Between Life and Death

Memories of a Lifetime Part 3

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Death sat there, staring at the empty space where Life had stood before, trying not to cry to let his emotions show. Only moments before had she been the one crying in his arms, but it was because of his own stupidity that she had stormed off. The wind, which had begun to pick up right after Life left, was strong now, and was causing his clothes to whip at his skin, a makeshift punishment for his selfishness, or so he imagined. He stood up and teleported back home when he realized Life wasn't coming back, and probably never would ever again.

As soon as he set foot on the ground, Truth sprung from nowhere and sang, "How did the date go? Will we have to make wedding plans? Perhaps some doves, maybe even a flower wreath?"

Death shook his head and walked towards his room. Truth, stubborn as she was, followed him.

"Death, what happened? Things were going so great with you and Life, but you don't look too happy. Did you say something stupid?" she said, and Death picked up his pace.

"If you're so curious, why don't you figure out yourself?" Death spat.

Truth rolled her eyes. "Because it would be an invasion of privacy? Obviously," she said, not much different from a teenager.

"Fine," Death said, whirling around to look at her in the face. "She was sad, so I was comforting her, but I said something wrong and drove her away. Happy?" he snapped, and hurt flashed across Truth's eyes, hear head dipping in silent apology and submission.

"Sorry," Death whispered shamefully. "I was upset, but I shouldn't have taken it out on you."

Truth shook her head. "I understand. Maybe I should've been less pushy."

The two stood in an awkward silence for a while, but Truth cleared her throat. "Maybe you should go check on her and apologize for what you said."

"I can't," Death said. "I've just picked up the deaths of a bunch of humans - I should go reap them. We'll talk afterwards." He teleported away to Life's kingdom to reap fallen souls he had sensed.

He found himself in the middle of an eerily quiet town - even the air seemed to stand still. A shiver ran down his spine, but Death shook it off and began to look for the fallen souls. Suddenly, Death sensed much more dead, more souls pulling at him from all directions. Death grit his teeth. Something strange was going on, but he ignored it and carried on. He had a job to do.

The nearest fallen soul was in a house next to him, and when he walked in, he saw a mother and father sobbing at the dead child in their arms, unaware of Death's presence - Life's gift at work. Death walked over to the baby to extract the soul when the mother and father collapsed. He didn't need to check for their pulse to know they were already dead, feeling the newly fallen souls join the many tugging at him. Now he knew for sure that things were off, and after he extracted the family of souls, he went to investigate.

He teleported to the next town over to see if the same thing was going on, and sure enough, it was. People were lying dead in the middle of the street, seemingly asleep. No blood, he thought to himself. Just the most gruesome mass murder seen ever, no evidence to be seen anywhere.

Death extracted the soul of the nearest human, but before letting it go, he asked it some questions. "Hey, mind if I ask you a question?"

That was one. Goodbye.

"Might I kindly remind you that I am the one who decides whether or not you get to live in hell for the rest of eternity," Death said, and the soul seemed to bristle.