He was suppose to be the joy to bring the family together. Instead, he brought pain and misery. His mother, being kicked out of her family for eloping with his father, ended up being a failed, alcoholic woman. His father turned into a cold, mean beast of a man. When something went wrong, it was his son to blame. He got a good beating and yelling every night.

Soon enough, he had cocooned his life with pain. He was not liked by any of his peers and he didn’t like them in return. Most were scared of the boy. He was just a bit bigger and far more intelligent than anyone of his classmates. He’d be reading philosophy novels by Plato or Aristotle while the others would be playing football. He’d do math equations just to challenge his knowledge as the other boys would be too busy picking their noses to understand a simple division problem.

They feared him because he was different. Just the very sight of him made you know he was a freak of nature. He was a handsome boy, as if carved by angels. Everything was beautifully sculpted in great, harmonic unison. His eyes were of a rich, sapphire blue with an evil stare that ruined his good natured look. Missy Lovett believed there was more good in his traumatized soul lying behind his icy stare.

Missy, being so sweet and kind with her big, brown eyes and perfect gold locks of hair adding a beaming smile to make her a masterpiece, had asked the boy, who had developed into a young adult in the teenage years, to accompany her simply on a walk home. The boy was so aghast just to even be acknowledged by someone of his own years, had replied,

“It’d be my pleasure.”

Most were shocked to see the daughter of the most respected family walking with such filth and scum as the boy. Missy, living on a private lane through a woods, never walked home. A girl with so much wealth walking home would just be yelling for danger. So, walking on the foggy lane through the thick woods, Missy was terrified. She knew what dangerous crooks lied within the quiet, sullen woods, and she wasn’t all too sure about the boy, either.

Though this monstrous boy had some charm whirling around his black hole of a heart. He could never be so vulgar to a woman. Gently, he grabbed her by the crook of her arm to assure her that everything was safe. She was, after all, the only person to show some decency to him. He could at least do the same in return. They made it safely to her home without any trouble or harm done.

“Thank you,” she said and planted a kiss on his cheek. Giggling, she scurried up the steps into her house.

The boy turned around with the faintest of smiles on his face. Walking into the fog, he heard hooves beating behind him. He turned to see a dark figure in all black with a hooded cape on a black horse standing in the middle of the lane. The figure got off its horse and stomped its way over in its ghastly boots. The boy did not move as other might have for looking at Death near them.

“What?” asked the boy. “I get decent amount of happiness and then you come for me?”

Death took down his hood to reveal beautifully carved face with an icy stare like the boy’s.

“Such a horrible monster like you doesn’t deserve to be happy. You shouldn’t even be alive,” said Death in an icy voice.

Death was fragile. He could come at any time and yet you could overcome him. Most didn’t know Death was like that. The boy did. He slightly kicked him and Death turned to dust. Though then the boy found himself in black boots, a black shirt, and black pants with a hooded cape. Who else but a horrible boy could be but a horrible thing like Death. The boy, living a grim life would be none other than the Grim Reaper. The boy now knew what was to be of himself. He’d ride on his black horse and bring misery as he did before. The boy learned that, yes, Death was fragile, but Death would always be there.