Death

Death

         This is the right thing to do. Nothing can stop me and nothing will. No one could have expected me, the "innocent, sweet, quiet young lady" to do such a thing as this. I almost don't want it to end this way, with no one having a clue about this whole thing, except Roger.
         I ought to heed his warnings; that he will die after I do. He's such an impressionist; or obsessive. Maybe I shouldn't do this, it would only hurt a lot of people I love... I shake my head. Crazy! Why should I care? I'll be dead.
         I'm finally here, crouching like a gargoyle on my windowpane, looking down to the street below. Everything was so quiet, like it was anticipating what was going to happen and couldn't wait. Well, bring on the popcorn! Nothing will change my mind, I'm going to jump and that's that. I start to feel tears on my cheek, but I keep looking down. My tears eventually fall onto the sidewalk, where I crave to be.
         This world is so pitiful; I can't wait to leave it, to see what's on the other side.
          I take a deep breath, and think which way will be better. Jumping like a frog out the window, or let my weight go to my front and gently tip over? I shiver, probably not from the cold but fear. Oh come on! I've been waiting for this! I want this! I need this!
         I close my eyes against the ruthless world and let fate decide how it's going to become of me. I feel my feet slightly tip forward and my hand letting go of the windowpane. This is it...
         Then I feel what I hadn't thought I would; something grabbing the back of my shirt. It feels like a hand drawing me back to my room. And before I can react, I land on my back with my eyes still closed. As I open them I also sit up to find who ruined my escape. Behind me is a man whom I have never met in my entire life.
         He grabs my shirt again and pulls me on my feet. I back up a few steps and catch the windowpane behind me with my hands.
          "Don't you dare try to jump, again." He demands. From looks I can't recognize him, and even his voice isn't familiar to me.
          "I wasn't going to jump, I was going to fall." I correct. For all I know he could be the mental police. So maybe Roger did spill the beans. Great...
         The man grabs my arm and pulls me away from the window again.
          "Tell me you're not going to send me to an institute." I scoff. Everyone might think I would've said something in a scared little voice like they know me to have. But I'm tired of being scared, and want to end my pathetic existence! Thanks to this man I can't. The man just smiles a lopsided smile.
          "No, I just expect you to let Death decide your ending, not you." He explains, but not very well since I'm standing here confused.
          "Huh?"
          The man sighs. "No institute. I'm not a shrink, or whatever you think I am."
          "Then who the hell are you!?"
          The man smiles fully now, like he doesn't get that question enough. "Death."

         The hell he is! I try to move past him to get out of my room, maybe to tell Julie there's a freak in our apartment. Boy is he going to get a surprise! I can already see Julie with her metal baseball bat ready to swing at the intruder! But he stops me midway, captures me in his arms and tells me in my ear: "If you plan on telling your roommates that I'm here, then I might as well inform them that you were just about to jump out of your window. I think you might expect a psychiatrist after that."
         I struggle against his grip and eventually he lets me go. "I wasn't going to jump-"
          "You were going to fall." He finishes. I stare at him long and hard to see what the hell he's doing. Is this a weirdo that likes to believe he's a superhero and saves people from self-destruction? Key word: WEIRDO.
          "Why are you here?" Once that question is asked, a load of questions follow. "How did you even get in? How do you know me? Why in the freaking world do you call yourself DEATH?" I finish it off with that, but another question buzzes in my head: Why aren't Julie and Kyle awake for this yet? I search for my clock, but can't find it anywhere. Then I remember my earlier tantrum, when I threw it out the window. I feel a little ashamed, but if it wasn't for this guy in front of me I would have been with the clock, out the window, like it was supposed to be!
          "Your roommates are going to wake up soon." He says, answering my latest question. "I can't tell you anything here."
          "Then where do you want to answer my questions?" I ask.
          "Well, I was hoping nowhere. I was planning of leaving as soon as I saved your life."
          "Well I was planning on not having my life saved, so I guess neither of us can have our hopes and dreams now."
          "Jolly Park, tomorrow at eight." He gives in.
          "Eight in the morning or..." I start to say but as soon as I blink, he's gone! Like he's a figment of my imagination! Wait, let's get real: I have no imagination!

          I'm sitting on a park bench, dozing off into nothingness. Last night when the Weirdo left, my roomies woke up. I didn't tell them about anything, just laid on my bed and pretended to sleep. I heard one of them creep up to my window and shut it, not realizing why it was open in the first place...
         Even earlier this morning I saw Roger but purposely avoided him. I know he's going to smother all over me when he finds out I'm alive. He does that everyday, and when I complain he says that I never gave him a date and he's so ‘full of happiness' when he finds out it wasn't that day. I roll my eyes, even though they're closed.
         After fifteen minutes I open my eyes to see if the Weirdo's here. No sign of him. Great, that means I got up early for nothing. I get up to leave and take a look at my wrist watch. Six-thirty. Wait... there is no way it can be THAT early!
         I run up to the closest person and ask what the time is.
          "Nine o' clock." She says. I run to ask another person.
          "Nine o' clock." I look at my clock and wonder why it's so slow. I borrow someone's watch to check how slow mine is. Weird. They're both going the same pace. That means someone must have set it. Those weasels! They try to pull stupid useless pranks on me all the time. I start to run back to my apartment but I'm stopped.
          "You still have my watch." He says. Oops. I turn around to give him back the watch I had borrowed, but find out it's the Weirdo I met last night. Jeez mornings aren't my time of day! I didn't even notice whose watch I borrowed!
          "Oh, it's you. So are you ready to answer my questions?" I try to act like I knew it was him all along, but he chuckles.
          "Yes, I am but I think you're going to need an extra cup of coffee." He responds. I don't argue with that, it is so true. I shrug and let him lead the way to a coffee joint at the border of the park. I order a Mega Mocha-chino with sugar. No way am I going to get decaf!
          We sit at a corner table and as soon as I sit down I am ready to interrogate.
          "What-" I start but he interrupts me. I hate when people do that!
          "Not so loud. Listen, my name is Death. I'm not human, and not crazy. Let's just get that across the table." I just stop midway from a sip of my sweet, sweet coffee to stare at him. I swear I'm probably drooling from being interrupted of having the caffeine. He is totally nuts.
          The Weirdo leaned over to make it more inaudible for anyone who passes by. "I'm being serious. I'm the reason why anyone and everyone die."
          My last hope is to try and play along. "So you're a murderer?" I try to make it a joke, but fail.
          "I don't literally kill them, I'm just the reason they die. Because I'm here, free and alive, that means they're mortal. I could be described as the Grim Reaper, except I don't slay them, and I don't carry around a scythe." He laughs. I choke.
          "So..." I start and he motions me to go on. "You killed my mom?"
          "No. I personally don't kill anyone! I'm the reason your mom is dead."
          I try again. "So...you...killed my mom?" This man is confusing me to no end.
          "Listen!" I move closer. "I lived from the time the first man needed to die. And I will continue to live until the last man is dead. If I were to die before that happens, no one will be able to die. So even if your heart stops beating, you will live."
          "Why?"
          "Because I wouldn't be alive to claim your life. Understand?"
          "Holy crap you really need some mental help..."
          "Come with me, I'll show you."
          "You're going to KILL me!?" I burst out. Everyone in the coffee shop looks at us and ...Death grabs my arm and whisks me away.

          He leads me to a dark alley, where we're still speed walking. "Where are we going?" I ask.
          "My hideout." He vaguely answers.
          "Great, I bet you feel just like James Bond." He sighs but keeps on leading me deeper and deeper into the dark maze of passageways. I take another long drink of my coffee, only to find out its empty. Dang.
          "Here we are." He says suddenly. Nothing's here; it's just a big desolate space of nothing! He walks over to the wall on our right and pulls a curtain I wasn't able to see. Figures! Man, everyone has to make me wrong!
         Inside is just a huge room with a small bed, a few small trunks, an old bench and a book shelf with nothing but one book on it. There are no windows and everything is dark. At the end of the room there're stairs, but old and broken down.
          "This is the basement of an unoccupied hotel. Apparently there was so much deaths that they had to close it down for safety. By the way that was my doing, so feel free to applaud." He says with his back to me. He's rummaging through one of the trunks. I mockingly clap.
          "Why did you bring me here?" I ask. I'm not even sure why I followed him in the first place! Curiosity perhaps...
          "To show you I am not lying." He pulls out a hunting knife, like a rigged dagger.
          "Are you sure you're not just going to kill me?"
          "You wanted to die in the first place anyway, right?" My jaw drops. He is going to kill me! "Kidding. I'm not going to hurt you. Here take this." He gives me the dagger.
          "Try to kill me." He says.
          "No! You're insane! I'm leaving!" I turn to leave but he quickly runs to block the exit.
          "Fine, here." He takes the dagger away from me, thanks goodness. But then he stabs himself in the heart!
          "WHAT THE HELL!? Oh my god! What-" I look at the dagger sticking out of his torso with huge fearful eyes, then up at his face. A smile. He's smiling!?
          "No blood, I'm fine. Look," he says, waving and spinning around, "I'm not dead."
          "You're going to be after what I'll do to you! What the hell were you thinking!?" I scream.
          "I was thinking that I'm not human." He takes the handle of the knife and pulls it out. I nearly puke! But the blade comes out clean, with no sign of blood.
          "No, you're right... I think I gathered that now." I answer quietly.
          "Finally."
          "Why did you even save me in the first place?" All of a sudden my questions came back to me. I wanted to know everything about him.

         His name is Death. He is not human. The reason people die, yet not killing them. Clearly insane... I stare at him waiting for my answer. He walks away, towards the only book on the shelf.
          "I was given an eternal existence. Although it wasn't my choice, there are still prices to pay and rules to follow." How does this answer my question?
          "Go on, I'm actually on the same page as you... so far." I say.
          He smiles, but it quickly disappears as he picks up the book. "I was only given this book, the Untitled Book, which explains everything; what I'm supposed to do and how the rules of the agreement go." He says this more to the book than me, but I don't mind since those piercing dark eyes suddenly started to unnerve me. I start to pay closer attention to his looks, although I have no clue why. I assume I'm intrigued with the fact that he's nonhuman. Well, be honest who wouldn't? He's not human. But he fooled me, by his dark brown hair choppy cut just under his ears, slightly pale but not sickly pale skin, and wears the most normal plain dark grey t-shirt and dark jeans that he looks exactly like a human.
          He sits on the bench next to the bookshelf, still looking at the book. "Although I have no idea why, humans can only die when they want to. Otherwise, it's why I'm here to kill them and-"
          "Wait, I thought you don't kill them?" I ask.
          He paused to look at me like ‘are you kidding me? We're going through this again?'
          "Sorry, sorry. Go. Talk."
          "It's why I'm here to give them death- is that better for you?" He looks at me as he asks. Smart ass.
          "Yes, thank you." I sneer.
          "So, it's my job. When you don't do your job, you get fired. So I have to make sure that people don't want to waste their own lives, so I can do it for them." Gosh, I'm getting a sick feeling in my stomach, so I turn away from his piercing eyes, but he takes it as an I'm-ashamed-look.
          "Trust me it's not just you that wants to die sooner than they should. It's not your fault."
          "So why me? Why me in particular out of millions of other suicidal people?"
          "I was in the neighborhood." He shrugs.
          "Why are you in this neighborhood?"
          "Having fun basically. I was seeing what kind of death I would cause in this hotel. I love to see people suffer."
          I stare at him blankly. "Are you serious?"
          "No," he laughs, "I was sick of traveling and so stuck to this place, which had the most minimal deaths in my report. So I decided to just kill off a whole building while I stay here for the rest of my endless days."
          "Is that true? This place is boring!"
          "It's never boring when you're Death. But when it does, I'll just take my leave and run off to Paris."
          I decide I'm tired of standing and sit next to him on the bench, being careful not to be too close. It seems like I have more than a few questions for him. "How can you just run off somewhere? Do you get paid for this job of yours?"
          He laughs that arrogant laugh. "No, not quite. I'm not human, remember? I transport myself by teleportation. Vanish one spot, appear another spot."
          "So is that why right after I blinked, you were gone? You just...vanish?"
          "Basically."
          "What else? Do you have heat vision or super strength?"
          "You are way too comical."
          I look away. I was just staring at him before, intrigued, but when he looked at me with accusing eyes I couldn't help but look away. He leans back, and opens the book.
          "I can move things with my mind, which was given to me by birth. Telepathy, which comes with the job. It helps me choose who, why and how to pronounce death."
          "Do you choose who to kill- I mean ‘pronounce death'?"
          "Not specifically. Most of the time I have no clue whose mind I read. If I was to come across an old or ‘deadly' state of mind, then fate kicks in and kills them. Like when someone gets run over by a car, and they're right on the brink of death, that's when fate says ‘Hey, here's Death to claim your life. I guess you're not going to live after all!'"
          "What about murder?" I suddenly ask.
          "Fate controls the reason. If it's completely planned by the murderer, then obviously someone's going to die, and I just take their life. Accidental murder happens when fate finds no other way to kill said victim." He's speaking to the pages again, flicking page after page.
          "...Do you like your job?" I ask softly.
          "Does anyone like their job?" That's probably a rhetorical question, but I'm not good with those.
          "Maybe if it weren't to be the reason people die."
          "Maybe, if they were used to it."
          "Maybe, if they didn't have any other choice."
          "Exactly." He closes the book, which makes my jump from the produced slam, gets up and puts it back on the shelf. I start to feel pity for him. I run through everything he said, and then realize something.
          "You read my mind. That night you saved me. Does that mean you've been reading my mind other times, too?" I ask accusingly. My mind is my own. Not even Death can take that away.
          "What do you think?"
          I stand up and he faces me. "That's private property, thank you. I trusted you enough to follow you here, didn't I?"
          "Just barely." He smiles. He just earns a new nickname: Asshole.
          "I hope you heard that." I turn to walk out. That's enough insanity for one day.

          "Hey, Roger!" I yell across the street. It's been two weeks since I last saw Death. I don't want to look for him, or even taunt him by fulfilling my annihilation. Out of all the things I hate, I despise with a passion when someone manipulates me. I trusted him, and he reads my private thoughts! I don't care if he saved my life, it wasn't his business. I'm my own controller, no one else!
          Roger sees me and runs across the street and nearly getting himself ran over, to meet me. "Hey! Thank god you're alive! Are you still planning on changing it?" It's his usual question. I don't mind, I actually feel proud to be alive while there's still mysteries in the world. Such as Death... I shake my head to get that jerk out of my mind. Roger sees it as the answer to his question.
          "Oh thank you lord! You finally want to stay with me. I'm telling you that I hated the idea of not having someone like you with me. That you didn't want to be with me anymore... Felt alone, ya know? But you do know that this means triple fudge ice cream pie with a stupid movie, right?"
          I laugh. He's not an obsessed dork. He is sweet, maybe over the top, but sweet. "Hell yeah! That's exactly what I need right now." I say with no trace of lying whatsoever.
          We start to walk towards his house, hand in hand. We're not going out, but we're very close as friends. We went out once, but I couldn't take the over-care from him. He cares for me so much, and it made me feel ashamed of myself for allowing him to be so close to a no one like me. I knew that I was going to kill myself sooner or later, and he being close to me made it harder. But I did however agree to be great friends. We understand and look after for each other. We're both trying to fit into this crazy insane world of rejects and rejecters.

          I wake up on a comfy couch, wanting to go back to my dreamless sleep. I open my eyes and find that my head is next to someone's shoulder. I move to stretch and end up falling on the floor with a loud thump. This of course wakes up Roger.
          "Are you alright?" he asks before chuckling.
          "Fine... just fine, thanks." I yawn big. "What time is it?"
          "Too early." He sinks back down to the couch and closes his eyes. On the floor I look for the clock. When I don't find any, I look at my wrist watch. Four o'clock?! Forget that, I'm going back to sleep.

          I never realized before that Roger snores. I stare at the plain white ceiling, and subconsciously pick up a chip from the bag next to me and eat. I close my eyes again- sleep, sleep, sleep! I mutter a curse and get up. I look at my watch again, four-thirty. I moan as I get up from the floor. I look at all the mess I was laying on before. There are chips, magazines, four different remotes and maybe five DVD cases. Oh and lets not forget the wonderful sticky ice cream spoon that was discarded earlier, and now sticking to my pant leg.
          "Pig." I softly say to Roger. But I should share the blame. I take the spoon off my leg and shift to the kitchen. I'm so tired that I don't feel like picking up my feet, so I slide. I turn on the lights and move automatically to the sink.
          After I put the spoon in the empty sink, I turn around to gather the rest of the dirty dishes that inhabited Roger's living room floor. I see a sticky note on the refrigerator, which is odd. Roger is excellent at remembering his to-do list. I've never seen a sticky note or even a schedule planner in his house.
          I go up to it with a sigh and look at what Roger absolutely had to remember.
          It reads:
          "I never realized how much humans and pigs were alike. Please meet me at the park again; I think I owe you an apology.
          P.S. I never even found out your name, either."
          I look at it humongously puzzled. Why would Roger want to know someone's name? Humans are pigs? Meet at the park again? I shook my head in stupidity, and rip the note from the refrigerator. I hate mornings.

          What's worse than the mornings? Running in the morning. After saying thank you and good bye to Roger, I left to tell my roommates where I was. So I'm running to have a good amount of time to question the Asshole again. Julie and Kyle have been suspicious about me, and I didn't want them to think about anything. I don't know why, they're the ones who play stupid tricks on me. Wait... Oh fuck! I didn't set my wrist watch to the regular time! I look at my watch and it reads six-thirty. Remembering that the first time I realized my watch was wrong, it was six-thirty, but was really nine. So it must be nine o'clock now. Forget my stupid roommates; I have a meeting with Death.









///AN: NOT COMPLETE! Need advice on anything about my story. I'll add more as soon as I fix what's already wrong with it. That means I want feedback!!
PS This wasn't the juiciest part of it yet!! There's going to be some good drama going on afterwards, so make sure you don't hesitate to review!! Thank you!!///