Courte nouvelle entièrement en anglais comportant un mystère insoupçonné.
The smoke was thick and suffocating, and consequently the air was almost unbreathable. A real atmosphere of death filled the rooms, the temperature was unstable, you could still feel the heat from the explosion, but mixed with the cold from the astronomical number of corpses in the main room.
 I must admit that in all my career as an ambulance driver I had never seen such an ordeal, it was hellish. I don't remember exactly what happened, I just remember that a terrorist attack had taken place at the opera house and that my team had been called in urgently to intervene. It just so happens that we were the first responders to arrive on the scene. I couldn't tell what time it was at that moment, I didn't have my watch on my wrist, I think I forgot it when I suddenly started my shift. Back to the point: surprisingly my colleagues were not waiting for my instructions this time, they immediately got to work looking for potential survivors in this infamous mass of nameless chaos.
Strangely enough, for my part, I just stood there, in the middle of what was left of the seats of the opera hall, totally out of phase, having difficulty making the difference between the screams of the injured, the calls for help, the objects whose flames were finally devouring the material, the storm of dust and ashes that was gravitating on all sides, and also the messages of my fellow paramedics. No, I remained static, without doing anything, as if I was stunned, as if I too, had experienced the whole scene of this macabre and confusing attack. It was a very strange feeling…
I finally decided to act, and while moving in this room of which I could only distinguish dark silhouettes in a thick fog just as dark, I came to approach a young man that I did not seem to know. As I said, It was complicated to distinguish anything in this tenebrous mist, but I still managed to visually study this character: he had rather short hair, as black as the twilight, just like his eyes, two circles containing a mass of opaque shadows. He was quite skinny, but not anorexic of course. I don't really know if it was because of the context, but his skin was terribly pale, almost surrealistically white. He was passing between the lifeless bodies, with a notebook, on which he was writing crosses while examining these same lifeless bodies. He was probably counting the bodies, to estimate the number of victims of the incident, that's also one of our jobs as medics, so nothing very surprising. As I get within range, I call out to him. Turning around, you'd think he'd just seen a ghost. This poor kid, considering his age he must be a rookie, he was unlucky to have to take his first steps in such a quagmire.
Hey, you, I'm not sure I know you, what's your name again? I asked
Uh... Tobias... Tobias Grimsley sir... He replied, still in shock as he stared at me
Hm, I'm not sure I've ever seen you before. You just got here this morning, didn't you? I'm sorry you have to go through this on your first day in our ranks.
This young Tobias nodded his head slightly. However, he continued to look at me insistently, I am probably repeating myself, but I pity him very much for having to attend this show... Speaking of shows, turning my head slightly to the right, I managed to distinguish (still as awkwardly) the stage of the opera house, whose once long and imposing curtains had been reduced to nothing but the remains of burnt fabric. It's really sad what has happened here. I used to come here often with my wife and children to see various plays. We always came out with satisfaction. If I'm not mistaken, this very evening, before the attack, a troupe was performing a brand new theater play, quite philosophical and advocating the beauty of human freedom. I had hesitated to take my family there, and I guess I was right not to, we would have suffered the same fate…
I decided to go back to work right away. One of my colleagues passed by me very quickly, having spotted an injured person. I gave him a directive but he didn't seem to hear me, surely too concentrated in his task after all. As I watched the surroundings, I saw a kind of golden light sparkling under some rubble. I approached, followed at a distance by Tobias, without really knowing why, but it didn't matter. Once I got to a decent distance, I saw what seemed to be a watch hanging on the wrist of a dead person. What a surprise when I saw that it was exactly the same model as mine! When I looked up... I saw... my body... my wife's... and my children's.Â
Young Tobias Grimsley approached me, somewhat embarrassed, and put his hand on my shoulder. I felt a biting cold run through my entire body. The last words I could hear were spoken by this Tobias:Â
"I am terribly sorry, it happens sometimes that human beings do not manage to reach the afterlife immediately after their death. You can finally rest, sir, your soul can go to heaven calmly now."
And then I felt..… Nothing. Absolutely nothing except… quietness and peace of mind.
He was actually the grim reaper, taking souls of the deceased victims of the attack to the afterlife.Â
And it seems I was... one of them…