The sea was a vast, breathing darkness under the twilight sky. Waves crashed against the shore with a rhythmic fury, their roar filling the silence Kathy had brought from the funeral. She parked the Jeep on the cliff overlooking the water and carried the urn down to the beach, her footsteps slow and heavy in the wet sand.
This was where she and Grandma had always come. It was their place—where secrets were shared, dreams confided, and countless evenings were spent watching the sun sink into the water. Now, she was here to say goodbye.
Raven watched from a distance, manifesting soundlessly between the shadows of two large boulders. The wind tugged at his hair and coat, but he paid it no mind. His attention was wholly focused on the young woman kneeling on the sand.
She opened two bottles of beer, carefully placing one next to the urn. "To you, Grandma," she whispered, her voice nearly swallowed by the wind and waves. "I remember the first time you let me taste your beer. I thought it was so bitter. You just laughed and said I'd learn to appreciate it someday."
She began to talk—softly at first, then with growing urgency. She talked about memories, regrets, fears for the future. She laughed, though tears still refused to fall, and she drank the beer as if it could wash the pain away. Raven listened, motionless. He had witnessed countless human rituals of grief, but this felt different. It was rawer, more intimate, deeply personal.
As the last light vanished from the sky, Kathy's words slowed. She set down the last empty bottle with an unsteady hand. For a long time, she simply sat there, holding the urn tightly to her chest as if it were a living thing. Then, slowly, she stood up.
Raven assumed she would scatter the ashes into the sea. Humans often did. But she didn't. Instead, she clutched the urn tighter and walked with purpose into the water.
His cool detachment shattered instantly. He understood her intention at once. She wasn't here to say goodbye. She was here to join her grandmother.
No. The thought was sharp and startling. He was a Reaper. He did not intervene. He did not save lives. That was not his purpose. You are Death, not a guardian angel, a cold voice reminded him. His duty was to observe, to collect, to maintain the balance—not to interfere with human choices.
But as the waves swallowed her waist, then her chest, he felt an emotion he hadn't known for centuries: panic.
He saw her take one last breath before the water took her under. Without thought, he lifted his hand. Ancient, invisible power flowed from him. The sea responded to his will, the currents shifting. Gently but irresistibly, the waves pushed her limp body and the urn back to shore, depositing them on the wet sand.
In a heartbeat, he was at her side. She was unconscious, her skin pale and cold. He could feel her life force flickering, a fragile flame in the wind. He reached out, ready to use his energy to rekindle her soul—a simple act for him.
But then, her eyes fluttered open. Hazy and half-aware, they focused on him. He froze. He could not reveal his nature. Mortals were not meant to know of his kind.
Thinking fast, he withdrew his power and did the only thing that seemed within human capability in that moment: he bent down, covered her lips with his own, and breathed air into her lungs.
The sensation hit him like a current. For three hundred years, he had known only the chill of death, the silence of souls. This was warmth. This was life. Her lips were soft, tasting of sea salt, beer, and something uniquely her. It was overwhelming. It was… beautiful.
He drew back, beginning human CPR, his movements precise yet utterly alien. Here he was, a being who could command life and death with a thought, kneeling in the sand, mimicking mortal efforts to save a life.
She coughed, seawater spilling from her lips. Her breathing evened out. Her eyes cleared, and she looked at him—confused, vulnerable, but alive.
"You…" she rasped, her voice raw. "Who are you?"
The waves continued their tireless assault on the beach, but to Raven, the world's sound seemed to vanish, leaving only the faint, steady rhythm of her breathing and the hum of something long dormant stirring awake within him. Her eyes, in the faint starlight, were a deep, water-logged color, filled with the confusion of survival, bone-deep sorrow, and pure, unadulterated bewilderment at his sudden presence.
How could he answer? 'I am Raven, a Reaper, who just considered guiding your soul but accidentally saved you'? That wouldn't do. He couldn't fabricate a plausible lie explaining his presence on this desolate beach at the exact moment she needed saving. Three centuries of observation had made him an expert on human behavior, but active participation and deception were… rusty.
Instinctively, he snapped his fingers, willing Kathy into a smooth, deep sleep…
Moving with an urgency that felt foreign, he shrugged off his own black suit jacket—which, in reality, bore no trace of rain or sea—and draped it awkwardly around Kathy's shoulders. He gathered her limp form into his arms. Again, that wave of life's warmth hit him, faint but undeniable, a stark contrast to his inherent coldness that made him want to let go immediately. But he held fast. She needs to get home. Now.
He looked towards the Jeep, then back at the sleeping woman in his arms. The urn lay nearby in the sand. The night was far from over, and he had just irrevocably broken the most fundamental rule of his existence. For a reason he could not, and perhaps did not want to, understand.