Nearafter (D.E.A.T.H. bk. 1)

Chapter Seven [Ethan]

Ethan watched Clara because he really didn't have much else to do. She caught him staring and snapped at him.

"What!" she hissed. Ethan looked away.

"Nothing," he said. "I just didn't expect death to be so... I don't know..."

"Horrendously bogged down in bureaucratic bull?" she said, finishing his thoughts with a huff. Ethan nodded.

"I guess. I mean, does my name really have to be in some stupid system before I'm allowed to move on?" he asked. To him, the whole idea just seemed silly.

"Actually, yes," Clara said. "The system isn't imaginary, you know. No one invented it just to make our souls miserable... it just was. A century ago - it was a big book of names. Today, it's electronic, but the system still serves the same purpose," she explained. She slouched in her seat and stared up at the ceiling. "What I don't get, is why I have to wait here with you," she said.

"Oh, it's about you again," Ethan mumbled. She did not seem to hear him.

"You've ruined my entire night," she said. "You know that?" she asked. Still sitting next to her in the waiting room, Ethan shrugged.

"I apologize for having inconvenienced you with my death," he said. "But there's not much you can do in the way of the universe having it out for you."

She rolled her eyes and sucked her teeth.

"Just shut up," she said.

Ethan watched a few more newly-deads pass through the door to the afterlife. Each blinding flash of light, every time that door banged shut behind them, he wondered if they were the unlucky ones.

"So, what now?" he asked Clara. But she still was not speaking to him. He did not much appreciate her acting as if all this were his fault. Ethan's death was inevitable. And as far as everything else- the Department, the system, protocol, whatever- all of it was completely beyond his control. He could no more change the fact that he was dead, any more than he could go back and decide when and where that stupid meteorite would strike.

He decided then to stop dwelling on this nonsense. All of it. He forced himself out of his own head and realized that he had been biting his nails, a habit that had taken Ethan until he was thirteen to break. Now, that old habit was back. He was gnawing on his fingers like he used to, chewing the ghost nails right down to the quick. He must have been nervous.

The waiting room door opened suddenly, and a tall, silver-hair gentleman drifted in like a gust of cold air. Everyone in the room stopped what they were doing. The gatekeeper stood, and the other reapers turned. All the newly-deads, Ethan included, remained lost.

The man must have been in his late seventies, yet he stood and moved like a man in his early twenties. And for all his stiff austerity, he glided more than walked across the room to where Clara and Ethan sat. He wore black, and nothing but. Even his eyes, cold and sunken in a rough, wrinkled face, it was like staring into a pair of black holes. The man was all bones and wrinkled skin, but he held the posture and confidence of a king. Ethan entertained the idea, briefly, that this was Death himself, Founder (incarnate) and CEO of the Department of Expiration for Accidents and Timely Haphazards. Here to meet with Ethan in person and welcome him to the land of the dead.

The man offered Ethan his hand. Ethan took it immediately, graciously. The man exuded an aura of command and Ethan saw what effect he had on the gatekeeper and the other reapers. Absolute respect. The man beamed.

"Taskmaster Aiden Faldo," he said. Ethan half expected a booming voice but his was not. Although his voice was dry and shallow, like a dying man gasping for one more complete breath. Still, Ethan was under some sort of speechless spell. Taskmaster Aiden Faldo smiled and said... "You must be the little rascal that's holding up this operation," he said.