Esther's New Life

Esther was a mortal who was alive during WWII, after she dies a kind grim reaper helps decide to allow for her to have a new life as a demon. Warning for Holocaust reference, death reference, slight

Esther was currently feeling warm and safe in something, she thought that it could’ve been a blanket. She was surrounded by roughly woven fabric and boy was it warm. She didn’t like it when she’d be moving, and would be jumbled around. That would happen much too often for her liking. She liked this place a lot, snuggling more into it as time passed.

Of course, her four-year-old mind didn’t quite realize what was happening to her, all she remembered was her mutti hugging her and telling her everything would be okay before she smelt something strange. Something very different than she had ever smelled before and she fell asleep. When she woke up she was here, and she much enjoyed being in this place. It was much better than where she was beforehand, none of the blankets quite felt like this one. Then came the moving again, she frowned as she kept getting tossed about in her spot, she didn’t approve of this very much. And every time she would try to voice this opinion, there was nothing, she couldn’t say anything, but she didn’t think much of that either. Maybe she was sick. Her brother was sick once and he couldn’t talk, maybe she was sick too.

She didn’t expect to hear a loud, baritone voice on the other hand. It made her jump. Esther couldn’t understand what he was saying, it was a new language to her. She did enjoy hearing this voice though, it was soothing, and it sounded like her vati’s voice. But the accent was different. It sounded like the strange men that came to see them earlier in the week.

Another voice would talk, this time of a young girl, and she sounded very concerned. Esther could tell, the same type of concern her mutti had for her and her brother quite often. The male voice would talk again, and then came the moving. She really did not like the moving.

The moving didn’t last long, Esther was happy about that. But as soon as it stopped, she was taken out of her new place. Suddenly, she was out of there, and now she stood on solid ground. She was slightly disoriented from being moved around so much and suddenly found herself on a non-moving surface. Regaining her balance, she turned and saw the man with the baritone voice, her eyes widened when she saw how tall he was. He was much taller than vati. He was speaking to someone in that language, and the more Esther watched him, the more she saw his golden eyes and the more she focused on them. She thought they were pretty, so very pretty. Prettier than anything she ever saw, including her mutti’s jewelry. She was drawn to them and couldn’t help but stare with her green eyes, causing the man to look down at her and blink a couple times.

“Pretty…” She spoke aloud, causing the man to smile a little at her. He had a good smile. She really liked it, not as much as the place she was in, but she liked it. The man would pat her head and she smiled brightly up at him, a single tooth missing from her smile.

There was another voice this time, another man speaking, his voice sounding rough, and when she turned she was startled to see him. One half of him was handsome, looking like any other person she would see, and the other half was heavily scarred. Scars of all types littered his face and trailed down beneath his shirt collar. She reflexively hid behind the man with pretty eyes, grabbing onto his coat and burying her face into it. This other man frightened her, she had never seen someone with as many scars on them as he did.

She heard one of the men sigh, maybe it was the one with the scarred face, it sounded far enough away. “Esther, it’s all right. You don’t have to be afraid.” The man with pretty eyes spoke, she looked up at him, her big eyes watching him carefully as she inched away from him. She looked again to the other man, noticing now how he looked very strange besides the scarring. He had horns on either side of his head, kind of like sheep. She liked sheep. They were fluffy and soft and made funny noises.

“Sheep man scary.” She decided, nodding to her own conclusion. This earned herself a small chuckle from the pretty eyed man. The two men talked a bit more in the other language. She thought adults might do this because they don’t want her to hear. Sometimes her mutti and vati did it when she or her brother were in trouble. She did not like not being able to hear. But soon enough, the sheep man turned to her and spoke: “Esther, my name is Samael. And for the time being this will be your new home.”

She pouted, she did not like that at all, Esther wanted to be at home with mutti and vati and her brother. Not here with sheep man.

“It’ll be okay, you can trust him. Your mother and father wanted you to come here, so that you could live a different life.” The pretty eyed man told her, she kept pouting, her eyes welling up with tears. She didn’t believe that her mutti and vati wanted her to be here. Not with the scary man. Once again, she went back to hiding behind the other man, hiding her face in his coat to try the tears as she sniffled. She just wanted to be with them again, or with her brother because he was bigger than her and stronger. But she was just a little girl. Esther felt the same way she felt when the men took her and her family away, hopeless. She didn’t want to be near the sheep man.

The two men talked more, the pretty eyed man sounding empathetic. She still didn’t know what they were talking about, and she didn’t like it at all. But soon the talking stopped, and she heard the doors to the room open and someone walk in. It was another male voice now, but this one sounded different from the other two. This voice sounded… safe. It was a sweet-sounding voice kind of like a mother, but it wasn’t a woman speaking. “Esther, stop wiping your nose on the man’s coat, okay?”

She would look up, eyes red from crying and see the new man. He looked very different from the two men that she had seen before, with long hair like her mother had and bright teal eyes staring down at her. She liked how he felt, how he felt safe and welcoming.

“Meet Zoltan, he’ll be taking care of you from now on.” Sheep man said as the new man smiled down at her. She let go of the coat she was holding onto and kept staring at him. The new man made a comment and the pretty eyed man laughed a bit. She really liked the pretty eyed man but this new one, she liked him too. Maybe a bit better than the other man.

Esther walked over and looked up at him, almost transfixed on him like a moth to a flame. The man kept smiling down at her, “let’s take you to your new home okay? I know you might not like it right now, but I promise you’ll warm up to it. Okay Esther?”

She nodded, and the man reached his hand out to her, and she took it, feeling his soft hands cover most of hers as he held it. The duo started walking away, she looked back at the pretty eyed man and waved sadly at him before turning around.

“How much do you like the name Esther?” The man asked her, and she made a face at it. She never liked the name, it was a grandma name. All the grandmas she knew had the name Esther. The man, Zoltan as he had been called, laughed looking down at the face she made. “Well then I think a new name is in order… how about Jezebel?”

Author's Note

This is my first time publishing something out of my circle of friends, I'm curious about what everyone thinks about my writing style. I'm open for critiques, I'm just here to have fun and post my stories.