The Grim Reaper Library. One place Eric didn't enjoy going to even if it meant looking at a human's cinematic record for a job. "Ugh, this is the one place in the Dispatch I absolutely hate going to..." The blonde complained. But the only reason why he decided to go there was because it was to help Alan.

Not only did this library store cinematic records, no that is only one section of it, but it also contained much knowledge of both the Reaper Realm and the Human Realm. The part that most reapers have no need to go to is the second section that stores books other than the cinematic records. The reason for this is that grim reapers, as they mature, obtain more knowledge and have no need to visit research books because they already have the knowledge necessary.

In the second section of the library, each book on it's shelf was covered in a good layer of dust. The dust was thick enough to hide even the title or even the original color of the cover of the book, that's how long these books haven't been touched. It was disgusting. "God, this place is a dump," Eric coughed as he inhaled some of the dust particles, "Someone really needs to clean this place up, even though we don't use it very often it would be nice if we don't suffocate to death." Eric searched the shelves that held all the knowledge in the Reaper Realm. He searched from the simplest things such as the definition of a grim reaper and their physical traits to the more difficult subjects as in the process of becoming a reaper. Twenty minutes past of wiping dust off the spines of each book, one by one, trying to find the right book to give him the knowledge of what he needs and still nothing. Disappointed, Eric was losing his patience with his failure of not finding the correct book.

Another long forty minutes passed, his hands looked pale from all the dust that was collected on them and he had no success in the hour he was looking. Eric gave a depressed sigh. He was about to give up before his thoughts edged him to keep going. 'Keep going. The sooner you find a cure then the sooner Alan will get better.' Encouraging thoughts made him look longer.

One more hour had again passed until he had given up on the reaper section and moved onto the human section. He doubted that there would be anything in here but it was worth giving it a shot. “Damn it! It’s been two hours and I’ve found nothing. God! Why is this so goddamn difficult?!” At this point finding the right book would be impossible. These sections were almost as large as the cinematic record section.

(As you can imagine all the records of everyones’ life… this includes humans, reapers, demons, and any other supernatural creature, in one library… Just think how big that is.)

Eric scanned the shelves carefully. One book away from totally giving up he had uncovered a layer of dust that encased a black covered book’s title labeled The Study of Pathology written by an anonymous author. It caught Eric’s attention. Coincidentally, the book had a label in the bottom right hand corner that read “For Human and Reaper Realms”. He assumed that the book’s author was a grim reaper because of the “universal” grim reaper law that humans do not know of grim reapers until their time of death. Putting that aside he set off his search and decided to sit down and read this thing cover to cover to make sure that there was something about what Alan had acquired. Finding a nearby table along with a chair he sat down, wiped the book clean of dust. This book had more than, what it seemed to Eric was, one thousand pages. He groaned in frustration in the length this was. It would take him all night to finish this and it would probably get him some overtime if it made him late to work if he would to fall asleep reading it.

“Well I’m not going to finish this thing by not reading it.” So he cracked open the book and only to be greeted by more dust flying in his face. “Well that was just lovely.” He spat out, irritated, trying to get those disgusting particles out of his mouth. The book started with “A Hemophilia” and went down the alphabet of diseases. A through B, B to C, and so the book went on describing each disease (mixing each from both realms), what their symptoms are, and how to cure them if possible. The list went on and on. It took Eric a good two hours just to get through to the K section. Four hours, that’s how long he had been in that library. Eric was exhausted. What time was it anyway? The reaper looked at his wrist watch to find the time was to be 12 in the afternoon. “Geez… It feels like it’s later than that…” Eric stood up from the table and paced around a bit to stretch. After a few minutes passed it was back to the book. An hour and a half went by and finally Eric had gotten to the T section of the book. This chapter he paid close attention to. TA to TE, TE to TH, finally. Flipping through the TH section he finally saw on the top of the page in big bold lettering The Thorns of Death. “Finally… Now let’s see what I’m dealing with.” He started to read the description out loud. The gist of the section went something like this: The Thorns of Death is a rare disease in the Reaper Realm and has only surfaced seven times in grim reaper history. Grim reapers and grim reapers only are able to get diagnosed to this disease. What this disease does is it causes pain and or bleeding starting at either the wrists or ankles, and on some rare occasions both. As the stages of this disease worsens black thorn like lines start to appear on surface of the skin. Just as the name of this disease implies the black lines are like thorns that poison the blood stream. With that if the poison were to reach the victim’s heart it would eventually kill them slowly and painfully. Even a grim reaper with the ability of immortality have no way around it. The reason to this is unknown. According to the few research information on this disease there is no definite specific time limit on how long their life will last until their the Thorns with kill them.

The most common symptoms of this disease are bleeding on the all limbs, mostly the wrist and ankles as stated before. As well as violently coughing up blood and random bursts of pain in the heart area if the body is too physically or mentally distressed.

Out of all the times this disease has surfaced there has not been one cure for this rare and fatally disease.

Eric was disappointed and very angered at this answer. It was not the answer he had hoped for. Just when he was about the slam the book shut and put it back on it’s rightful place on the dusty old book shelf he noticed down at the bottom of the page there seemed to be a note handwritten in black ink pen that read: But there is a legend that states that if one was to collect one thousand pure souls, mostly of women or children, then the victim that has been diagnosed is able to be cure. Secret studies on this have been testing with souls that were not meant to be sent to somewhere other than heaven or hell, all of which were of women and children, had made one diagnosed patient’s (their name is not to be said for personal reasons) Thorns fall back farther from their heart area by less than an inch. This of course was the result of only one soul. Research has still not proven this theory of pure souls to be correct, for the patient that was tested had died before the experiment could go farther into the procedure. This however is an urban legend. It still has not been proven as if this was true or not.