Everyone’s born with one. A reaper, a creature, something decidedly inhuman that inches closer each day, each minute, each second you come closer to death. Some people say that every person’s reaper is individual, unique as everyone’s personal sand timer, a snowflake of death, but it’s pretty hard to prove seeing as you can only see your own reaper. Barely anything is known about the reapers; it’s difficult to study something you can’t even touch.
When you’re born, the reaper is unseen, far away enough that it won’t scare you as a babe until you’re old enough to understand what it actually is. One day, it could suddenly be in front of your face, even though you wouldn’t be able to touch it. You can’t touch your reaper until the day you die; some are soon to say that they can feel the ice cold whispers in their ears, and some are even sooner to die.
The things you do can also affect how quickly your reaper moves. My uncle reluctantly admitted that the day he smoked his first cigarette was the day he saw his reaper move faster than it ever had previously. Some drunk people report that the second they sat in the driver’s seat after a night of drinking, they saw their reaper in the rear view mirror, sat calmly and looking into their humans eyes.
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My father told me, mere days before he died, that my mother, in the long, exhausting months of pregnancy, had confided in him that her reaper was quickly approaching the further along she progressed in bringing me to term. He never spoke much to me, admittedly, and the times he did his tone was cold and hard. I suppose that’s why he hated me so much, you know. I killed my own mother.

Three weeks ago, my reaper disappeared.
I’m not exactly certain what happened. It was never close enough to be in the same room as me, but I had often seen it turning corners, sitting in the cars of people unaware as I sipped coffee from an ancient cup and watching me as I made my way into my car. Until one day, it just... didn’t; it was gone.
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It. When did I start calling my reaper it? My reaped is a he, a him. “They’re not human, they’re literally death, idiot, you shouldn’t personify it,” the voice of a teacher or a friend’s parent flies through my mind and I admit to giving death the power of a name, but when did I start listening to them? When did I lose my reaper’s name?

Names are important here, wherever we are. Tell someone your real name, and they could have complete power over you. They tell their reaper, and suddenly their reaper isn’t after their own human anymore, they’re after you.
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I suppose I spent the first week in denial. You aren’t looking in the right place, is what I told myself. Just because I didn’t see it (him him him) didn’t mean it was gone, did it?
But I didn’t see it (him him him) anywhere, not flitting around corners, not in the cars of stranger’s, not as I shopped or in the vast, dust covered tomes of the library as I searched for the reason of its (his his his) disappearance. But I couldn’t find anything, so I turned, as most in defeat do, to the Internet.
Reaper Disappeared. 
I can’t see my reaper anymore. 
My reaper is gone.
Why can’t I see my reaper?
What’s wrong with me?
I found millions of ar