We were never close. I actually barely even knew the man. Only what my dad had told me, ex military, lost a leg in a car accident, filthy rich, single ever since my grandmother passed away.

I used to hate him. Really hate him. I saw the man maybe once or twice in my life, and I don't remember much of it, meaning it didn't matter enough to remember. He's never tried to be a part of my life, never tried to be my grandfather. All I had were mailed birthday cards and some pricy christmas presents.

I moved into a single room apartment when I began college, and really struggled with finances for a while. I remember trying to call him, ask him for help. He never picked up any of those calls. While I know I didn't have any right to any of his money, it still stung a little that I didn't even get the chance to ask. It made me despise him even more.

But alas, here I sit among the maybe dozen others, not including my parents. Shouldn't rich people have a lot of people come to their funeral? I mean the only reason I came is because I got a call last week.

"Your grandfather has died." The deep voice had said on the other end.

I scoffed loudly. "Good riddance."

"You're on his will, but there's a condition." I turned pale at that. I'm on his will? Maybe the old fart really did leave me something, maybe something valuable. Something to get me out of all this debt, maybe he left me his house? His mansion?

"Hello?" The voice spoke again. I coughed. "Sorry excuse me, what did you say?"

"Your grandfather left you something in his will, but there's a condition." He repeated once more.

"What's the condition?" I was getting tipsy, excited. I remember my leg was rappidly tapping the cheap concrete floors of my appartment like it was my 18th birthday and I just got a car.

"You need to come to his funeral."

"What? That's it?" I said out loud before I could think twice.

"Yes." The man said, and the line disconnected. Where would his funeral even be? When? He didn't give me ANY information at all. My phone buzzed with another alert. There was a message from an unknown number, the number that had just called. It contained a date, a time and an address. "Don't be late."

I told my father about it. He said, and I quote: "If we weren't invited, why should we go?" I didn't mention anything about the will to him, I don't think he'd take kind to that, I mean I must've seen that old man maybe once my entire life, and I don't remember it. The only reason why I know how he looks is thanks to the few pictures that used to hang in my parent's home. Last time I checked they've been replaced with my, or my siblings pictures.

I was thanking god for not having to buy a cab to the designated funeral home, it was actually just a walk away from my apartment. Not that I believe god. But sometimes you just thank god, even if you don't believe in him, okay?

The funeral home was quite standard, not something I would have expected from a filthly rich man. But maybe he wanted to return to his roots with his passing. The poor people roots. My grandfather wasn't born rich, although I don't know when, or how he got to that point in his life.

The room that contained his casket was square in shape, about 9 feet tall, maybe 70, no, 80 feet long and wide. The walls were painted a grayed out white color.

The first thing that I noticed were the 4 crosses hanging on each wall, centered perfectly in the middle. The odd thing was, they were upside down. There were no usual pictures of jesus or anything related to christianity.

There were 20 something folding chairs placed in the middle of the room, in 5 rows of 4 each, and maybe more than half were being used at random points.

I looked around, mainly to see if I knew anybody here, maybe some distant uncle or long lost aunt. These people looked anything but normal, a middle aged man was seated at the second to last row of chairs, he wore a black suit and black costume shoes, he had a gray tie and a top hat on top of his very bald head. Fairly normal, yeah? Well if you exclude the weird tattoo's on every single visible part of his skin, then yeah, normal.

Next, I noticed a woman sitting on the second to first row. She wore a black and red dress with simple sneakers, she had long, glowing red hair that were let loose below her shoulders. I would also call her normal, were it not for the two goat-like horns coming out the sides of her head. I could've sworn this was the succubus herself. (And I got even more convinced after seeing her gorgeous face, grey eyes, rose red lips, pointy nose, perfectly alligned eyebrows, and best of all, it didn't even look like she had any make up on. I would have asked her out right then and there, were it not for those two, intimidating looking horns.)

There was this kid too, seated at the very front. He wore blue overalls and dirty, greyed out sneakers, which used to be white. He had messy brown hair that was trimmed on the sides, but most of it was covered by the cowboy like hat that was sitting on top of his head. He looked like a normal farm boy. He really did look normal.

The weirdest of them all, though was this.. thing. It didn't look human, it was covered in hair, fur, whatever. It was tall, taller than the room itself. It was wide too, taking up two chairs at the third row. But the face- Human. Perfectly fucking human, he had lips, he had eyes, he had a nose, normal human skin. I almost just turned around and left. But I just decided to sit next to the boy. Atleast some company in this weird crowd that looked like they came straight from a circus performance.

I politely smiled at anyone that decided to put their judging eyes on me, while making sure to swiftly walk past them as fast as possible. I took an empty seat on the very front row, second to last, the young boy was on my left.

There were a couple of small speakers at the corner of the room, playing some soothing piano.

"How did you know him?" A very low, demonic like voice came from my left.

"Ahhh!" I shouted, startled.

The boy just blinked at me and scratched his chin.

"Oh.. I'm sorry." I was bright red. So they're all a bunch of weirdos after all.

"It's okay." The boy said in his demonic voice, and then smiled. It made me flinch.

"He was my grandpa." I replied to his previous question. His eyes grew wide, full of excitement.

"Really? It's so nice to meet you! My name is Luis!" Do you understand just how unsettling it is to hear a demonic voice be excited? He reached out his small hand. I took it and shook it.

"Nice to meet you Luis, my name is Blanco." He grinned at me.

I wanted to ask him why his voice was like that, I wanted to ask him what was wrong with all the people here, why they looked the way they did, but I couldn't. And I didn't. "How did you know my grandpa?"

"Oh he was my business partner." He blurted out, I flinched again.

A sound of loud footsteps came from the entrance to the room and both me and Luis turned to look. It was a tall man, wearing white robes and a priest like white hat? Is that what you call them? I really don't know. His loud footsteps continued until he reached the open coffin. I noticed that the soothing piano music had stopped playing. The tall man got down on one knee and raised a cross into the air, holding it upside down. "May you burn in hell." He said.

"May you burn in hell" An ocean of voices repeated after him, including Luis. What. The. Fuck?

Was this old man a satanist or something? Why did my dad not warn me about this when I asked him about the funeral? Come to think of it he seemed a little surprised, startled even when I asked. Like he hadn't even known his own father had died.

The tall man stood up again and turned to face us.

His eyes gazed upon all of us until his gaze landed on me, and stayed fixed. His expressionless face turned into something resembling a very unnoticeable half smile. He walked up to me and reached out his hand.

"Mr. Shigoku's grandson, It's very nice to meet you, my name is Ezekieel." I reluctantly took hold of his hand. His grip was tight. Too tight in fact, and he shook my hand for way too long, waaay too long. I almost winced in pain. I think I saw him smile for the briefest of moments.

"We talked on the phone, remember?" Ezekieel said.

"We did?" And then it struck me, his voice matched the deep voice that informed me of the will.

"Oh yeah we did!" I answered my own question, the tall man nodded. He turned back around and began walking to the casket again.

"I shall begin reading the contents of the will." Ezekieel informed us.

I already know Ezekieel will be reading my will, so before we start, I sincerely want to thank you Ezekieel. I also want to thank you all for doing wonderful business with me for all these decades. I can only hope we can meet again in the burning flames of hell.

To Ezekieel, I leave my hellhound. You're the only one I can trust with that good dog. Take good care of him.

To Margaret, I leave my monastery and flower garden, I'm sure you can brew wonderful potions with these new tools.

To August, I leave my organ and severed limb collection. Try not to make frankenstein while I'm dead, ay?

.....

And lastly, to Blanco, I leave my cabin in the woods and all that it entails, ferry coin collection, private note/rule book and all my previous business partners for you to pick right back up.

Ezekieel rolled the paper back up again and made it vanish into thin air, what kind of magic trick is that?

So I got some property and coins? I hope they're worth something, so I didn't come here for nothing.

I glanced at Luis sitting beside me, he was sulking. "What's wrong?" I asked before thinking better of it.

"Luis didn't get anything." The demonic voice responded. I flinched for the fifth time. I need to stop doing that. I didn't really know how to respond to Luis. "You want the ferry coins, or whatever?"

His eyes lit up again. "Really?"

"No." Ezekieel interrupted. "Those coins were left for Mr. Blanco, you know why he'll need them." I just looked up at him, with a confused expression, the question at the tip of my tongue.

"Your grandfather's notebook will explain everything once you receive it." I nodded along. I didn't care about that, I cared about the cabin in the woods, I could sell that. "How about the cabin, and the coins?"

"You'll get those too in due time. You need to study up first, if you want to replace Mr. Shigoku."

Replace him? Replace him how? I didn't sign up for no job, I'm already studying for one.

And what's up with Shigoku? That's not his first, middle or last name. Maybe this is the wrong funeral?

No, he mentioned me by name. But maybe it's a coincidence?

"Blanco?" A demonic voice said beside me, and I flinched.

"Yeah?" I responded, back in the real world, if you can call this real.

"Everyone's leaving." Luis stood up and motioned with his small, child hands to the almost empty seats, I notice Ezekieel talking to the fur man.

"Yeah." I stood up too. "Goodbye Luis." I say, feeling confident that I won't see him again. Luis's overalls catch on fire from the bottom. "Hey! Watch out!" I try to warn him, but the fire spreads fast. "I'll see you!" The demonic voice says, excited, and then Luis burns up, leaving no trace behind. What the hell? yeah, probably hell.

Before I leave Ezekieel handed me a hardcover book. "I thought it was a notebook?"

The tall man scratches his neck. "Yeah.. he wanted it printed out, that old man." I nodded and took the book. It's white-ish grey, besides black letters spelling out "Rulebook."

"So what did my grandpa do for you all, like what did he work as?" I let the curiosity get the better of me and ask. Ezekieel gives me a genuine smile. "To summarize? He collected souls. But he was a jack of all trades by the end of his time."

Collected souls? What the fuck? Yeah, I do say what the fuck a lot. Bite me.

I gulped down my saliva and nodded to Ezekieel as a form of goodbye. I can see the remaining two.. people looking at me with hungry eyes.

"In case you have any questions, just call me." He said as I was already walking out the door.

"I will!" I shouted back at him.

I looked at the book after I got home. It had a lot of different chapters covering a lot of bat shit crazy sounding stuff, starting with "Soul collecting 101", and ending with "How to cheat death." I think I'm going to take my time reading this.

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Part 2