Page 120 of Grim

I say, warning her softly, “Rue.”

Before any of the women can say any more, the herald’s voice rings loudly off the walls of the ballroom. “Souls of the OtherWorld, it is time. Cease your carousing and bring your attention to the center of the room.”

The stillness is absolute. Even the shadows seem to hush. A hundred masked faces pivot as one, all eyes on the herald.

“The Send-Off commences,” he intones. “Make way for Death and the Parade of the Pathetic.”

Rue mumbles, barely audible, “He really does like his alliterations.”

I would smile if not for what I know is coming.

Big D appears at the far side of the room. He drags behind him a massive chain that loops around his broad shoulder like some ceremonial sash—except the sash hisses and groans under its weight. At the end of it, a tangle of grey souls, bound at the limbs, necks, and torsos. Shackled to one another by memories they were never able to release.

They move like ghosts underwater, sluggish and resigned. They know what this is. They’ve seen it before. Some of them have probably watched from the sidelines during past Send-Offs, hoping they would never join the chain.

Big D walks theatrically, like a man headed for the podium at his own award ceremony.

He rounds the crowd and leads his condemned into the clearing. The herald’s hand lifts, gloved fingers stiff, and just like that, every sound in the ballroom dies.

No final note from the quartet. No rustling of gowns or murmured gossip behind masks. No scrape of shoes on marble or glass on tray. Just absence.

Thick, unnatural, and cloying.

The kind of quiet that only arrives when something terrible is about to happen—and everyone knows it.

“Now we await the proclamation and decree from the ruler of Death’s Door, LLC” the herald announces, drawing everyone’s attention to Big D with a flourishing wave of his hand. “The crowd listens for your judgment.”

A tremor moves through Rue’s fingers, which remain locked around my arm, small and trembling and too human for this place. She doesn’t say anything, but I feel the change in her. I feel the stillness coil inside her rib cage, like a spring pulled too tight.

And I know, without looking, that her eyes are on the chain.

Big D stands at the center of the ballroom like a war general surveying a battlefield carved from marble and smoke. Draped over one broad shoulder, a dark tether stretches behind him—shifting, alive, like smoke trapped in glass. It binds the condemned to him like the strings of a marionette. They shuffle after him like well-worn puppets, stumbling forward in jerks and spasms. Some are barefoot, others in the remnants of uniforms or gowns, all greyed out, muted by time and shame. They are spectral shells, each one collapsed in on itself. No longer screaming. Just breathing. Just waiting. Like they already know they are moments from obliteration, and the worst part is not the fear, but the understanding.

They were never going to make it.

Big D clears his throat and delivers the same speech many here have heard countless times before. Rue, however, has not, and she hangs on every word.

“Denizens of Death’s Door, A Limited Liability Corporation …”

His tone is syrupy. “You have failed me.”

Rue’s hand tightens on my forearm so hard it takes me by surprise. She doesn’t look away, doesn’t even blink.

“You have failed our system. Your inability to complete the tasks assigned to you is a direct result of your inability to let go of the past and focus on the present.”

He pauses in front of a small grey woman, hunched beneath the weight of the chain.

“Memories,” Big D spits, “of your former lives—your failures, your regrets, your insignificant longings—have corrupted your thoughts. Distracted you. Kept you tethered to a world that is no longer yours.”

One of the souls falls to their knees. A broken, heaving sound escapes them—low and dry and void of any hope. Another tries to speak, but their mouth moves without sound.

“You crossed over,” he says with sacred reverence. “And a new world opened before you. But you chose to turn around. To remain obsessed with what came before. And for that weakness, for that core-deep failure …”

He spreads his hands.

“We now leave you to The Nothing.”

The silence that follows cracks and splinters. It holds the sound of hearts breaking open and lives ending. A murmur rises—begging, pleading, promises strung together. But they’re too little, too late.