OC Kiss Challenge 2026 | Day 7 - Blush

i did it! i completed a writing challenge for the first time in years! (late but who cares tbh). our last kiss comes from Reaper, another wip of mine on the backburner...for now...

length: 225 words

​warnings: implied past child death

↳ in which Reaper is a psychopomp with no name or history who breaks the terms of her duty. She refuses to send the boy-ghost Tamlin Onwards—and now something hungry has broken through the Veil and is hunting them both...

A ghost is a displacement. It's alive because it thinks it is or wants to be, and it's dead because it's not, and so it's trapped in between—dead and not. Body and spirit. Hollow and full.

But this ghost is ready to go on. This ghost is full of sorrow and fear; it had gotten lost in its own wanting to be free, to be safe.

Reaper kneels. Summons her scythe.

Will it hurt? the ghost asks, tremulous.

No.
​
Will I see my mama?

Yes. This is a lie, for Reaper does not know. She sends ghosts Onward, but she has never gone herself. She does not know what lies beyond the Veil; she is a tool, not a ferry.

The ghost wavers, uncertain and frightened, and then holds out its hand. Reaper, slowly, takes it and slices through the fabric of the world, opening a tear in the Veil. For a moment, the blurred face of the ghost resolves into that of a child's, chubby-cheeked and big-eyed.

Thank you, it tells her, and blows her a kiss before it drifts through and On, reaching out to something or someone on the other side, leaving nothing but the echo of a whisper of a laugh behind.

It did not look back. If it had, it might have seen a blush of silver on Reaper's colourless face.