My stomach started rumbling, no doubt because I had emptied its contents twice today. I was still waiting on Death to finish examining my body when-- wait, that sounded too dirty.
But if we couldn’t find anything to indicate what had happened at the scene of the accident I was sure he wouldn’t find anything on my body. Or whatever was left of it.
Maybe it was just a heap of meat on a tray. Good luck examining that, Death.
As soon as I finished that sentence in my head the door swung open and the man himself came walking out. By looking at his relaxed posture with his hands stuffed coolly in his pockets you wouldn’t be able to tell he’d been touching a corpse for thirty minutes.
“So, find anything?” I asked impatiently while he took his sweet time to casually lean against the wall next to me.
“Yeah, very vital information, actually,” he said gravely before looking over his shoulder. The hallway was still empty and no one had even passed us the whole time we were here.
“Like what?”
“The birthmarks on your left asscheek form a triangle.”
As soon as the words had processed I lunged for him, no longer being able to control myself. I could deal with his assholery but he just crossed a line. When my hands were less than an inch away from his face the world changed and I reached for nothing but thin air.
We were now in a busy street with people going about their days all around us. No one even seemed surprised we just materialized out of thin air. I heard his chuckle coming from behind me but I was too focused on not throwing up a third time. I grabbed the nearest wall for support and waited for the nausea to go away.
I didn’t know if I was getting used to it or if my stomach was now completely devoid of its contents but I succeeded in keeping it all in.
“You’re a fucking asshole, Death,” I hissed through my teeth but he laughed some more. The deep rumble of his laughter reverberated through my body and I tried to ignore the fact it made me a little hot.
I stood up and looked around again but I didn’t recognize the street we were in. It was busy enough for the sidewalk to be a little crowded and there were all kinds of shops around. I turned to face him just in time to see him walk away after not even having bothered to tell me.
I walked after him as fast as my still-wobbly legs would allow me but it was hard considering his legs were a lot longer than mine and he walked as if someone was giving away free samples at the end of the street. ” Where are we now?” I asked him in an attempt to slow him down.
It didn’t work, he just answered me without turning around. “Back in Purgatory.”
That made me do a double-take at the people around me, but there was nothing strange to see. A blonde woman with a fiery red lipstick who was talking to a short man in a business suit passed me and I knew I stared at them like a deranged freak. But I couldn’t help myself. They looked absolutely normal. Not even slightly dead at all.
I didn’t know how to feel about all this, the normalness. If Death hadn’t told me I died and just dumped me here instead I wouldn’t even have known. The only thing that seemed about right was the dreary weather. The sky was a hazy grey color and the sun wasn’t even visible. If this place even had a sun in the first place.
I looked back down and Death was gone, causing panic to rise inside of me. I looked to my left, then my right, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
A feeling of loneliness suddenly threatened to consume me; I knew I had no one here. I hated his annoying presence but being alone was even worse. Even back at the morgue, I knew he was nearby. But this time he could’ve gone anywhere.
Or maybe he had enough of me and decided to ditch me for real.
Which was understandable, it was hard to like me with his temper of mine. He wouldn’t be the first.
I had accepted my fate when suddenly a door to my right swung open and the man in question poked his head out. “Hurry up I’m starving.”
It was then I noticed he had gone into a restaurant. He hadn’t abandoned me.
Relief flooded my senses as I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding before following him inside. As we sat down I started wondering why we even had to eat in the first place. I knew better than to ask him after his “I don’t make the rules and don’t know them all” speech.
We sat down in a booth, facing each other. I tried my best to avoid touching his legs with mine but it was hard considering they took up most of the space under the table. A waitress with purple hair walked up to us and quickly wrote down what we wanted to drink before taking off again.
“So,” I started in an attempt to dispel some of the awkwardness before it could even begin, “Did you actually find something useful, or did you spend the whole thirty minutes you were in there looking at my ass?”
I half expected him to flat out admit he’d been staring at my booty but to my surprise, his face turned grave, as if he found something he didn’t like. Which was even worse than his stupid jokes all the time.
“I did find... Something,” he said before leaning back in thought as if he was looking for the right words, “It’s hard to explain, but there was something wrong about the energy surrounding your body. It’s what I was looking for at the scene, I thought that maybe you’d driven into some kind of trap or something. But you didn’t, they meant to get you specifically.”
When he said that last part my blood ran cold. It wasn’t an accident; I was targeted. Someone out there actually meant to harm me.
“I don’t-- Who would do that? I know I’m not the most well-liked person around but I don’t know anyone who would try to murder me?”
My voice sounded pathetic and actually broke at the end of my sentence. Tears started prickling in my eyes for the first time since the incident but I forced them to stay where they were.
“Why don’t people like you?”
I was fully prepared to glare at him for his ill-timed joke but his face showed nothing but honest curiosity. I was already feeling miserable so I might as well answer it.
“Have you ever heard me talk? Let’s see, I’m not only super annoying and never seem to be able to keep my mouth shut but I also get angry way too fast. And I don’t even have any good qualities to make up for all the bad stuff.”
“I don’t think you’re annoying,” he replied softly. It was maybe the first time he’s ever been gentle in any way with me, even though I’d only known him for a day. It was different, but a good different.
I didn’t really know what to say, so I just looked at him. At the way he’d slung his large arm over the backrest of the booth, making me painfully aware of how muscled it was. In his other hand, he held the menu. But he’d barely even looked at it.
Luckily, the waitress returned with our drinks before I could say more stupid things and took our orders. After she left it was silent for a few moments until Death spoke up, “So, is Lilly your real name?”
I remembered when I asked him if Death was his real name earlier today and I couldn’t help but crack a small smile.
“Yes,” I answered.
“It isn’t short for anything?”
I shrugged, “Should it be?”
“Isn’t it usually short for Lillian?
“I don’t know, ask my parents,” I said before remembering something. “Wait, how did you know I glued someone to a chair fifteen years ago but you don’t know if my name is short for anything?”
He sent a blinding smile my way which showed off his all too perfect teeth before answering, “I can see bad stuff you did, and good stuff. Anything in between is... irrelevant to my job. I’m not actually all-knowing.”
“How far back does it go?” I asked out of curiosity.
“Since when you were two and decided to draw on the walls out of pure spite,” he said with a little smirk. I knew I had been an awful child and I was grateful to my parents for the fact they didn’t resent me for making their lives miserable. I never even thanked them for that, and unless Death and I found a way to solve this thing I’d never get the chance.
“Does everyone end up in here?” I asked while gesturing vaguely at everything around us.
He followed my finger with his eyes for a moment before he got it and shook his head, “No, if you’ve been good they take you up there,” he said while pointing upwards, “but if you’ve been a bad person they drag you down there,” he continued while turning his finger downwards. “Only morally grey people end up here, people who have done both good things and bad things.”
I nodded as I took in all the information. I still had a lot of questions, but I had learned so many things today I was sure I’d just get a headache and forget everything he told me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the waitress return with our plates and I felt my mouth start to water. I was absolutely starving.
“I haven’t thanked you yet,” I told him, “for not dumping me somewhere around here and solve this thing yourself. I know I haven’t been easy, so thank you.”
The boyish smile he answered me with was enough to make my knees feel weak but I chose to ignore that.
“You’re welcome, Lilly.”
