Donovan woke up on the cold tile floor of his kitchen with the smell of burnt cookies and his mom freaking out above him. He stood up, grabbing the hands that she was frantically waving all over the place. “It’s ok Mom.” He kissed her on the cheek. Already, she was becoming see-through and fading away. He assumed this was happening to people all over who were being exempt by God from the Apocalypse. “It’s ok.” He repeated. “I just have a job to do and I’ll join you ok?” She was still frantic but he couldn’t even hear her anymore. Outside a horse neighed and Donovan turned toward the source. When he looked back to his mom, she was gone. He stared at the spot she’d been for a while before flicking the hood of his black cloak up.

He didn’t wear armor like the others, just the cloak and black padded riding pants. He grabbed the scythe where it was leaning against the wall, like he’d just left it there a moment ago and was just now coming back to it. When he walked outside, he found Thantos waiting for him with a simple saddle. “Time to get started.”

Donovan swung up into the saddle and held his scythe in one hand off to the side where it wouldn’t cut into Thantos as they rode. The effects of the Apocalypse immediately made itself known. There was chaos everywhere and Donovan reveled in it. Chaos had always made his work easier. People were stupider when things were chaotic and made mistakes he could take advantage of.

A man ran past Donovan and he easily swung his scythe, cutting the man’s head off his body. Donovan watched, intrigued, as the body kept going for a couple more steps before dropping to the asphalt. People screamed who saw the murder, but people were already screaming anyways, so it didn’t make much difference.

It felt strange for Donovan to be killing people like this. He’d always been so careful and made sure no one else knew, but now he could be as open as he wish. A smile twisted his lips as he tapped Thantos’ sides with his heels and killed every person he came in range of, left and right. They were everywhere, like running through a field of flowers.

Donovan was quite enjoying himself. It seemed like there were quite a few people left behind in his town that weren’t worthy of heaven’s pearly gates. He let Thantos lead him where he willed and Donovan killed everyone in sight. One person, a guy who thought he’d try to be a hero and stop Donovan, had snuck around him and now grabbed him, trying to pull him from the saddle. The instant that he touched Donovan he burst into flames, screaming. The nearness of the flames made Donovan instinctively cover his face with his arm. The heat barely affected him though and when he lowered his arm a few moments later all that was left of the man was ash.

Donovan watched him blow away in the wind. Well, that was new. He’d never seen someone burn to death. He could see why Salem had been so obsessed with it. Thantos turned his head to the side to look back at Donovan. Everything alright up there?

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just someone trying to ruin the fun.” Donovan saw someone beyond them that he thought he recognized. “Speaking of people who like to ruin fun…” He pointed out the man running away to Thantos and he galloped ahead of the man, cutting off his escape. He was dressed in a simple button up shirt and tie and his normally clean cut appearance was now dirty and unkempt, but there was no mistaking it. The man was Mr. Yupnir. He looked up at Donovan with a panicked look in his eyes.

Donovan swung his scythe almost carelessly, cutting the man’s legs out from under him before swiping downwards to cut the man in half. “I really, really hated that pop quiz last week. It brought my grade down to a C.” He said to Mr. Yupnir’s corpse.

A sound from above caught his attention and he looked up. It was a news helicopter. Donovan grinned and lifted his scythe up to wave. To his surprise, his scythe seemed to cut everything in front of it, including the helicopter and a few birds that were unlucky enough to be in front of the strike. Their bodies fell to the ground in blood and feathers and the helicopter spiraled out of the sky until it hit the ground with a crash. “Whoops. That’s a new one.”

Donovan could tell he was going to have fun discovering his new powers.