A Golden Thread.

Death awoke.

It was a typical day. Around him, transparent glowing threads spanned from the marble ceiling of his lair to the obsidian floors. Beyond that, where there should have been walls, a black unending void dotted with glittering stars stretched out farther than the eye could see.

With a grunt, he stood up from his ivory throne and prepared for work. His bleached bones clicked into place as he stretched. The shadow behind his throne began to reach towards him, draping over his skeletal form in the shape of a cloak.

Midnight black, he thought with glance down at his robe.

He would normally put on something less formal like onyx, but he felt like changing things up today.

He reached out to one thread that looked slightly different than the others. Instead of transparent, the thread had turned a dark shade of red.

From the emptiness beside him, Death drew out his scythe. Dark, gnarled wood formed the shaft. A beautifully curved blade reflected the sea of stars around him.

After muttering a brief prayer, Death's blade cut the thread in an instant. The two severed halves began to fade and fall away into the void. In the real world, Death felt a certain man's soul leave his body after finally succumbing to several stab wounds to the chest. Death shuddered. Gore filled deaths did not sit well with him.

Sighing, Death continued down the hall onto the next few threads. Just like the first, each thread gave way to his scythe due to some reason or another. Heart-attack,car crash, heart attack, serial killer, heart-attack, heart-attack. There was a scary one mixed in there, but Death pretended not to see it.

'But all these heart-attacks...Take better care of yourselves,' he muttered. 'You're giving me more work.'

He resumed his patrol.

Regardless of status, wealth, age or achievements, every life he confronted faded into the abyss. That was what made his job depressing. At some point, his role had become the equivalent of stepping on ants. Luckily, every few years there was an exception.
Several red threads reached out to him, begging for a quick death but his swept them aside.

Annoying, he thought. I'll get to you later.

Nearing the end of the hall, Death arrived at the exception among all exceptions.

A single golden thread.

Like the red threads, this thread was near the end of its lifespan. The only difference between them was that a golden thread was...slightly more resilient.

Crouching into a battle stance, Death gripped his scythe and lunged forward. The golden thread frayed until it formed several individual strands and lashed out at him like a cat o' nine tails. Expecting this, Death sidestepped and slashed at his opponent. A moment too slow. The blade of his scythe failed to meet its mark as the threads wove under the strike.

'As always, that flexibility is impressive,' Death murmured.

Death's form suddenly burst into several shadows, each one scattering in various directions. With no single target to focus on, the golden threads hesitated for a fraction of a second. In that gap, Death reformed behind the threads and slashed down. But before his blade could hit, the threads flashed a brilliant gold, knocking Death backwards into the darkness. Stunned, his scythe slipped from his grasp and was immediately pulled out of his reach by the threads.

Cursing, Death willed a foothold into existence and propelled himself towards his weapon but before he could reach, the threads gripped the shaft of his scythe and snapped it in two. The broken halves of the weapon dissolved into nothingness and the threads returned to their unified form.

Death touched down on the obsidian floor and shot a glare at the now single thread which flicked and waved as if to taunt him.

Irritation swelled deep within the cavity of his sternum. Before he snapped, he judged it wise to quickly walk away.

Even without touching the thread, he caught a glimpse of the human it was attached to.

A woman in her late twenties. She lay in a hospital bed with a number of medical contraptions attached to her body. Normally he didn't pay much attention to the faces of those he reaped but, through their battles, she had become cemented in his memory. That blond-grey hair that seemed to have been sprinkled with ash. Clear, emerald eyes that made him feel like he was always being laughed at.

She was afflicted with a disease of some sort, it didn't matter to Death. What mattered was that she was dying. She was meant to be dead already but time after time she had repelled him. He knew that she had no idea that she was actively battling him here but he had set her up as his bitter rival anyway.

However, that was nearing an end.

The margin by which she had been winning was becoming smaller and smaller. She was weakening. One day he would arrive, and she would be cleaved in two without effort like all the others.

Some part of him, a part he had thought had long shriveled up, felt annoyed by that.

You appear out of nowhere, disrupt my work then go and then plan to die in such a tepid way.

Just once, he wanted to talk to her. It wasn't anything as clichéd as love. It was simpler than that. A desire for an equal. A person who could stare him down without fear.

Before these thoughts piled up, he shook them free of his mind and returned to his work. Red threads scattered like confetti as he progressed down the hall. He could worry, he could complain and he could whine about it but, at the end of the day, he would have to reap her at some point.

His job was necessary. All things eventually came to an end. He was the personification that truth.

He slumped into his throne, old bones creaking. As he grumbled to himself, the golden thread glowed briefly outside of his line of sight.

The woman on the other end smiled.

She knew.

She didn't quite understand how or why but she knew.

Every time she felt like she had reached the end of her endurance, her consciousness would drift. She would arrive at that abyss to fight with that hooded skeleton. She understood immediately who he was. She knew what she was fighting for.

So she fought.

At first it was only out of a natural desire to live. Then it was out of a childish refusal to lose. Now, it was because she enjoyed it. Their clashes...were fun. At some point she had learnt to peek in on him even without him being aware. She had seen it. Just how miserable the being called Death was.

At that moment, she renewed her resolve to fight. Not only for herself but for his sake.

For the one who had given her such an interesting experience as she lay alone on her deathbed, she would resist him as many times as it took. She would keep him company and he would do the same for her.

She chuckled.

At some point their game would end with a victor. Still, she showed no signs of backing down. After facing Death day after day, it was hard to fear much.

And then the time came.

She finally let go.

***

In the dimness of his mind, a single golden thread cut through the fog.

He didn't need to ask who it was. He could tell after all this time. The how's or why's were irrelevant. She was strong after all. This much was nothing to her.

When he woke, she was there, emerald eyes meeting empty sockets.

'So? Shall we have a rematch?'