“I’m no reaper, grim or otherwise, though I’ve been called that, and more. Yamaraj. Yenlo. Azra’il. Thanatos. Joe.”
“Joe?”
“It’s a fine name. Besides, I didn’t come up with it. People did. That’s how all this started: you people and your passion. Your energy. Your heat. You were so mesmerizing,” he said. “So warm. You can’t begin to understand how different that is from what I am.”
“You still haven’t said what you are.”
“No, I haven’t.” He paused, taking in the boy’s eager features. “I’m not like you. I’m something else. Something older. Something different. I’m . . .” He floundered. “I don’t have the word for it. It’s not a human word, not in any language. It’s not a living concept. I’m other.”
The boy nodded his understanding—or, more accurately, his acknowledgment. He asked, “Were you always Death?”
“No.”
He closed his eyes, remembering the sound of a door slamming shut—impact, then echoes of contact, then nothing.
“It’s been so long since it all began,” he murmured. “Even when I look back now, the images are blurry. I came here; that much is clear. I chose to come.”
“So you’re not from here? You know—Earth?”
He laughed quietly and opened his eyes. “No.”
“Where are you from?”
“Beyond. The other side of the door.”
“What door?”
“The doorway to elsewhere. A window to another world. From the other side of the door, we could see everything on this side. Think of a snow globe: Your world is inside, and mine is outside.”
“You said you came here. How?”
“Interstellar travel on a state-of-the-art spaceship.”
The boy’s face lit with wonder. “You’re joking!”
“Yep.”
The wonder gave way to embarrassment. “Oh.”
“How do you think I came here? It’s a door. I opened the door and stepped through. Doors existed long before you did, you know. Chocolate, though, that was all you.” He chuckled. “You people have made some brilliant things, but chocolate is among the best.”
The boy looked at him somberly for a full minute before he said, “You’re joking again.”
“Maybe. Stop interrupting me if you want me to tell you my story. Unless you’d like to change your boon to a game of twenty questions?”
The boy blushed and mumbled, “Sorry.”
Mollified, he nodded. “Everything from before, everything on the other side of the door . . . most of it is lost to me. That part of my life has been cut off, and all I have left are the tatters from where it was severed.” He tapped his head. “Or maybe it’s just an age thing. Ancient entity getting senile. But I remember some of it. I remember that my kind were first. I remember that we were easily amused. And I remember that we created something from nothing. We made you,” he said, motioning to the boy. “This world, this reality—that was us.”
The boy’s face paled. “You’re saying you’re God?”
“I’m saying we were bored. We had a blank canvas and some paint, and we made this reality.”
The boy shivered and shut his eyes. “Jesus.”
“Heh. No.” He smiled, bemused. “Not at all. And the art metaphor isn’t exactly right, either. You were a work of art, yes, but you were also a novelty. So many living things, all fighting and struggling and loving and surviving and just being. Creating. Like us. You were fascinating.” His smile broadened. “I remember watching you take your first steps. I remember when you discovered fire. I remember when you left your first markings on cave walls.”
“You made us,” the boy whispered.
“You made yourselves,” he corrected. “That’s what was so amazing about you people, all you living things. We gave you the spark, yes, but then you transformed it into an inferno. You created new lives. You redefined the world. You shaped everything around you. It was phenomenal to watch. That’s why I didn’t want it to end.”
The boy’s eyes opened again, and now they were bright with fear as well as fascination. He repeated, “End?”
“All things end, Xander. Paints dry and crack. Sparks fade. Infernos burn themselves out. This world, this reality, should have ended long and long ago. The spark of life here had begun to die. My kind were already thinking of the next new thing to make. I don’t remember much about us, but I do recall that we’re a fickle bunch. Easily distracted. Easily amused.” He shrugged. “Easily lose interest.”
The boy looked sick.
“But I wanted to see what would become of humanity. Other living things too—horses are admirable creatures, and the platypus is an unsung hero—but I was interested in humanity most of all. I wanted to renew the spark and keep the life cycle going.” He paused as he tried to piece together fragments of memory. “I argued for it, I remember that. I pled humanity’s case. I lost. It was a death sentence for you, for your entire world. Nothing is forever,” he said softly. “That’s what I was told, and it’s true. Nothing is forever. Even infinity eventually stops.”
Around them, the wind blew. The boy, captivated by the story, forgot to be afraid. That was something else about humanity that had always fascinated him: how people could so easily be distracted from their fears. Having a limited perspective had its advantages.
“I still wasn’t ready to say goodbye,” he said. “So I thought of a way to rekindle the spark for your world. A drastic way. On my side of the door, I alone wasn’t strong enough to renew the spark. How could I be? It had taken all of my kind, together, to create your world. But if I were to come through the door, step into your reality, be part of it, then I would be strong enough.” He shrugged. “At least, that was my theory.”
“Theory?” the boy repeated.
“None of my kind had ever done such a thing. There was no way to know what would happen, how the laws of this reality would affect one of us on this side of the door. But I was willing to try. I thought that at best, I would renew the spark and return home. At worst, I would fail and you would die, and I would still return home. But I would try, you see?” He smiled, sighed. “I had to try.”
“Um. Speaking for all of humanity . . . I’m glad you did.”
He met the boy’s gaze. “Be gladder, then, for my ignorance. Because had I known then what my action would cost me, I never would have stepped through the door.”
Taut silence as the boy waited for him to continue.
“I let my decision be known. And out of all my kind, only one other stood with me. Only one was willing to test my theory with me. That one agreed to be my companion on this side of the door, as on that side.”
“A friend?”
“Yes. No. Both more and less. We were part of each other. Connected.”
“Like a . . . what . . . a soulmate?”
“You assume my kind have both souls and mates,” he said with a wry smile. “But yes, that term comes close. My soulmate.”
“The one you’re meant to be with,” the boy said, his voice sounding both lost and dreamy.
“The one I had always been with. The one who helped define me.” He could almost see a face, could almost hear a sound, off-key and distant—a still, small voice like starlight. “We would venture here together, to keep each other company as we rekindled the spark. And together, we would return home and bear witness as humanity discovered its full potential. Together.”
The last word echoed and blew apart, lost to the wind.
“What happened?” the boy asked.
Images flickered, incomplete and broken, the memories so faded they were barely impressions in his mind. “I remember standing at the door between worlds,” he said. “There was a feeling, an understanding, that what we were about to do would forever change everything. It was a good feeling. It was right.” He looked at the boy, at the cascade of emotions on his human face. “Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever known that you were about to do something instrumenta
l, and that everything would change because of it, and you still did it because it needed to be done?”
The boy bit his lip, then nodded.
“Then you understand. I thought you people were worth it. So I stepped through the doorway. And then I was here.”
Now there was no struggle for him to remember, no need to piece together the past. Everything on this side of the door was so clear that it was blinding.
“The sound thundered across the skies as the door slammed shut. And I realized that I was alone. My soulmate hadn’t come through. Whether by accident or by intent, I had been abandoned.”
The boy said nothing, but his face spoke volumes.
“And as I realized this, I felt your world pull at me like undertow, dragging me down. I felt its hunger. I heard its maw stretch wide. You called me God,” he said quietly, “but there I was, clawing my fingers against the sky, desperately searching for an opening, a seam, a hint of the doorway beyond. Does God get scared, Xander?”
The boy didn’t reply.
“Call me a terrified angel, then, stripped of its wings and cast down low. Discarded. Can you understand that feeling, that sense of abandonment and betrayal? That fear of the unknown reaching for you?”
A burst of static from the baby monitor, which almost sounded like the screech of tires.
“I never found the doorway back. I tried. I looked for days, months. Maybe years. It’s difficult to tell; time moves slower for me than for you. But however long it was, there came a point when I realized that I was stranded. Everything that I was, everything I’d known, was gone.” He remembered a hint of maybe, a promise of completion, and he sighed. “My life, my world, everything, out of reach for all time, all because of what I willingly chose.”
“I’m sorry,” the boy said hoarsely.
“For what? You didn’t do this to me. It was me, and only me. I chose.”
“But you didn’t make your choice alone. The circumstances changed around you.”
“So?”
“You’re making it sound like it’s your fault,” the boy said. “It’s not.”
“Of course it is. I made a choice. I crossed a line from which there would be no return. I could have chosen otherwise, but I didn’t. My destiny is my own fault.”
“But it’s not,” the boy insisted. “You didn’t know it was going to turn out like that.”
He repeated, “So?”
The boy shouted, “You weren’t supposed to be alone!”
The words hung in the air, suspended by fury and denial, and then the wind carried them away.
“The history of the world is not defined by intent but by action. I chose. And I had to reap the consequences of that choice.” He laughed softly. “I suppose I’m a reaper after all.”
The boy glowered, obviously angry and willfully blind. He demanded, “What consequences?”
He remembered hurling himself at the sky in one last effort to open the door, and then he’d plummeted to the ground like a shooting star. He lay there, exhausted, devastated, unable to move as he felt the grass and ground beneath him shift, felt the creatures in the air and sea and earth around him latch onto his presence. He felt all those things and so much more, felt as they moved toward him, some slowly, some quickly, drawn to him by some unstoppable force.
That had been his moment, he knew now; he could have refused. He could have said no.
But he had said nothing, and in doing so, he had sealed his fate.
All manner of creatures, large and small and everything in between, reached out to him, leeched on to him, attached themselves to him and bore their way into him, into the spark that was life itself. He felt them drain him dry, felt himself slowly disappear.
He remembered crushing pain as he felt himself be reborn.
“My presence here was like a beacon,” he said, half drowning in memory. “My kind was responsible for the spark of life here, and all living things sensed that. They were drawn to me. They anchored themselves to me. Bonded to me. What was true then remains true now: All living things are part of me, connected to me. Through me, all living things maintain that spark of life.”
A pause as the boy considered the words. “You’re talking about souls.”
“In a way,” he replied. “Your soul is your own while you have it, but it comes to life through me. We’re connected, you and I, as I’m connected to the people scurrying along the street so far below, to the trees placed as decorations along the block, to the pigeons pecking at crumbs. I’m connected to everything.”
“Connected how?”
“I sense you, even though I’m separate from you. And part of you always senses me. We’re like a Möbius strip,” he said, pressing his palms together and twisting his hands, “forever entwined, yet on separate surfaces. Together for eternity, yet apart.”
The boy’s eyes widened. “Like Escher’s ants.”
In the boy’s mind, he saw a framed poster that depicted ants crawling along each side of a Möbius strip twisted into a figure eight.
“Exactly like that,” he said with a smile. “While you’re alive, we’re on opposite sides. When you die, we meet along the edge.”
The boy chewed his lip. “You said our souls come through you. What does that mean? Come through you how? Do they literally pass through you?”
He smiled thinly. “Back to twenty questions.”
“I just want to understand the story you’re telling me,” the boy said.
“Next time, you should word your boon more carefully.”
His face naked, the boy said, “Please?”
Well, it wasn’t like there would actually be a next time.
“Souls come through me,” he said again. “Before you’re born into your body, I send you off. And when you die, I meet your soul before it moves on.”
“What happens then?”
“That, you find out when you die. Which, to be fair, won’t be long now.”
The boy stared at him. “What? But . . . this is about you.”
“It’s never been only about me.” He glanced at his watch. “Twenty-seven minutes, Xander. And counting.”
Understanding lit the boy’s eyes. “We’re on the other side of the Möbius strip. What happens to you, happens to us. To all of us. If you commit suicide, all life dies with you.”
“Well,” he said cheerfully, “that’s one way to look at it.”
Xander
Xander felt the blood drain from his face. He was still processing the notion of Death being God, or at least godlike, let alone some stranded entity that life had leeched itself on to. Religion by way of science fiction. Fantastical philosophy.
Lunacy.
Part of him was shouting that this was not only impossible but insane, and part of him was saying it felt right, but all of him was freaking out over the fact that in twenty-seven minutes, Death was going to kill everything. Xander fought a crazy urge to laugh. And here he’d thought that running late for a math test, naked, was the worst of all nightmares. Silly him.
His head spun, and for a dizzying moment, it felt like he was falling off the balcony. But no, he was still standing next to Death, who was still sitting cross-legged on the railing, looking almost pleased.
(today’s the day the world ends)
A fragment of his nightmare sliced through his mind, and Xander winced as he vividly remembered a man who was not a man standing tall as death spread across the world. This was his nightmare coming true, right here, right now. He didn’t understand how part of him had known this was coming. Maybe it had to do with the Möbius strip—when something happened on one side, the other would still feel it, like echoes, or maybe déjà vu. Maybe it was something else entirely. But it didn’t matter, not now—not with Death being suicidal and ready to take the world with him. And soon.
(time)
He had to do something.
But what? It wasn’t like Xander could stop him—he was just a high school senior, and Death was, well, Death.
Xander’s jaw clenched. Someone else should be standing here, figuring out how to prevent the end of everything. Someone more qualified. Someone older. Someone closer to Death or, at least, to dying. Not him. He didn’t choose this. The weight of the world shouldn’t be on his shoulders.
It shouldn’t be him.
He thought he heard a voice in his head say to him, So?
And really: So what that it shouldn’t be him? No, he hadn’t chosen this.
It had chosen him.
Enough. There would be time for self-pity later, but only if there was a later. First things first: Figure out how to get Death to not kill himself, let alone the world.
He took a deep breath. Okay, he told himself. Think, think, think.
He thought they were all going to die.
No, don’t think that.
He raked his fingers through his hair as he tried to figure out what he could possibly do to convince Death not to end everything. Xander clung to the railing with his left hand, even though the terror of falling to the street wasn’t quite so overwhelming anymore. Old habits die hard.
Again with the dying.
He quashed that thought, smothered it.
Killed it.
He checked himself from rolling his eyes. Fine, he could take a hint. Death was in his thoughts. Then again, how could it not be in his thoughts? He had twenty-seven minutes to save the world.
(time moves slower)
Another thought occurred to him, and his eyes widened as he remembered what Death had told him about time. In his story, Death had been looking for the door back to his world, and he didn’t know how much time had passed during that search because . . .
Time moves slower for me than for you.
Maybe “twenty-seven minutes” was like the biblical catchall of forty days being shorthand for “a really long time.” It was still twenty-seven minutes—and counting—but those minutes didn’t have to correspond to real time. Maybe. He hoped.
But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there? Death had insisted on giving Xander a boon before ending it all. What had he called it?
Unfinished business.
Xander grabbed on to that thought, refused to let it go. It swelled from thought to idea to plan in the space between heartbeats: As long as Death was talking, he wasn’t killing himself, let alone everyone else.
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