Salem's Journey

"Salem!"

'Oh god, it must be morning already,' my fuzzy brain attempted to piece itself together at the sound of my dad calling my name.

A loud KNOCK and again, "Salem!" I mumbled something loudly like "mm-UP!" The doorknob turned and the hinges creaked slightly as my father poked his head into my windowless cave of a room. "No you aren't, you're barely half awake, it's time to get up, you start public school today!" The door was now fully open, letting sunlight from the living room blaze into mine.

Dad flicked the light switch on and I was suddenly blinded. I squinted my eyes shut and threw a blanket up over my face. "DAD!" I muffled loudly through the blanket. He simply chuckled at my distress and sat on the bed. "I know it's early but I need to take you to school in twenty minutes or you'll be late for your first class. Come, now, up up!" To enforce his words, he felt the need to shake me and pull the blankets away to my legs.

I lay on my back with my arm over my eyes for shade as I looked at him. "I'm awake, I gotta get changed, go away." "I love you too, Salem," dad replied as he walked out to do whatever he had to before driving me to school.

Now free to sort my thoughts and make sense of what was going on, I remembered the name of the school; Winster High. It would be my first time taking classes from anyone besides my father. One major reason being that when I was young, I had no control of my abilities. The other main reason being that my father is well learned in all subjects up to about grade nine and he was given permission to teach me by his superiors.

Blinking at the light a few more times, I rolled around in the bed to wake my body up more before I got up and changed from my pajamas into some simple day clothes; boxers, socks, jeans, and a grey shirt.

When I went out and walked into the kitchen, I saw my dad finishing up putting some eggs and toast on the table with some orange juice. Next to the table, on the floor, there was a backpack that seemed barely filled. "I put in a binder, some paper, a few pens, a calculator, a ruler, a few notebooks, and a calendar notepad so you should be all set to go." Dad beamed at me. I smiled and thanked him, finally giving him his good morning hug. My leather bracelet's hanging glass bauble caught my eye as I hugged him. "Dad." "Hm?" We separated and he looked down at me, following my gaze to my wrist. "Ah, damnit, we can't get a break,  can we?" I shrugged, still looking at the pulsing green glow of my bauble.

"Salem, eat your breakfast quickly, grab your backpack and wait at the front door." I nodded and grabbed my plate, scarfing down the food and chugging the orange juice before putting the dishes in the sink. I grabbed my new backpack and was walking to the door when the house rumbled slightly.

I put my backpack down by the door while I got my sneakers on.While standing up, there was a sudden sharp pain in my chest. "Gocha, devil spawn." A gruff voice said from behind me. I looked down to see the tip of a blade poking through my body. 'Shit, that hurts,' I thought to myself as I fell to my knees covered in blood. The blade was yanked out, splattering some of the floor with my blood. "Now you can join your father in-," the murderer was cut off by his body falling in half. I could feel the cut in my chest was closing, trying to take back as much blood as it could back into my body. "You okay, Salem?!" my scythe-wielding father shouted as he became corporeal once more.

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I suppose now is a good time as any to explain things, my father's birth name is Vincent Borinson and he goes by Vince, and that's about where his normalcy ends. He's a grim reaper, his job is ferrying souls from here to afterlife. Somehow, he managed to fall in love with a human woman that was born with an incurable disease that often took people by their thirtieth birthday. She was twenty-five when he decided to reveal himself to her.

Long story short, he managed to get her knocked up, nine months later, out comes little ol' me and she died in childbirth at twenty-eight years old. At first, my father had no idea what to do with a half-human, half-reaper baby, but he took responsibility and with some help from some books and a few reaper friends, he managed to raise me in the human world with minor interactions with other people.