Death's Mantle

by Harmon Cooper

  “Need to get stronger…” Lucian said to himself as he turned away from the water, toward the old home on the cliffside.

  He would make that home his one day.

  He didn’t know how this would work, but he was certain Old Death would tell him. A smile came to Lucian’s face as he drifted toward the neighborhood surrounding the beach.

  There had been something morbidly poetic about attending his own funeral. Encountering Danira made it somewhat worthwhile, even if she called for backup.

  No one wants to die, and now that Lucian was Death and could prolong his life, part of Lucian planned to make that happen. He would have to deal with Life, and maybe if he could form an alliance of sorts…

  Lucian looked up to see a mother leading her child down to the beach, both of them bundled up.

  Name: Amanda O’Malley

  Date of Birth: 01/22/1996

  Date of Death: 06/06/2082

  Name: Jill O’Malley

  Date of Birth: 09/09/2018

  Date of Death: 07/16/2019

  A parasite was attached to the child, dragging on the ground behind the stroller, the caterpillar-like creature pulsing as they passed. An eye lifted off its form, turning to Lucian, its skin bristling.

  Lucian watched it pass and didn’t do anything about it.

  He wanted an older target; he didn’t care how long the parasite lived off the child.

  Accessing the HUD he had created, Lucian started looking for hotspots in the neighborhood near the water. He found one and appeared there instantly, standing in front of a large, two-story cape with an attached garage.

  Pressing through the door, he heard the sound of the television in the room to the right. He floated in and found an older woman watching a game show, her hand trembling as she ate a granola bar.

  Name: Elizabeth Brown

  Date of Birth: 03/31/1947

  Date of Death: 12/24/2019

  The peach-colored parasite attached to her had dozens of little legs like a centipede, and part of it rested over the woman’s body, its other half on the floor. As soon as it sensed Lucian’s presence, an eye rose from its back and crab claws pressed out of its body.

  Lucian’s whip appeared in his hand, and he managed to cut one of the claws down just as it came for him.

  The creature grew in size as it lunged for Lucian, and he used his whip to cut off another one of its claws. Lucian ran up the wall, and stood sideways on it, his MX-11 materializing in his hands.

  He fired a shot at the parasite, which sizzled through its body, the creature hissing as it grew tentacles and claws, all aimed at Lucian. He jumped back to the ground just as one of the tentacles slammed into his body, sending him into the other room.

  Pain spread through Lucian as he sat up, his hand on the back of his head.

  A tentacle slapped next to him, a thick claw emerging from it and clamping down onto Lucian’s arm.

  He went with his lava sword, hacking off the claw. He drove his weapon into the tentacle, pinning it to the ground.

  His hands began to transform as his own claws took shape. Lucian batted away another tentacle, and latched on to the third, digging his nails in and ripping it to shreds, purple blood spritzing the air.

  His MX-11 was back in his hand in a matter of seconds, the green light indicating it was charged and ready.

  Lucian squeezed the trigger and fired a shot to the other room. The parasite screeched in pain, its high-pitched squeal making Lucian cringe.

  Another tentacle tried to take his legs out, but Lucian managed to jump over in time. He floated into the air and triggered his weapon again, the parasite shrieking even louder this time.

  Throwing his weapon aside, Lucian’s modified grenade launcher took shape in his hands.

  He began pumping shots into the other room, each explosion making the tentacles that had reached him quiver until he heard a final, ear-piercing squeal.

  Energy radiated from the other room into the hallway, twisting up in the air and diving into Lucian’s body.

  Another Soul Point.

  His stat system hovered before him, and Lucian figured he could use what was left to craft some weapons.

  After all, and especially after what was said at his funeral, Lucian felt like now was as good of a time as any to finally make that trip to Tokyo.

  But before he did so, he needed to pay a visit to Old Death.

  Chapter Twelve: A Scythe and Some Game Time

  “Wake up,” Lucian told the elderly man, who was resting on the couch in his otherworldly home. Old Death’s cheeks looked darker than they had the last time Lucian had seen him, and as he blinked his eyes awake, Lucian could have sworn he saw something fade behind his eyes.

  “Lucian?” Old Death asked, as Ezra stood and yawned.

  “I’ve got questions.”

  Old Death laughed, a smile forming on his face. “I’m sure you do, but are they questions worthy enough to wake a man from his nap?”

  A chair appeared in front of Lucian’s predecessor.

  “Fine, fine, take a seat.”

  “What am I?” Lucian asked after he’d sat in front of Old Death.

  “Is that a trick question?”

  “I mean…” Lucian thought for a moment. “How is it that I can visit anywhere in the world and fight parasites, yet I’m not able to do something as simple as knock on a door?”

  “Because you can float through that door, my boy; embrace your new role!”

  Lucian shook his head. “What do you really know about us, about where we exist? I mean, what plane we exist on.”

  “Why does an answer as to where you exist matter? You simply exist. As hard as that may be for you to understand, that truly is the only answer I’m able to provide. I don’t know if there’s a better way to put it.”

  “That answer is a cop-out.”

  “A what?” Old Death asked, squinting at Lucian.

  “A bullshit answer. I’m not alive.”

  “No.”

  “Am I dead?”

  “No.”

  “What happens after you die?”

  “The same thing that happens after you’re born.”

  Lucian shook his head. “Just be straight with me.”

  “I wish there was a straight answer, but from what I’ve read, and from what other Deaths have told me, death is death.” He smirked at his own answer.

  “Come on, you’ve got to have a better answer than that. We’ve already talked about Heaven and Hell, so they exist. And when these people die, people like Lisa…”

  “Who’s Lisa?”

  “I killed her parasite yesterday; I checked on her today and she slipped in the shower and died right in front of me.”

  Old Death pursed his lips. “It is unfortunate that you had to witness that,” he finally said. “I probably should have told you not to check on people after you’ve removed their parasites. I learned that long ago, well before your grandparents’ grandparents were conceived. It is best not to know. It still affects you in the same way, at least it did for me, and that sense of helplessness. No sir. I wouldn’t recommend doing that, especially with family members.”

  “Where did she go?” Lucian asked.

  “Somewhere else.”

  “Come on, man, what kind of answer is that?”

  Old Death shrugged. “There are different planes of reality. People interpret these planes in different ways. There are numerous interpretations across the galaxy, and because of this, there’s no real answer that I have for you.”

  Lucian shook his head. “That doesn’t tell me shit.”

  “You have as long as you’d like to seek an answer to these questions. I stopped looking for them a long time ago. Personal preference.” He sighed miserably. “Sometimes it’s best not to know.”

  “Who decides when people die?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Lisa’s date of death changed before my eyes. Who decides these things?”

 
“I don’t know if anyone decides them, to be honest,” the elderly man finally said. “At least, there isn’t a single entity that decides them. I suppose the Council of Death has some role, but I never made it high enough on the food chain to visit.”

  “After three hundred years?”

  “Times flies when you’re wasting time.”

  “You really haven’t done shit in three hundred years, have you?”

  Old Death sat up, his eyes narrowing on Lucian. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know. Perhaps there was a time when I was like you, eager to understand my role in all this and get control over it. Perhaps having control over something is good, and maybe it makes you more powerful. But there’s more to life after death, pardon the pun, than simply being the strongest around.”

  “Yeah,” Lucian said, turning to his room.

  “I know you don’t want to hear that, but if there’s anything I can pass on to you from my experience in this role it’s that staying under the radar can be a good thing. There’s a lot about this power I haven’t really looked into, sure, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t attempted some things that others may not have explored. Every Death handles this role in a different way. Once you meet another Death, you’ll see what I mean. Being the Grim Reaper is not all it’s cracked up to be, but it has some perks, namely being able to decide how you go about doing the job.”

  “Thanks,” Lucian said, turning back to the man.

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  Old Death cackled. “I said the very same thing to my predecessor. It’s nice knowing what lies in the valley beyond, but part of the fun is the discovery. So go and discover what this role means to you. I’ll still be here. Injuresouls can’t get me here, so I still have time left.”

  “And you really don’t know where you’ll go after this?”

  The elderly man took a deep breath in, steadying his gaze on Lucian. “I’ll let you know when I get there.”

  Clichéd as it was, Lucian decided he would create a scythe.

  He still had around five available Soul Points left, and as he looked down at his work table, he decided to see just how powerful he could make the weapon.

  He closed his eyes, imagining what it would look like, and as he opened them a scythe took shape, its snath thickening as Lucian cycled through a variety of materials. He finally settled on a sturdy blackwood that seemed to be as strong as metal.

  Lucian focused on the blade, growing something that was sleek and sharp, the point curled.

  He lifted the scythe just to get a sense of its weight.

  The weapon was obviously top-heavy, which Lucian addressed by thickening its base, adding a blackened metal that matched the blade to it and creating a curled design.

  He thought about adding a skull to the metal inlay but ultimately decided against it as he began strengthening the weapon, pushing power into it. He could see a blackened energy hovering around his hands, the edges of the matter boiling and popping as he transferred more power to the scythe.

  It began to glow an almost midnight blue, and a tendril of metal rose off the blade and twisted down the snath. Another one followed the first, strengthening the attachment ring.

  Lucian lifted the blade again, and twisted it around his body.

  The crafting space in his room expanded as he stepped into the area, two dummies appearing.

  Lucian cut them down, just getting used to the weight of the weapon.

  He spun it around his body and cut through another dummy that had appeared. He noticed a trail of magic stemming off the blade when it moved. Swinging it even faster caused the scythe to leave a residue of energy in its wake.

  The ceiling lifted a few feet.

  Lucian started spinning the weapon, his hands moving faster and faster as he grew accustomed to using it. He stopped and threw the scythe wide, sending a blast of blackened energy across the room that left a crater in the wall.

  A smile crept across his face.

  He kept practicing with the scythe, trying a variety of poses and combat styles that seemed to just make sense the longer he held the weapon.

  An hour passed this way, Lucian cutting down the dummies he’d created as he tested both close combat and long-range attacks. He went upside down as well, standing on the ceiling and driving his blade into the head of one of the dummies.

  Perfecting moves like this would allow him to potentially ambush a parasite.

  This would require some waiting as they seemed to sense his presence, but it could prove useful, especially if the enemy seemed stronger than Lucian.

  Lucian fired one more shot of energy from the scythe.

  “Nice,” he said, nodding to himself as the weapon faded away.

  He yawned, feeling a bit weaker than normal as he made his way to his bed. His video game controller appeared in his hands. He looked at the flat-screen television across the room, and it grew in size.

  “That’s better,” he said to himself as he started up Zero Enigma, loading his last save record. A sword appeared on the television, the weapon twisting as an in-game fact typed across the screen.

  Once he was back in, Lucian decided against going to the big city and seeing what kind of trouble he could stir up.

  Well, sort of.

  His first instinct was to check the quests he had yet to finish, which he did by navigating through a series of submenus. There were the easier quests, such as finding some lady’s lost cow, and then there were the more complicated ones that involved teaming up with someone to raid a castle.

  He finally settled on a quest through an infamous dungeon, one in the mountains overlooking the city of Karonyoff. He didn’t much like the city—its inhabitants were generally rude and not worth pickpocketing—but he went there anyway, journeying his way to a dungeon, where he was greeted by a green mist.

  “Who goes there?” a deep voice asked.

  Lucian selected an answer that was a bit snarky. Not quite, “your mom goes here,” but not far off.

  “You dare come to my burial ground with such hubris!?”

  A rock slid in front of the opening behind Lucian, preventing his avatar from escaping.

  “Ah, come on, asshole,” he said under his breath as he tried to physically move the stone.

  The deep voice laughed. “This is but a taste of my power, mortal! You have two options: bring me my chalice, which was stolen from me by a dastardly fellow known as David of Willmarth, or fight your way through my dungeon.”

  Lucian was about to select Option B when he recalled that he’d read about this particular dungeon. If he selected the second option, he was pretty sure all of his healing potions and spells would be stripped from him, and that the enemies in the dungeon were a much higher level than he was.

  To confirm, he needed to do a quick search on the Internet…

  Lucian raised an eyebrow as he looked at his hand and a smartphone appeared.

  Before he could even turn the phone on, his stats flashed before him, letting him know that he was almost out of juice.

  “There’s no way that this will work,” Lucian said as he pressed the power button on the sleek smartphone, a logo appearing as it booted up.

  Once it was up and running, he pressed his finger on the Internet icon, his eyes going wide as it accessed the Internet.

  “No way,” Lucian said as he started typing random stuff in the search engine. “No fucking way.”

  He pulled up his email account and signed in to it, immediately sending a message to his brother.

  Connor, I am alive. Are you able to read this email?

  It actually sent, or at least Lucian thought it did.

  Only a moment later he realized the email was eternally in his draft folder, that he wasn’t actually able to create an outgoing email. He also tried social media. While he was allowed to see his news feed, he wasn’t allowed to actually send someone a message.

  It was incredibly frustrating.

  “Ho
w is this working?” he asked as he looked the smartphone over. No answer coming to him, Lucian figured he’d use it to figure out what to do in this particular dungeon.

  He typed “Karonyoff dungeon options” and found out that his gut instinct was wrong. The best choice was to go get the chalice. That was fine and all, but Lucian still didn’t understand how the Internet could possibly work. And for that matter, how did the video streaming? And if both these things worked, could he play online?

  He tried to connect Zero Enigma to the Internet and failed.

  He shook his head, frustrated with his limitations. Being Death was one of the most powerful things that could ever happen to someone, but the limitations were truly frustrating.

  Lucian had the sudden idea to run out and tell Old Death about being able to use the Internet here, but he figured Old Death would just shrug, and let him know that “things were strange.”

  Or whatever.

  It would be handy, however, to have a smartphone, especially because Lucian was used to looking up information in this way.

  Lucian performed a quick search for information on Lisa’s death and found an article about a woman in Beverly, Massachusetts, who had been found by her brother after slipping in the tub.

  “Makes no sense,” Lucian whispered to himself as he placed his phone on the nightstand and returned to his video game controller. He selected the option of getting the chalice, and the rock behind him rolled away.

  “Good luck,” the evil dungeon spirit said. “Do not return without my chalice.”

  “Got it,” Lucian whispered to the deep voice. “And fuck you too.”

  Lucian fast-traveled to Karonyoff, appearing at the city gates.

  “I’m sorry,” one of the guards said, stepping forward as the scene played out. “I’m not allowed to let you into the city. There has been a kidnapping, and the city is on lockdown until we’re able to search all the homes.”

  Lucian had put some of the Skill Points he had received into his persuasion ability, but he didn’t know if it was high enough to be able to get into the city.

  Still, he attempted it.