Halfway through the ether, a message scorched across the atoms that comprised all life. A personal, vindictive message from Time. It solidified the trifecta of women who loathed Ash.

Instead of humiliating yourself before your coworkers, and instead of streaking across the cosmos for a romp with two idiots, descend on Anthem Bell, Texas. Your harvest expectancies will update in the ether as always.

I’m placing a great deal of consideration in you after your actions at the Concourse, Ashen. Do not falter like so many before you.

--Time

Traversing the ether was like splitting several atoms in rapid succession. One wrong slice and Ash might find himself in a different plain, in a different universe, in a home long abandoned. Atoms terrified mortals. The material that bound everything in the known world, able to destroy them all in the hands of their fellow man.

Maybe Time should’ve named a reaper Atom. Traveling to the mortal plain occurred in such a ludicrous way that no mortal mind had the ability to comprehend. It was one of the many, many reasons that Time’s paranoia about the mortals was unfounded. They lacked the capacity to ever reach Borea, unless a reaper was carrying the person’s essence in a suit.

Time and space shattered with each snap of Ash’s fingers. Rainbow dust sprayed his grimly garb.

Emerging on the other side, a harvest quota appeared in the fissioned colors filtering through crystals that lined Ash’s eye sockets.

Return with 231. May you reap the harvest.

Ash stopped cold before both feet hit the slate floor: Lockers and bodies and the sudden, unnerving sensation of stepping into a job that you're ill-prepared for. He was overwhelmed by the abnormal stench of hay and wet grass.

His nose said he was on a farm; his eyes painted a school.

Amateur artwork and exemplary penmanship smattered the few openings between aluminum doors. No blood. Only a few signs of struggle. A much larger, aged teacher had hit the floor running. A brown jar marked ‘ammonia’ glinted in his rigored hands.

Ash brought forth his obsidian maul like clockwork; the swoop to his hip, a soft snap as the clasp popped free, the excruciating twist of the hammer freeing from its sheath.

Decay pantomimed behind him, careful to not touch the dead. Awful things happened when reapers meddled with corpses.

“Two-hundred? Is this what Sol wanted of Song? A massacre?” Ash spat.

In Decay’s silence, thunder rolled.

Forced, Ash looked back.

Decay said “That was a shooting in Missouri.”

“And we’re in?”

“Texas. Phosgene in the ventilation. A lone madman broke into a stockpile and went dormant for five years. He waited for a sign. Received a shining beacon from talk radio, as far too many mortals believe in.”

"That explains the cut grass. This work is best for your kind. The Grand Reapers. Why's Sol asking this of me? Give me the cab crashes, the shower slips, not this."

“It’s not your place to decide what Time gives you. The modern American killer can’t resist the urge to present us with a shopping spree. Your obligation is to the harvest, Ashen. Now harvest.”