mix of expressions between disappointment and boredom shown with a small sigh, letting her head fall slightly to one side and rolled her eyes upward. This event has happened much more often as of late.

Alarmed at seeing her and her outfit, loose-fitting dress pants, a black-and-white long-sleeved shirt, tennis shoes and comfortable black polyester beret, they decided to charge at her, but stopped when they noticed a large scythe in her hands and sudden grim expression on her face, eyes glowering, sending a strange chill through their spirits, stopping their movement. All they could do was stare with their eyes open wide in fear and awe.

“What is your creed?” she asked the first soul, who whimpered at the scythe’s gleam.

“Don’t worry about this,” she eyed the weapon and set it behind her, waiting for his answer.

“You speak our language? You look nothing like us.” He stammered, taken aback at her overall image.

“I look like what I want to. Language has no boundaries here. What is your religion? What are your beliefs? Come now, you’ve just killed yourselves whilst trying to kill others. Why?”

“We did this work in the name of our God!” spouted the other one, shorter than the first, but much feistier, “We demand what we gave up our lives for: the grace and appreciation of our God and the presence of virgins!”

“This is what we died for!” the other one interjected.

She raised her eyebrow at the expression made from the two and replied, “Well, seeing as you’ve done such a great service to your deity, I’m sure… He appreciates it.” She frowned for only a second and showed a sly, toothy smile, “But, tell me… How many dead virgins do you know of? Even more particular, how many would be willing to be at your… service?” she sneered and leaned on her scythe, waiting skeptically.

The two souls looked at each other and back at the young girl; clearly, neither of them knew what the answer was or what she meant by dead virgins.

“Er, no… The virgins should not be dead…” the first one shook his head in puzzlement.

“But that’s what you are, my good man. How can your God possibly create virgins out of thin air for you, though, if there are so many of you bombing yourselves off the living plane? To receive virgins, they’d have to be born, live for about 15 to 18 years and then have them meet a tragic death, like the explosion you’ve created back there, for instance. Soon after the women pass over, they will most likely meet either my comrades or me and they would choose where they would spend the rest of eternity depending on the actions they have taken in their short life. I honestly doubt that any of them would be willing to spend the rest of eternity with… such men of your caliber. You don’t deserve those, anyways. You’ll most likely be off doing bigger and better things…” She waved her hand back and forth for greater effect.

“Not virgins…from there… We don’t understand…” they both looked behind them and pointed, thoroughly confused and denying the words coming from her mouth.

“You want women from other countries? Women who aren’t in the same existential plane? You’re not being very specific, I’m afraid. But I’m sure your God will figure something out. After all, you two must have done him a great favor because he says he’s giving you paradise in the form of women. I must say that your religions’ process is not very rational. Most religions would find your act as hateful, which is intolerable for them, and would send you to their version of eternal suffering and yet, your God praises you for that which is hateful... Interesting.”

She tilted her head in thought, muttering a few words to herself, shrugged after a while and stabbed her scythe through the earth and ripped open the ground to open a large swirling mix of different shades of white below the two fearful men, a dimensional portal leading to the beyond.

“This will send you to where you belong in your God’s eye. I do not know where you will end up, or if either of you will achieve what you say you desire. But, one thing is for sure. You’ll not be staying here.” Her last words echoed through the air, lifting the two of them off of their feet, letting them fall through the white eddy, their form dissolving, blending into the brightness and before the portal closed, she could hear deafening screams multiplied by the echo on the other side.

“Poor guys. They’ve probably stumbled upon a hundred thousand harlots. That sounds truer than dead virgins; I’ve come across many more…” She walked toward the small city with her scythe propped on her shoulder, taking her time, since Time itself has no business to agitate her like it did the other six reapers. All of them rushing about and giving off that faint stench in the air when they come to collect a soul… No wonder people feared them. Nobody wants that smell in their home.

She hummed ennui as she strolled through the marketplace, hearing the sirens whir and blare into the ears of the wounded victims and found a group of people standing at one corner, confused and wailing for their friends and family crying over their dead bodies – more souls that would be sent to a dimension which she would never enter.

If it was her job to send souls to places, why couldn’t she go into those places? Maybe she had too much work to do here… Oh what a day that will be when she can snuggle with fluffy down pillows for a decade or two!

Ever since the Dark Ages, when she was created, the death toll has been growing more rapidly for many different reasons, partly because there are more successful births than successful deaths each day, partly because the deaths affect many others to where an odd chain reaction pops up: suicides, homicides, infanticides, death by train wreck, death by strangulation, but only a few deaths by nature. Floods, lightning storms, other natural disasters…. Not even half of the people that die per day end up satisfied with life by living to a ripe old age.

Sighing heaviliy, an unnoticed woman hidden between a damaged car and a flipped table caught Alcyone’s eye and she stepped over to her.

She looked down into one injured woman’s dark eyes, around thirty years old wearing a silk purple cloth over her mouth and nose, keeping dust away. She moaned less than the rest of them, who breathed deeper even though she had a few broken bones to deal with along with a thin stream of blood pouring from her head.

“Aren’t you a tough old bird! Maybe you will make it… Here they come!” Several paramedics rushed to her and gently lay her on the stretcher before jogging to the ambulance out of sight.

“Alcyone! Over here!” a sharp voice echoed through the scene.

She raised her head to target the voice calling her and found a moving shadowy figure–her fellow reaper sibling. She smiled after seeing him hurrying over to her, nearly tripping over his robes and seeing his scythe flash back and forth in the sunlight.

His panting became audible as he stopped in front of her, and she laughed with such joy as a child would when they find a new puppy on Christmas morning. Her laughter also sounded comical from the contrast of their height, she long and slender and he, short and slightly round.

“Fellow Albireo! I hope you are well this day!” she smiled a toothy grin at him.

“And with you,” he replied, “What took you so long, though? I had to take care of everyone here! I thought you were going to do something rash by taking someone alive!”

“Oh, no, no. I was only curious about her. I do hope she turns out alright… I took care of the two perpetrators outside the walls. It seems they, too, served a God that rewarded destruction amongst fellow humans.”

“Oooh! So, out of all that trouble they have to give us more to clean up! I feel like a janitor, cleaning souls up and tossing them into a garbage hole, instead of a guide! Isn’t that what our job is supposed to be, guiding? I mean, if we got rid of all these hateful murderous souls, then we might even get a vacation! A day that nobody would die!” he flared his nostrils in disgust.

She pressed her palms together in glee and squeezed her eyes shut and talking as though she were dazed, “A day when there would be no passing… Boy, what I could do with that time! Snuggle up with some pillows and take a long nap, maybe go and do some fun human things! Learn to swim from dolphins, go on an expedition to find out how to create a garden of honeysuckle and blackberries! From scratch! Maybe try one of those interesting pastries from Lebanon or France! Oohwee!”

“Alcyone…? Are you alright?” he poked at her for emphasis and Alcyone snapped out of her dream state and continued.

“But I guess that’s what we are striving for. Some people who die have indirectly committed a wrong to others. Perhaps Time will reward us with a vacation worth cherishing, for sure!”

He sighed and walked along with her, his intensity building around himself. She remained oblivious as they calmly stepped into a small shop decimated by the blast shown with shattered glass, toppled equipment, misty smoke everywhere and three bloody bodies slumped over each other, glass sticking out of them like needles on a fleshy cactus.

“Well, these faces look familiar,” Alcyone picked up one of their heads, resembling the ill-tempered man and found the taller person under him.

“I took care of the third. He was just standing here, dumbfounded, but sounded nothing like a bomber. More like a victim.”

“So, now, they’ll just be packed up with the other bodies?”

“Oh, there’s bound to be investigation and whatnot, but the truth doesn’t get out until either it’s too late or it doesn’t matter. You know how that goes, Alcyone.”

She sighed because he was right. They could do nothing to show that they had caused the bombing and caused more deaths than usual that day.

Alcyone looked out the window into the street and noticed the blare of sirens had stopped, there was no moaning, no gut-wrenching cries, just investigators and policemen muttering and the unrolling streak of yellow police tape.

“Well, our job is done here.” Albireo raised his scythe and tapped the ground with Alcyone mimicking him and they faded from the troubled scene.
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