The Flood

Death pulled the keys to his little country home out of his robes, and opened his door.

It squeaked.

He glared at the hinges. He had just oiled them. He opened and closed the door a few times, listening to the squeak.

He sighed and closed the door.

Death rested his enormous scythe on the hat rack, and pulled back his hood to reveal his pearl white skull. He stared for a moment at the scythe.

Today he had taken a young man from his family. The man had died quite peacefully, surrounded by his loved ones. They wept as he was taken away to whatever awaits him.

The man had been very understanding, and very amiable.

Death's bony hand clenched into a fist.

He shouldn't have had to be.

His fingers relaxed and he took a deep breath, exhaled as a stream of cold air. He tried to exhale the memory.

It almost worked.

Death cast another angry glance over his shoulder at the hinges of his front door, and made his way to the kitchen.

He carefully selected his ingredients from the refrigerator, laying them out on the counter just so. And with practiced precision he crafted himself a fine sandwich. Just as he was putting the last ingredient away, the phone rang.

His head snapped up, and his eyes locked on the ancient black phone in the corner of the kitchen. The two brass bells on the wall unit rang sharply, pulsing again and again. He glared at the brass trimmed handle, willing it to stop.

But it didn't.

It would never stop.

There was always another job.

Death finally arose, and closed his refrigerator. He collected his sandwich and moved to the phone, defeated. A bony hand reached out, but paused before reaching the handle.

He remembered his day.

He closed his hand, but did not let it fall.

He had had a long day.

His hand fell to his side, and he stepped past the ringing black phone into the living room. The bells clanged sharply over and over. He placed his sandwich on the little side table adjacent to his favourite chair. He stepped to the bookshelf, and ran his hand along a stack of thin cardboard containers.

Something stopped his hand, and he slipped his bone fingers into the stack, and pulled out one sleeve in particular. He held it up and inspected it, nodding.

He slid the record out of its holder, and placed it gingerly onto his record player. It began to play, and he picked up his headphones.

Death sat in his red leather chair, trying to adjust his headphones to fit on his skull. They had fit last time, so they should fit this time he thought to himself. But at the same time he knew that that never seemed to be true.

After a bit of fidgeting, he got them to sit right, and the music flowed into him like a river into a drought. He closed the black pits that were his eyes, and let the sound flood out the memories, and the bells of the phone.

Death enjoyed his sandwich, and his music, and letting the phone ring and ring and ring.

A Thousand Thousand

"I fell." Dan told the massive shape of Death, towering above him.

"I know." Death nodded slowly.

Dan picked himself up and dusted himself off. He looked up at the cliff face that he had just tumbled down, and rested his eyes on the body that he left behind.

"A shame." he sighed. "I had a date for Friday."

"A shame." Death nodded in agreement.

The two of them stood surveying the scene for a time.

"You know it's not what I expected." Dan finally said, placing his hands on his hips.

Death liked this part.

"I was led to believe there would be a bright light, a tunnel, voices, the whole deal." Dan waved his hands about, dramatically. "But it's sort of just... you." He shrugged.

"Terribly sorry to dissappoint." Death shrugged back.

"Oh, goodness no. Sorry, that's not what I meant." Dan waved his arms in denial. "It's quite nice. Relaxing. I was just told that the experience would be a bit more... pyrotechnic."

"And who told you that?" Death asked, raising what would have been his eyebrows were his face not a skull.

"Hm. People who... weren't dead after all, I suppose." Dan smiled.

Death retuned the smile, and shrugged.

"Well, I think..." Dan started. "I think..." He continued, and another realization dawned on him mid sentence. "I think you've heard this speech before, haven't you?"

Death did not at first reply.

"You've heard a hundred, a thousand people have the exact same complaint, the exact same story, haven't you?" And Dan was mortified at how bored Death must be of... people.

Death plucked some imaginary cat hair of his scythe, absent mindedly, before finally replying.

"Yes. A thousand thousand times."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bore you." Dan was earnestly upset. "It's just... new to me, I suppose."

Death cocked his head. He looked down at his charge, without a hint of condescension.

"The day I tire of hearing what people have to tell me," He intoned, "Is the day I will begin my well-deserved retirement."

He looked up into Death's gaze, slightly befuddled.

"You really want to hear what I have to say?"

Death nodded.

"Even though not a single thing is likely to be new."

Death again nodded his cowled head.

"Oh." Daniel said, surprised.

Death turned away towards their destination, and held out a bony hand.

"Now... you were going to tell me about your lovely dog Max."

He had not. But still, Daniel smiled with the joy of youth, and told Death all about how he had had the absolute best childhood pet.

And Death liked that story very much.

Rehab

Armin looked up in horror at himself, as he, the other he, raised the pistol to his face.  Armin stared down the barrel of the gun with panicked fear. He knew what happened next. He rembered.

But there was more to his fear. A rich milieux of terrors swept about in his mind. His wife, how would she survive? Their child, who would be there to help raise it with him gone? His family, his friends, all cut off from him in an instant.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the memory of silence caught in his throat and he found he could not. He could only gaze into the black hole that was the barrel of a pistol held in the other him's hand.

"Sorry mate. Nothing personal." He said. The other he. The he that he used to be. And just as Armin remembered, he pulled the trigger while he said one final word.

"Business."

And there was a roar, and a flash, and an instant pain, and everything that he had worked for and loved was gone in an instant.

When he opened his eyes he was back in the room. The white room, with the table and two chairs. He was sitting in one of them when he remembered that he never had a wife. Or a child.

Or many friends, for that matter.

And it dawned on him. Not his friends. Not his wife.

HIS friends. HIS wife. The man that he had killed, in cold blood, eight years ago. Without a thought. Without a care. Because it wasn't personal.

It was just business.

But it had been personal to him.

Lucifer, the Morningstar, appeared before Armin with ruined wings and a sad expression. He took a seat quietly.

"Incarceration is not punishment. It is a rehabilitation." He placed a clipboard gently on the table. "You are here to learn. To see why you did what you did, and to see how it hurt. How it hurt those around you. How it hurt yourself."

Armin wanted to speak, to protest. To shout that it was all a dream. But even he could see it was too vivid. To real.

Too deserved.

"There is no fast track here, Armin. No shortcuts. When you are ready, you will know. You will see. And we will wish you well." Lucifer smiled at him a patient smile. Grandfatherly, was the word that came to Armin.

"But that's not today." And he rose from his chair,tattered wings trailing as he made for the door. As he left, Lucifer turned once more and nodded knowingly to Armin.

"Good luck."

And he closed the door, and Armin was elsewhen, staring down a different barrel.

Language

There was a young woman that Death went to meet once. She had just passed away unexpectedly, but unlike many people she was pleased to see Death.

"Oh, you've come!" She said excitedly, which caught Death somewhat off guard.

"I have." He replied, letting the ancient timbre of his voice rumble the very walls with authority.

"So there is an afterlife." She smiled excitedly.

Death let this hang in the air for a moment, looking down at her with the black pits of his skull, letting his bone fingers tense and relax on the scythe.

"Perhaps there is only me." He rumbled.

She mulled this around in her head for a moment, before deciding.

"No, I don't think so. I think you're here to take me to the real afterlife."

Death frowned at her. He wasn't so much upset with her, as perplexed. He'd encountered souls like this before, but... not often. And they always caught him off guard.

"What makes you say that." He asked as nonchalantly as he could.

She grinned coyly. "Because you left the door open. So, where are we going?" She hopped to her feet excitedly.

Death looked back. He had indeed left the door open. It wasn't often he had the luxury of leaving doors ajar, so he took it when he could. When there would be no-one around to notice. It saved a little time.

But not this time.

"I cannot say." He rumbled back.

"Oh." She replied, a little dissapointed. "Well, I appreciate you coming to get me nonetheless." She nodded surely.

Death cocked his head confusedly.

"Well, you didn't have to come." She explained. "I'm dead. I'm sure I have all the time in the world to find my way to the next. But you came all this way to make sure little old me made it safe and sound to the afterlife." She smiled politely.

Death scowled at her. She couldn't really tell. His face was a skull.

She continued to smile back.

Eventually, and much to his surprise, Death's scowl broke into a smile of his own. He offered his hand to her, and she took it without hesitation.

"Come on then, let's find out if you're right." He indicated to the open door with his scythe.

The two of them left hand in hand, and the infinite stretched out before them as they walked.

"You remind me of my Grandpa." She said, and as they walked she leaned her head against his arm lovingly.

And Death was very pleased by this. He placed his skeletal hand on hers while they strode into infinity.

"He was a big softie too." She continued. And then a smile crept across her face. "When he wasn't being scary as fu..."

"Language." Death cut her off, and she laughed as the world slipped away around them.

Restricted Items

Clarice hung upside down in the tree, her parachute lines tangled inextricably about her as she swung back and forth. The dappled light through the canopy was dazzling and beautiful, and almost enough to take her mind off the dreadful realization that she had just passed away.

She swung lazily back and forth, looking up past her feet to the shimmering sun as it worked its way through the many thick branches that had interrupted her trip to the earth. She could see the one in particular that had clipped her head and ended it all.

That branch was a jerk.

But through it all she found herself to be quite serene. Skydiving was not an entirely safe passtime, and she had always known this was a possibility. Everything was accounted for.

And besides, the rush had been worth it.

"Well, that's enough of that I think." She said, looking around for her patient companion.

"After you." Came the low rumbled reply from Death, who was busy enjoying the careful dance of a butterfly that had taken interest in his skeletal hand.

"Hm." Clarice grunted, still trapped by her parachute equipment. She wriggled for a moment more, before clearing her throat to gain Death's attention.

Startled, he shook his skull and looked up at her.

"If you wouldn't mind?" She did her best to indicate the ropes above her.

"Of course, of course." Death replied, apologetically. He swung his enormous scythe in a broad sweeping arc, slicing through the bonds as though they were butter, and she tumbled to the ground more gently than possible. Death helped her to her feet as the ropes fell away.

"Handy." She said, indicating the colossal tool.

"Oh, it has its uses." Death smiled to her, and offered his hand. She took it and they walked out of the forest.

"Any idea where I can get one?" She asked.

No Bars

"Listen you," The man said, prodding Death in the chest with a finger angrily, "I can't be dead. I have a contract. Do you know who I am?"

"I do." Death answered dully.

"Then you know that I'm a busy man. A popular man." The man was spinning around angrily, gesticulating with both hands. "A powerful man! So when I say I want you out of my house, I mean now!" And he gestured sternly to the door.

"We'll be leaving shortly." Death intoned, his frigid voice frosting the windows slightly with his words.

The man frowned at Death. He placed his hands on his hips.

He paced back and forth before the towering image of the eternal force of Death itself.

He turned his back on Death.

When he turned back, Death was still patiently waiting.

"Well go on. Scat!" He gestured at the black mass of cloaks and bones. He pulled out his phone to call his agent, but found he had no signal. Frustrated, he began walking around the home, holding his phone up above his head. "It's no use. I'm not going."

"I understand the desire to remain." Death said, solemnly. And with that, he lumbered his enormous form to the ground, and sat. He crossed his bony legs before him, and began to pick at the cheap carpet with his skeletal fingers. "There is much yet to see, and taste, and smell. To experience." He pulled a fragment of lint from the fibres of the carpet, and held its exquisite fuzziness between his bone fingers. The sensation was divine to him. "It is a shame to miss it."

The man ceased walking about his home, and poked his head back into the living room, where Death sat. Even sitting on the floor, Death was as tall as a man. His scythe lay next to him.

"I was going to get that dreadful carpet replaced. Came with the house. They had cats."

"I like cats." Death said, absent mindedly.

"I don't like their fur." The man said blandly. He moved into the room slowly, watching Death as he ran his hands across the carpet, enjoying the sensation of cheap fibre and old dust.

He watched as Death sat on the floor, and let his senses drink in the world around him. The cheap, the dirty, the expensive, the sublime, each was equal in the black pits that were the eyes of Death. To experience was to enjoy.

The man had never been to a farm. The thought had not occurred to him until this very moment, and somehow... he regretted it.

"So there's nothing you can do for me, huh?" He asked Death.

Death stopped moving his hands across the carpet suddenly. He turned to face the man beside him.

"There is one thing. When you are ready." His cold voice chilled the air, but was paradoxically kind in the ears of the man.

"You're sure."

"I'm sure."

"What if I sign your scythe for you?"

"I'd rather you didn't."

The man deflated. His options had run out. His phone was useless. His fame was no good. What then did he have?

"All right. Let's get it over with then." He moved towards the door.

Death stood, propping himself up with his scythe. Some of his bones creaked and popped as he did, and he realized he hadn't sat down like that in a really very long time. A note for the future. He moved towards the door, and extended a hand for the man to take.

As they joined hands, the door opened. While they exited, the man looked one last time into his home, and saw his life in things. Most of them were very nice things. Some of them were not so much so.

And he tried to hold on to the memories of each, as they passed into the veil.

I Did A Bad Thing

The soldier stared down at his rifle on the ground, and spoke without shifting his gaze to Death.

"I did a bad thing." He said softly.

"I know." Death replied, not moving. He stood a respectful distance away, his black bulk patiently waiting for the soldier.

"I knew better." Still his gaze was fixed on the weapon he had wielded a moment before.

"I know." Death again spoke.

After a silence in which the soldier felt an eternity of turmoil pass, he looked up at the skeletal face of Death itself.

"I'm sorry." He said, earnestly. And Death could see, with the black pits that held in them the despair of mankind he had in place of eyes, that the soldier spoke truly. He stepped forward, his enormous scythe acting like a walking stick, so he could stand just before the soldier, towering above him oppressively.

A skeletal arm slid out of the bulky mass of cloaks, and rested on the soldier's shoulder compassionately.

"I know." Said Death, and the two of them strode across the battlefield, into the forever night.

Not Kingsfoil, You Fools

Edith stared down at her body on the table while those that called themselves her disciples scurried about performing various preparations. Some were crushing herbs over her head, others were assembling candles around her. She sighed.

"It's like they didn't even bother to listen." She said to the hulking form of Death beside her.

He shrugged.

"They're all too young, I think. None of them were thinking about the grave. Not that it really matters, none of it's true. But it's the principle of the matter..." She trailed off, scowling at the people fussing over her corpse.

Death raised his non-existent eyebrows. "Mother Edith, High Priestess of the Thirteen Hives, a non-believer?"

She shrugged back. "And Mother Theresa was an athiest. These things happen."

Death chuckled silently to himself.

"After a while, you realize something about magic." She moved about the table, examining the faces of the people buzzing about her body. "It's not about energy, or spirituality, or alchemy. It's about results." She nodded to herself after looking into each face for long enough. "The thing that matters, when you work a spell or craft a talisman, it not what it is made of or how it is created, but what it does. And if what it does improves the quality of a life, then it has worked. Magic or not."

Death watched quizzically as she moved from disciple to disciple.

"If I had a nickel for every potion of courage I helped some kid brew to ask out their sweetheart, or every curse that caused someone to seek forgiveness from the one they wronged..." She paused in her rounds and looked down at her body. "Well I'd still be dead. But I'd have died in nicer clothes."

Edith and Death shared a smile.

"The placebo effect. It's a wonderful thing." She sighed, and a sense of contentment radiated out from her.

"If you knew it was all a façade, why keep it up?" Death asked, genuinely intrigued.

"Because the façade works." She smirked. "Best one I've found for getting people out of their own heads, and out of their own ways."

"Hm." Death nodded slowly.

"Case in point. I was so disappointed in this lot," she gestured to the disciples currently chanting some ancient ritual almost correctly, "because I felt like they hadn't learned what I tried to teach them. But while they might not be getting it right, you and I both know that doesn't really matter."

Death shrugged innocently.

"What matters is that they're here. That they came, to honour my wishes. To do right by me. And that they miss me." She smiled, and let her hand rest on one of their shoulders lovingly.

Death hefted his heavy scythe, and rested it gently on his shoulder. Edith understood what that meant, and turned to depart.

As they walked away, she cast one last glance over her shoulder to see her disciples consoling each other, and becoming closer for it.

Just as planned.

She took Death's bony hand in her own, and the two of them walked off into forever.

The Rules

"So, where are we headed?" Mortimer asked the oppressive form of Death standing before him.

"Mmm. Can't say for sure, I'm afraid." Death rumbled back. "Depends on a lot of factors."

"Oh." Mortimer looked at the ground, worriedly. His gaze shifted over to his corpse, lying beside him on the bed. He swung his feet back and forth while he sat. "Not even a hint?"

"Sorry." Death shrugged. "Rules."

"Huh." Mortimer had sort of hoped that the afterlife, if there was one, would be lighter on rules than the... regular life. This was a disappointing start.

Death stood with the patience of eternity before Mortimer. Mortimer fidgeted a little.

"So, do you come for... everyone?"

Death nodded slowly. His voice echoed calmly, "Almost."

"One at a time?"

Death nodded again. "That's the rule."

"Oh." Mortimer stared up at the black shape before him, wondering how this one figure could possibly shepherd each death on to... whatever. It was like a grim Santa Clause. "Sounds exhausting."

Death laughed, a single sharp HA cracking out of his skeletal frame. It was a sound that very rarely escaped, and its unpractised shape took on the form of a bark as it erupted from the ancient figure.

It startled Mortimer.

Death smiled at the old man before him. He sat next to the man on the bed, his colossal frame not seeming to have any weight to it.

"Very." was all the icy voice of Death said in answer.

"Hm." Mortimer was profoundly confused.

The two of them sat on the bed for a time before Mortimer mustered up the courage to ask another question.

"Shouldn't we be going?" He indicated to the door.

"Oh yes." Death replied, unmoving.

Mortimer looked from Death to the door, and back again.

"So should I..." Mortimer began sliding off the bed towards the door.

"Patience, Mortimer." Death raised his hand slightly. "Time is something we have in abundance. Despite what they may tell you..." he grumbled.

"O... kay." Mortimer sat again.

"Besides," Death rumbled loudly, "Your wife will be joining us soon, and I thought it would be nice for you two to journey on together."

Mortimer cocked his head.

"I thought you said you took people one at a time?"

"I do." Death nodded.

"That it was the rules."

"It is." again, slowly Death nodded.

Mortimer tried to understand Death's logic, and failed.

Death put a frigid, bony hand on Mortimer's shoulder.

"Some things are worth bending the rules for, Mortimer." He grinned.

And at that moment, Jeanne appeared behind Death, beaming with a beauty that filled Mortimer's soul with the joy that had carried him through life, and he smiled.

The Valley of the Moon

Specialist Mathias Alonso gently placed the binoculars down beside him before picking up his radio. He quietly pressed the activator, and whispered into the mic.

"Numbers, click off."

 He slowly replaced the microphone, and slid the binoculars up to his eyes with patient grace.

The radio began to sound with successively longer groups of clicks. One, pause, two clicks, pause, three, and so on until all the rangers in the valley had signed in, indicating their health and readiness.

"Copy." Mathias finished. Takanome's Rangers were... unconventional. But they were all most refugees had.

He scanned the horizon again, noting no disturbance. It could be a good day. A refugee group was on route to the city, and the Rangers were here to make sure they made it. They weren't always needed. And besides, this was a new route.

Mathias hoped they would not be needed today.

He did a visual check on the Rangers, sweeping his binoculars slowly over each position in turn.

In truth, there was nothing to see. Which was exactly what he was hoping for. Takanome's Rangers had few advantages in the field, but skill with camouflage was one of them. All good.

There was silence and stillness for two hours.

"Four, package inbound." fizzled calmly over the radio. Mathias swung his binoculars over to sniper four with the calm precision expected of one of Takanome's finest. He then began searching for the contact Four had called in.

"Six, confirm." Came whispered over the radio. Mathias gazed into the gap in the foliage between the two snipers, and saw the first hint of refugees.

Before long the column was clearly visible. A few hundred exhausted, ragged survivors marching, defeated, to the Last City. Mathias wondered how long they had been travelling. How far they had come.

They were almost done, at least.

Suddenly the ground beneath him grew a familiar gentle quiver, and his heart sank.

He clenched his fist around the binoculars and hoped it was geological. He held his breath, and scanned the sky. His hope died when the radio spoke.

"Three, dropship. South south east." Sniper three calmly informed the rest of the group.

Mathias swore silently. His binoculars focused on the ship settling down a few dozen feet above the ridge on the southern side. Small drop arms extended from the hatches on the underbelly, and Fallen started pouring out. Four, eight, ten, a dozen. Eighteen, Mathias counted.

He swore silently again before picking up his microphone.

"This is Eight. I count eighteen tangos, confirm." He hoped he had miscounted.

"Three, confirm eighteen tangos."

Damn.

Some members of the convoy had already seen the dropship and panic was setting in. The refugees were starting to scatter. Mathias radioed on an open channel down to the convoy, relaying the number of Fallen and the number of Rangers. The leader of the convoy, between shouting at his refugees, responded with little faith. But he got his people organized, and got them moving.

This was enough for Mathias.

The fallen were starting to work their way down the mountainside. They were a few hundred feet from the refugees, and Mathias realized something. They had deployed behind. They didn't want to cut off the refugees. That wasn't enough.

They wanted to hunt them.

Mathias' blood burned as he called out to his rangers.

"One through seven, weapons free. Stagger shots. Don't give away your positions without a fight. Make your bullets count."

The radio crackled to life as each ranger in turn clicked that they copied his transmission.

Mathias glared into his binoculars at the alien menace of the Fallen, and hoped that the Rangers would be enough.

The first Dreg was almost within weapons range of the back of the stampeding convoy when the valley echoed with it's first thunder clap. In an instant the creature's head was gone, a crackling black mist in it's place.

It's rabid brethren at first didn't seem to notice, but as the valley began to pop with gunshot after gunshot (staggered carefully after weeks of training) and Fallen Dregs two and three collapsed, they scattered.

The creatures began moving erratically, searching for the sources of the gunfire. But still moving ever closer to the convoy. The success that had seconds ago flushed Mathias with pride was quickly evaporating.

Any bullet that didn't find it's way to a Fallen mask seemed almost not to matter. Dregs were taking round after round to their hate-filled alien chests before they dropped to the earth, hopefully for the last time.  Always searching for the source of their attackers. Always making their way towards the convoy.

The refugees were in a full sprint now, but somehow it didn't seem to matter. Even suppressed by the fire of the Rangers, the Fallen were too fast. Too strong.

Mathias watched helplessly through his binoculars as the first Dreg made it to the last refugee.

An arc knife, a scream silenced by distance and gunfire, and the Dreg was ready for it's next victim.

Or it would have been, but it's head erupted in a geyser of oily blood. But it's place was taken in an instant by another Fallen. And another behind. And another behind it. All staring at a particular space in the brush as they ducked and weaved.

It was then that Mathias realized they had found one of his snipers.

"Three, you're under suspicion." He called into his microphone.

"Copy." Came the terse reply.

Mathias watched angrily as Sniper Three's position lit up with crack after crack of sniper fire. The closest Dreg dropped to the ground, dead, and the second stumbled with the impact. But now they were sure.

One of them screamed something in their infernal language, and gesticulated wildly in the air. It pointed at Sniper Three and the rest of them began to charge.

"You're blown Three." Mathias calmly whispered into the radio, following procedure.

"Copy." Sniper three responded mid-gunshot. Her position became a staccato rhythm of gunfire, four shots in a row followed by a silence. And then another four.

The Fallen had all but abandoned the convoy at this point, and the humans were making considerable ground. All the Fallen seemed to care about was Sniper Three. The rest of the Rangers were using the distraction to focus their fire. Maintaining procedure, firing and then waiting. Staying invisible. Staying safe.

"Three it's time to give it up. Get out of there." Mathias ordered over the radio, his voice growling with authority.

"Copy."

The hundred feet in front of Sniper Three's position was littered with Fallen corpses. Five of them had met their end at the wrong end of her, and her companion's, rifles. Mathias quickly scanned the battlefield. Four more had been felled before reaching Three's area of devastation.  Nine of the Fallen remained, two of them Vandals.

"Three I order you to disappear." He practically shouted into his microphone. He checked, the Fallen were still well within range to chase down the refugees, but they were focused on Sniper Three.

"Copy."

Three's position continued to roar with gunfire. Two more Dregs fell before her.

The Vandals, four armed savage monstrosities with incredible rifles and a burning hatred for humanity that dwarfed the Dreg's, were directing their remaining troops around to pincer Three. The jig was up.

"Three you have done your job now move out." It was a lie, as soon as the Fallen realized she was gone they would chase down the refugees. They would be out of most of the Ranger's line of fire. Most would make it. Some would not. By the time they repositioned, the loss would be devastating. But it was a lie that could save a Ranger's life, and Rangers were in short supply.

"Copy." Four more shots rang out, doing little but aggravating the nearest Vandal.

"Three you are going to get yourself killed."

"Copy." Came the emotionless response, in time with the click of a reload.

"Three..." But it was far past too late. The creatures fell upon her position with interstellar fury. Mathias found no reprimand on his tongue. "...Ayane would be proud."

"Copy." sparked the radio, in the half-second before Sniper Three's grenades all went off. Her position was erased, replaced with a thirty foot wide golden fireball consuming all the remaining Fallen. The valley was bathed in a warm red glow for an instant, fading into an orange light that followed the cloud of gas up into the sky before dissipating.

Mathias' eyes burned from the brightness, he told himself. His binoculars calmly, coolly surveyed the battlefield, counting bodies and confirming kills.

Eighteen, at his count.

"Eighteen kills, please confirm."

"This is Four, confirm eighteen kills."

There was silence for a time.

Finally Specialist Mathias Alonso rose from his position, and collected his things. When he was finished, he raised his radio to his lips one last time.

"Sniper Three, Seong Choi. Gave her last full measure in the Valley of the Moon."

As he began the long walk back to the city, the clicks of Takanome's Rangers called out their respect in ascending order.

In Your Own Time

Aldritch awoke laying beside the wreckage of his still-smouldering car. He shook his head a few times to clear the cobwebs out, and realized something terrifically terrifying.

He had just died.

He remembered the accident quite clearly now. The sudden realization. The desperate twist of the wheel. The inevitability of the impact. The feeling of the pole passing through him.

Slowly he felt his chest, searching for the gaping wound he knew was there.

But he didn't find it.

He was dressed in a crisp clean shirt, not a mark on him.

He sat up, and blinked his eyes a few times. The car was there, fire still flickering dimly inside. He thought he could even make out...

His body. In the driver's seat.

Crispy.

He shouted and lept to his feet, scrambling away desperately. As he did, he ran smack dab into a massive black cloaked figure. He tumbled back a few steps, but maintained his footing.

"Terribly sorry." Came an ancient rumble from the shape. It's voice was earnest and warm, while still emanating a mystical cold into every inch of Aldritch's body. He let his eyes drift up to the figure's face.

It was a skull. Aldritch froze.

Death loomed large before him.

"No." He managed to squeak to the titanic representation before him.

"Yes, I'm afraid." Replied Death with an icy certainty.

"No. No! Not me! Not today!" And he began scrambling away from death. Death made no motions to follow.

"Indeed, today." Death sighed, realizing what was happening.

"No! NO!" Aldritch screamed back, before turning his back and fleeing full tilt down the highway.

Death's bony fingers made their way up to his skull, and rubbed the space between the obsidian pits that once held eyes. He shrugged, and made his way over to the car. His huge frame made no noticeable impact as he sat on its ruined hood, and pulled a newspaper out of his robes. He flipped a few pages in.

"Whenever you're ready, Aldritch." He rumbled quietly, his icy voice carrying on the chill wind down the roadway to the burning ears of the running Aldritch Hedgwin.

Erdie's Bakery

The titanic black mass of Death was paused beside a large pane of glass, staring in at the treats arranged on the other side.

The glass read "Erdie's Bakery", a place that Death himself had not heard of until recently. He clicked his teeth together, considering.

People passed by him while he waited, not one of them noticing but each of them deftly avoiding him somehow.

The sun passed slowly over the sky, and Death continued to hum and haw.

A few minutes before the clerk came to change the sign from open to closed, Death slid in to the shop.

The person behind the counter took immediate notice of Death, but somehow failed to see the skull-faced, enormous, becloacked figure for what it was. Cheerily, they asked "What can I get for you? We're just about to close up, I'm afraid."

"Two loaves, please. One cinnamon-raisin, if you've got a fresh one. And one loaf of whatever you have that's stale. I'll pay full price." Death responded, his icy voice covering the glass with a thin layer of frost that evaporated as quickly as it appeared.

"For the birds?" The clerk asked.

"Mm." Death nodded.

"On the house then." The clerk winked. He scurried into the back of the shop, and produced a loaf from the previous day. It still, to Death at least, looked quite delicious. He placed it in a paper bag, along with a sealed loaf of the fresh Cinnamon Raisin bread. "That'll be two-fifty, please. Cash or card?" The clerk beamed.

Death rummaged about in his cloaks, and produced some ancient-looking gold coins. He selected two of them that he was fairly certain at this stage in history were worth a few thousand dollars each, and placed them on the counter. "Cash." He stated, his ancient voice rumbling the walls gently. He picked up his bread, and was about to leave when the clerk asked him an unusual question.

"So, how did you hear about us?" He asked in his chipper tone. "We have a Facebook page, twitter account, Google maps pin..." The clerk had a clipboard and a pen out, eager to take down Death's response.

He paused by the door, holding it open and letting the last few beams of the setting sun slide into the shop before he answered.

"A friend of mine told me about you. Mr. Edgwin."

"Oh Mr. Edgwin! Wonderful guy. I do deliveries to his place." The clerk ticked some box on his chart. "I always look forward to chatting with him."

Death looked deep into the clerk's eyes, and found only earnestness. The cold, ancient holes that Death uses for eyes softened slightly, and he replied sadly.

"As did I."

And he left for the park with his bread.

Proper Currency

" 'Ow hard ees it to get buried wit' a decent cigar, ees all I am aks-ing." The Baron demanded. He was leaning over the top of his cubicle, looking but not really seeing into Charon's little corner of the afterlife. He let one hand dangle into Charon's cube and played with the other Psychopomp's toy boat. "De ones we got up 'ere are terrible, I tells you." He bemoaned.

Without taking his wild eyes off his new client, Charon deftly took the toy boat out of Baron Samedi's hand and placed it on his desk.

"One moment please, Madam." He apologized to his client.

"At least de rum is not so bad." The Baron's other hand came up from behind the wall, bearing an over full tumbler of rum that he began happily to sip.

Charon sighed, and rolled his mad eyes eyes to look at the pallid, skull like face of Baron Samedi.

"What do you want, Baron."

"Noting!" He replied innocently, swirling his drink around and leaning heavily on the cubicle wall. "Noting, dat is, that you shouldn't want yourself mon ami." And he grinned wickedly.

"I am not going out drinking with you again, Baron." Charon stated coldly, before adjusting his rust-coloured tie.

"Awww, come now... We won't drink so very much dis time, I swear..." The Baron gestured eagerly with his drink before realizing the irony and putting it down on Charon's filing cabinet. "You are such a great wingman, Charon... I need you, mon ami!" And he opened his arms wide, eyes pleading.

"Absolutely not. The last time I went out for an evening with you, Baron, I wound up spending two weeks in the Diyu. Alone. No thank you."

"Ahh, but dis time I promise not to abandon you for some qualitee time wit' Hausos." The Baron looked at Charon's client, a clearly confused young woman, and gave her a wink. "Even eef it was totally worth it, I assure you."

Charon's wild gaze bore in to Baron Samedi with renewed ferocity. His face was a statue of contempt.

"So yes den?" The baron asked, eyebrows high.

"No."

"Hmm." The Baron looked crestfallen, but not not defeated. "Are you sure there ees nothing I can say to sweeten the deal, wingaman?" And he began to crack the knuckles on one hand using only his thumb.

"Certainly not." Charon stated firmly. "Now if you don't mind, I have a fair amount of paperwork to get through here so..."

"Nothing... at all?" The Baron smiled and produced, seemingly out of thin air, a single Obol. He rolled the ancient greek coin across the backs of his fingers, letting it flash in the fluorescent light.

Charon was transfixed. "Where did you get that?"

"Oh, I been hanging on to dis for a while now, wingman. Shall we say seven o'clock?" He grinned, holding the coin out to Charon.

Angrily, Charon snapped it out of his hand and examined it. He turned it this way and that, felt its weight. He slumped slightly. Definitely authentic.

"Fine." He growled at the Baron. "Until then, could you kindly shove off."

"Sure, sure." The Baron cackled, retreating back into his cubicle. Just as his top hat was about to dissappear (much to Charon's relief), he popped back up. Charon slumped.

"Forgot my drink, mon ami." He grabbed his rum from the top of Charon's filing cabinet. "And since I'm in such a good mood..." He casually flipped a second coin to the young woman waiting to be processed by Charon. "Make sure you get a nice afterlife, eh madam?" He winked at her, and vanished back into his cubicle.

She held the weighty, ancient coin in her hand. It was silvery, and had an engraving of an insect on it. When she looked up, Charon was eying it hungrily.

He cleared his throat, and with a sweep of his arm slid the huge pile of paperwork he'd pulled out for her to complete into the trash. He pulled out a single sheet, without taking his eyes off the coin, and asked her a single question.

"So, do you prefer penthouse, or ground floor terrace?"

Sunsets and Breadcrumbs

Death sat comfortably on the park bench overlooking the bay. The sun was rapidly on its way down, and filling the sky with dazzling reds and oranges. The clouds in particular were a treat.

He inhaled deeply through the hole in his skull that a nose would have once rested on, theoretically.  The spring air was crisp but not cold. A lovely day, all around. He reached into his enormous tattered cloak and produced a loaf of stale bread. His bony fingers quickly crumbling it, he spread a lovely meal for the birds out at his feet.

People came and went past him, not noticing in the slightest the bulky ancient form of Death. Some made mention of the mysterious cold spot around the bench, but most people didn't even notice that.

It was tremendously peaceful.

Eventually the sun fell below the horizon, and Death ran out of bread. The birds fluttered away, and the stars came out.

He sighed contentedly, and stood. Brushing the crumbs off his cloak and grabbing his scythe off the bench beside him a thought occurred that tumbled about inside his skull as he lumbered away.

I don't get enough days off.

Be Good

"Hey! Who's there!? Get lost!" Max shouted at the darkness. There was a shape there, something beside the closet. Something big. "Hey!"

The shape didn't move. It didn't make a sound. Max started to wonder if he was seeing things. He checked on Dan in the bed. Still sleeping. Hm. He turned his attention back to the shape.

"You!" he shouted again. He slipped out of bed, and crept slowly across the floor, trying to look as big as he could. There was definitely something there.

The floor was cold. Colder than it should be on a summer night. Max looked over his shoulder at Dan, still asleep in the bed. How are you not hearing this?

"Hey!" He shouted one more time.

The bulky shape finally moved. Slowly, cautiously, as if to show no malice, a hand reached up and pulled back a hood slightly. Max stared up into the skull that was the face of Death. Neither of them moved for a time.

"Oh." Said Max, at last.

"Yes." Replied Death, a strange soothing quality accompanied his chilling voice. There was a finality to it, but in that finality was comfort.

Max looked back at the bed, and only now noticed his body next to Dan's sleeping form. And it broke his heart.

He strode over, and quietly looked at the two forms in the bed.

He turned his head back to Death, and with watery eyes and a cracking voice asked the question he wasn't sure he wanted answered.

"Will he be o..okay?"

Death paused. He stepped over to stand next to Max. Death's bulky black frame dwarfed the two bodies in the bed. A boy and his dog.

"Not right away." He replied, with a soft rumble. "Not for a while, I'm afraid. But..." He looked down into Max's wet eyes. "But someday, he will be."

Silence hung between the two.

"Will I get to see him again?" Max asked, afraid of the answer.

"Perhaps. If he's a good boy."

Max nodded slowly.

"He is. He will be."

"I'm glad." Death said comfortingly.

Death stood patiently while Max said goodbye to his best friend. When he had finished, Death was somehow waiting by the door.

He cast one last glance at Dan, and smiled a big goofy smile. Be good.

And then he padded out the door with Death, his four paws making not a sound on the cold floor.

Contractual Misconceptions

The glaring lights of the hospital were somehow softened. It was a nice change.

Edgar sat up, and swung his legs off the hospital bed for the first time in a long time. It felt nice. He stretched out fully, and nothing cracked or spasmed. He hadn't gotten a good stretch like that in decades. Again, it was nice.

He stretched every muscle, turned every joint, wiggled every toe. Everything felt... fine. Nice.

But eventually he ran out of body. And he had to address the elephant in the room. Without looking at him, he spoke.

"You look about like I'd expected."

"Thanks." came the icy rumble of Death, waiting patiently by the door. His enormous black frame draped in dark robes looked too massive to even fit in the door, but nevertheless here he was. "I try to fit in, change with the times." He plucked at an imaginary hair on his scythe, to keep busy.

"Oh yeah?" Edgar raised an eyebrow. "Guess you haven't had to change much recently, huh?"

"Oh, almost constantly." Death grinned back, an expression that was lost on Edgar, to whose perspective Death appeared to be constantly grinning due to his skull face. "As recently as the seventies I was wearing these big ridiculous antlers."

"Back when everyone had afro's and bell bottoms?" Edgar asked incredulously.

"Oh goodness no," intoned Death, "The actual seventies. The year seventy." Death chuckled, a rolling, thunderous sound that filled the room with shudders of cold.

"Ha Ha..." Edgar laughed politely.

There was a brief silence while Death reminisced about his old antlers.

Edgar looked down at his body, lying peacefully on the hospital bed that he had been confined to for some time. It made him smile. He wasn't sure why.  He stood up, and cleared his throat.

"Ahem."

Death startled slightly, falling out of his reverie.

"My apologies. I get nostalgic sometimes, Edgar."

"No worries, it happens to us all."

Death's skeletal hand snaked out of his robes, and opened the door beside him. "Ready to go then?"

Edgar looked back at what had been his body, and a pleasant smile again alighted his face.

"Yes. I think so." He said, as he marched out the door with Death close behind, gracefully slipping his impossibly large frame through the small door. The two marched quietly down the hospital corridor as it began to stretch away into something eternal and unknowable.

"So if you don't mind, can I ask you a question?" Edgar looked up at Death.

Death didn't look down, but replied in a polite fashion he had honed over millenia.

"There are many answers coming to you very shortly, and I'd hate to ruin the surprise." His icy voice answered in a paradoxically warm manner.

"No no, not that... I was just curious about you. What's it like, having a job where you, you know... kill people?" Edgar asked with increasing akwardness.

Death sighed and stopped in his tracks. He turned, and the empty sockets of his ancient skull took in the fullness of Edgar. The infinite blackness bored into his soul, and Edgar fidgeted quietly.

"Why does everyone think that I kill people?" Death muttered, exasperated.

Good Soup

"I forgive you, child." The old man was pouring soup into a bowl in his little cave home. He didn't look at the boy as he spoke, simply poured with care.

The boy stood worriedly at the mouth of the cave, unsure of what was happening and afraid of this strange new person.

The old man poured a second bowl of soup, and set it on the ground between himself and the boy before retreating to a bedroll on the other side of the fire to eat his own soup.

The boy fidgeted at the entrance.

"Those were not your parents that left you here, were they?"  the man called out over the fire.

Silence answered his question, and the boy continued to fidget. Wondering if he should flee. Would he be able to find his way back? Did he... did he want to go back. After what he'd done.

"No. Not parents. But family, I think." The old man slurped loudly. "Mmm. Good soup."

The boy's eyes slid to the soup. He was hungry, after all. It took a lot out of him when he... when that happened. But he still didn't trust the old man.

There was quiet in the cave, save for the crackling of the fire. The old man finished his soup, and set the bowl beside him but he did not rise.

"When did it begin, if I may ask at least that?" His voice was kind.

The boy, still standing at the entrance, shuffled back and forth for a moment before deciding to answer.

"Not long ago." He spoke with shame.

"Hm." Came the ambivalent reply.

The two looked at each other.

The boy decided he wanted soup after all.

"Your family thinks I can fix you. Make you normal again." Came the voice from across the fire.

The boy slurped his soup slowly, and stared across the fire. Could he?

"But I can't."

Oh.

"You are not broken, child. I cannot fix what is not broken. Tame, perhaps. But that is up to you really."

The boy stopped eating.

"The Magic has chosen you as a conduit. It will fill you until you burst, or until you learn to control it."

He put down the bowl.

"But you are a boy, so control will not come easy. And so I say, I forgive you."

The child looked through the flickering flames at the wrinkled face of the sage.

"What for?"

"For what you cannot forgive yourself. For what you will do to me."

The boy was confused, and cocked his head.

"Know that when you lash out someday, in anger, and your magic unmakes me... I forgive you."

The old man's face was soft, and full of honesty. The boy was shocked.

"And so do your parents."

Not Yet

"Oh no. What"

"Are you"

"Doing here?" Asked the three rabbits, as they hopped into a protective line in front of Death. The three of them were moving constantly, like slippery balls of fur sliding over each other. Death had tried to count their ears a few times, to make sure there were in fact only three rabbits. It gave him headaches.

"Nothing professional, I assure you." He intoned, the cold rumble of his voice doing little to calm the nerves of the three.

They continued to slip and slide and hop over each other nervously, eyeballing the bulky skeletal form of Death suspiciously. He rested his colossal scythe against the wall, and leaned his frame up next to it, shrugging innocently.

The rabbits spread out a little, one of them splitting its attention back to the task at hand.

The light of the hospital delivery room was a little glaring, and a little sterile, but it was of little interest to anyone in the room.  More important things were happening at that very moment.

The three rabbits broke their protective formation and got back to work. They flowed over the woman like a river of fluff and attention, whispering encouragements and advice, pressing ever so gently here and there, nudging and moving. All this, unseen in the slightest by anyone in the room.

Anyone save Death of course.

And he did also notice that at all times, one herbivorous eye was fixed on him. Trading owners with frequency to be sure, but the three were clearly somewhat suspicious.

But distracted as they were, they were the best at what they do. And before long, a doctor was holding up a healthy newborn infant, and presenting it to a very happy, very exhausted mother, proclaiming it a girl.

The rabbits slipped down and slid across the floor, sliding and hopping all over each other almost faster than the eye could follow. They came to a relative stop at Death's feet.

"You can't"

"Have her"

"Yet." They stated, matter of factly.

Death smiled, which he was prone to do more so than people realized. Not even the rabbits could tell.

He turned his gaze from the three to the newborn child, and gazed with wonder and joy.

"No, not yet." He replied gladly. This gave the rabbits pause, and in that second Death was almost certain there were only three ears between them.

"Then why"

"Did you"

"Come?" They asked, hopping and slipping and sliding again.

Death waited for a time, enjoying watching the new life surrounded by love. Eventually he checked his watch and sighed, grabbing his scythe from the wall.

"To remember." He said over his shoulder as he departed into the chilling mists.

Hard Days

The crib was very small, especially framed against the dark bulk of Death beside it. His black mass shuffled quietly up to the ratty thing, ancient when the child's parents were new and not cared for overly well.

A problem shared with the child, mused Death.

The room grew cold around the dark, skull faced spectre. The few pictures frosted, the carpet became stiff. But Death smiled, and reached in to the crib with warm hands.

It was a trick he saved for only very special occasions.

As he raised the child up to his face, it giggled. Death smiled widely, an act that would be imperceptible to most creatures in the universe, but somehow the very young had a nack for noticing.

And Death liked that very much.

He cradled the child to his shoulder, and began to bounce gently up and down, lulling the thing back to sleep. It was not long before the giggling stopped and the heavy breathing of sleep returned. He wrapped the child in the folds of his tattered cloak.

Death moved to the door, and grabbed his heavy scythe with his free hand, still cradling the infant lovingly.

"Time to go, little one." He whispered to the warm bundle on his shoulder, expertly cradled. "This is not your story."

And with that, the two departed, passing through the screaming match in the kitchen while Death cooed softly to the child to sleep.