White Orchids {BOOK 1 COMPLETED}

Chapter 5 - (Part 1)

Death stands on the other side with his hands in his pockets. We're in a long hallway and on each sides of the walls there are lamps, they're glowing with the same orange glow like the stone and the gate. They are formed as hexagons with spirals in the middle made out of shining crystals. I can't see the end of the corridor, it's covered in an imposing darkness, but it's not moving the same way as the it did behind the door. In first glance there's nothing odd with it.

     I turn hastily around against the gate and I'm met with a stonewall. I didn't even hear it close. The footsteps of Death echoes out against walls. He walks past me and bends down where the gate once stood, on the ground lays the little, shining stone. He picks it up and puts it into his pocket.

     "This way," he says as he walks past me.

Lamp after lamp lights up on each side of the walls as we walk down the corridor. I make a mistake and look up. I'm met with a layer of grey-black clouds, it covers the entire ceiling and reminds me of the those from a thunderstorm, if a little more smoke-like. Sometimes I can also see footprints, like someone is roaming above us.

     Death walks in front of me, slowly – like he's waiting for me to catch up, but I don't dare to get too close. I keep a few meters between us. I don't know if I can trust him, I don't even know where he's taking me. The stone didn't work. I don't want to spend too much time thinking about what that means.

      A loud sound echoes through the long corridor for every lamp that is lit, it lights up parts that are covered in darkness. Death seems uninterested in the lights and it's not until we reach the end of the corridor that he stops. Next to a gigantic gate stands something I never thought I would see. Death had shown himself as a human, so I hadn't expected to see something that seemed unreal and frankly almost childish. It feels like I stepped into a movie or fairytale.

     It's dressed in what looks like beautiful and fancy noble-clothes from 1700s, they fit well – all too well considering the creature in front of us is made of bones. It has no skin nor flesh. The body is a skeleton of a human, but its head is a skull of an animal, a wolf. The eyes are not hollow and black, they are shining of the same orange glow as the stone and the lights.

     The orange glow in its eyes blackens for a moment. Like it was closing its eyes.

     "Good day, Clover," Wolf-skull says, and the lower jaw is moving while it speaks.

     Clover? Death has a name and it's Clover? It's so inappropriate and out of place that it's almost laughable.

     "Is that a new one?" It asks and points a finger at me.

     How all the bones stay in place without falling apart is a wonder to me.

     "Obviously," Death answers.

     "It's been a while since you had a new one. If I remember correctly, you weren't really fond of it." It laughs. "You said it was annoying and too much work. Blomst said it was good for your... character?"

     I swear I can see it smile even though it doesn't have muscles nor skin.

     Death groans. The creature stands aside and points with its ivory-white hand at the large gate of black stone.

     "They await," it says.

     Death goes forward and knocks, a little hatch opens up and a card is pushed out. When Death gently pry out the paper the gate opens. The same black whirling darkness is hidden on the other side. He gives me the brown card and the only thing on it is a number – two thousand three hundred forty-five – as well as a flower, it's looks like a chamomile.