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PROJECT: Lullaby

Okay, is this thing on? No? I’m moving the camera… It’s not working? What do you mean it’s not working, do you know how hard it is for me to get this? What, you said that the audio just works fine but the camera isn’t? Fine… but do you think I should start with… “Yo, this is Death and welcome to my vlog?” The hell do you mean that it’s not a vlog? Fine… fine, I’ll just do it normally. … Hello, this is Death… Yes, that Death but not the one that goes for dogs or visits old ladies or men in their rooms to take them out, which I have to say that I’m not… I don’t do that anymore. But, moving on… since we, as part of the enterprise that screens the dead and basically one of the few core institutions that manage the underworld itself, are alarmed at this current number of deaths we’re having right now, with the virus and all. Thus, as part of the company’s policy, we are here right now to deliver this public service announcement. Like the other institutions that you, humans, have, we strongly advise that you should keep yourself indoors and of course, keep yourselves healthy and wash your hands. In accordance with that, we have assigned a group of talented people to document, compile and rewrite their fellow reaper’s reports for your viewing pleasure. Thus, we would very much proud to show you this collective story, that was rewritten to follow a coherent narrative about our own Reapers, born of you, humans as well, who chose to end their own lives, doing their jobs to help the souls of other people still bound to the earth. This is the Project Lullaby and we sincerely hope that you would enjoy our story and keep yourself at home where you’re safe from the virus, please… like seriously. That is all, thank you.

Vertgren · Kỳ huyễn
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49 Chs

Day 7: 07:41PM

"Ma… Lo…. ok… at m... eeee…"

There he stood motionless, with the sound of a creeping low and continuous growl as though there was a torrent of air still passing through of what remained of his neck. He raised his right leg next — or what it supposed to be, dressed and dripping with a thick white liquid that splattered and made a pool out of the floor as soon as he shifted his weight from his left side to the other, making both his arms sway as if it carried no weight and just hanged by the hair on his shoulders.

He paused once again, now leaning forward to inspect the close yet distant figure of his parents, still oblivious of his presence as he presented his monstrous state before them. Jason groaned once more with his voice, still as soft as a whisper despite Mary not knowing where it was coming from. Nevertheless, after a moment, he fell silent, slowly pressing his bloodied feet about an inch forward, and looking as if he was doing his best to gaze through his family with his flesh bag of a head that neither carried his eyes or at least its sockets.

What followed was an awkward time of tranquility that lead up to the sight of him raising his hand to touch his face, followed by a sudden jolt of his body as if it just realized what had happened.

"Jason, stop it. You're already done, it's time to go." Mary stepped in to place her hand over his shoulder with her voice sounding monotonous despite it feeling like it came out of her gritting teeth.

"N… ooOooo, JUst… LoOok ahhhhhT, mE… eeEEeee," Jason replied with his palms crawling through the curves of his face until it paused, finding a soft spot on his head where his right eye was supposed to be.

Without another word or any shred of attention towards the gloved hand that was supposed to stop him, he let out another sound, forcing his stomach to push out some air towards his throat. It brought up a noise that barely resembled a slow, broken and a ghastly laugh as he forced his hand little by little into his head to make a hole.

"You…" Mary muttered, stepping back in disgust as he watched him do it the second time around.

She failed to find the words or the energy to stop him as he squeezed his whole dripping left hand into his face that looked like a cluster of meaty gelatins held together by an ample amount of thick white glue that seemed like tears leaking out of his newly made eye sockets. He didn't stop there. Jason lifted his deformed arm and pressed it against his shoulders as a simple attempt, just a powerless suggestion that she should not run away and once he got her attention, he looked at her as he buried his fingers deep into his cheeks and after a pause, with her eyes now locked onto his, he dragged it to the side so he could rip himself a new smile.

Then, after a moment of Mary still fishing for words around her tongue, Jason, with a streak of white liquid streaming down from what was supposed to be his mouth, whispered, "Do… I LOook… HAnDsomE… whAt… whaT dO I LoOk LIkE?"

Mary sighed behind her mask as she pulled herself away from him. "A big bother, now stop giving me some extra work and die already, you piece of shit."

He froze for a minute like his clock stopped ticking before he tilted his head and turned it towards his parents gazing through him. "MaAAaaa… LoOok aT mE… STilllll hEReee…"

Meeting their indifference and unfair insensitivity, he raised his left hand and clenched his fist slowly. He leaned forward, looking to throw them a punch but even before his fist could touch their ethereal figure, his arm fell apart.

"Aaaaa…. Aaaaaa.... maaaaaaaaaaaa…." he groaned soon after.

Seemingly hoping that their gaze would soon fall to him, he raised his left leg that too fell apart, causing him to fall to the ground with a thud, making up a huge splatter that summoned another white pool that blotted the cold and broken concrete floor beneath him.

He looked back at her as with his current makeshift and disfigured smile and as a response, Mary took out her kitchen knife and dropped it like an anvil towards his spine, making it pierce through his flesh and nailing him to where he was.

"Don't you dare, not when I just spent three goddamn days listening to you talk. Just give up and die already," she raised her voice, stepping onto the handle of the knife to make it sink deeper into his back.

"Maaa… maaa…" He cried, forcing out a sound that made his whole head bleed.

Right then, he raised his upper body, making himself two disfigured arms as he strained his back and using it as an anchor to drag his body forward, even if it ended with him ripping his torso away from his hips. He moved on with his soft groan slowly turning guttural as he moved bit by bit, setting his eyes on the prize guised under the touch of his mother's leg.

"Son, are you here?" the dad then spoke, with his voice hurried and almost breaking as he felt a moment of coldness running through their feet.

Jason stopped once again, letting his wet body fall to the ground to rest before raising it a moment later to look where that voice came from.

"You can't even remember them anymore," Mary said, pulling her knife from his lower back before stepping to his side. "You've already bled your memories out, just look at the mess you've made! Give up, just go and fade away, save me from the trouble of hacking your pathetic, deprived, and sorry little ass over and over again so you just could pass on, please."

"I think he's around, dear," his mom replied, resting her head over her husband's chest once again.

"It's okay son, I'll take care of your mom... Just go, we'll be fine."

"N...ooo…" Jason squirmed with his head retreating back from their distant gaze.

"Bye, son…"

"Noo...oo," he followed as his head sank into the white pool of his own reaped memories.

"Bye, dear..."

With a moment of silence along with the sense of their voice reverberating through his head while still fading at each cycle, as through groaning, he slowly let out a broken and defeated cry, feeling that his chest was being torn open.

Then, his body turned black. It started like a shadow, covering the pieces of minced flesh that made up his disfigured limbs before it melded into the floor that soon swallowed the space that surrounded his coffin. Everything turned cold to the point that even the living started to panic. The darkness slowly took its shape into a scape that seemingly made Mary stand in vast fields of fingers sticking out like grass and with hands acting out like flowers in full bloom beneath the moonlight, sitting just below the wide space of stars of blinking eyes of all shapes and sizes that gathers into a single eyeball gazing at her as if it was the moon itself. An ironic hellscape that gave her a sense of, at least, a majestic feeling of freedom sugarcoated by the emotion of wonder, reeking with a rotten smell of flesh that made her choke.

"Look at me reaper," he then said as his words echoed, still bearing the tone of his voice that now seemed ominous and conceited. "Tell me what I am."

Mary, who seemed unfazed, let out a sigh as she stepped forward, cracking a few bones beneath her feet as she declared, "Am now, you attention-seeking son-of-a-bitch."

Hello, this is Death, and this our Public Service Announcement…

I have heard that some of you, humans, have found some possible ways of curing the virus and it is worth celebrating, indeed… that’s great… that’s great. I am very happy that humanity is fighting back so here I am once again, asking you to keep yourself safe and not make things worse for your community.

But going back on the subject of our PSA yesterday, I would like to stress the point that the humans who died and could not pass on would continue to be bound on the earth through their memories and that’s why the reapers are there. They’ve been tasked to reap the memories that keep them from passing on and you could certainly say that… well… our men… are getting creative… and bored.

I assure you that most of them are not like this, honestly.

That is all, thank you.

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