“You can’t do that,” screamed Izzy. “I ought to throttle you, you insignificant little—“ He lunged at Death, malice laced in his dark eyes. It was the last image Death had of him before he attempted to strangle his boss. His fingers only barely touched his neck before the light left his blazing orbs, and he crumpled to the ground. The other aides circled around him, at a loss for what to do. The crowd dove into waves of murmuring and shuffling to get a better look at what just happened.
“I’m not done though,” said Death. “I—oh, damn—I have one last announcement.” He was losing the crowd now, so he tried to catch their last threads of attention. But before he could, lightning crashed into the middle of the throng. Screaming, running, diving, mayhem. Death crouched down behind the podium and peered around the top of it.
Laughter boomed from where the lightning had struck. Some people had been set aflame by the strike, others lay paralyzed. But the laughter had silenced crowd. Death knew the voice. Satan emerged from the rubble, his arms outstretched, looking good in bright red suspenders. “Howdy, everyone,” he said in his low, booming voice, a wide grin etched above his big square jaw. “Guess who.” Screaming again. Havoc. Satan snapped his fingers and fire spouted up in a circle around the crowd. They were trapped. Maria took Tim’s shoulder and brought him down to the ground as though to shelter him.
“Oh come on,” said Death, rolling his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
Satan strolled up to the stage, his arms outstretched. “That’s right, you didn’t hear. The Apocalypse, old friend. The seals have been broken. I have arisen and whatnot. Time to party.”
“When were the seals broken?” asked Death.
“Like you didn’t see it happening,” said Satan. “Wars over oil. Pop music. People thinking losing weight will make them better in some way. The Disney Channel. The final seal was broken last week, when the entire town of Northampton went blind. Some idiot tried to start his own waste dumping company and got some nuclear waste in the water supply.”
“Oh, that might have been my bad,” said Tim.
“The world is coming to a close, old friend,” said Satan. “Human beings are overcome with pettiness and greed. This is it.”
“No, most of them aren’t,” said Death. “Well, most of them are, okay. But that doesn’t mean some aren’t good. You just need to know where to look.”
“Too late for that, Deathy baby,” said Satan. He walked up on stage and snapped his fingers again. Pestilence, War, and Famine appeared next to him. Pestilence was looking at the ground, shuffling his feet.
“Hiya, Death,” he said. “Nice, uh, seeing you again.”
“You too,” said Death. “You guys doing well?”
“Yeah, can’t complain,” said War.
“Can someone tell me what the hell is going on here?” shouted a woman in the crowd.
“Sure, I can,” said Satan. “You can all blame your friend here. What do you call him again? Derek? See, his retirement really peeved me. I was going to hold off the Apocalypse for a few decades, really build up the army, but now I’m just feeling spiteful. But here’s the special treat: since Death isn’t working anymore, he’ll have to watch every one of his precious human friends suffer over and over again. It’ll be fun to see where this can go.”
“Oh, okay,’’ shouted a man who was standing dangerously close to the wall of flames. “I think I get it.”
“I still don’t really get it,” shouted a woman.
“I think it’s a metaphor,” shouted Tim, standing up. “Or something like that.”
“No, are you people stupid or something?” yelled Satan. “This is the literal Apocalypse. I am Satan and these are the Four Horsemen and we are here to create Hell on earth.”
“Yeah, see, I’m still not really convinced,” shouted Tim.
“Shut your mouth, you waste of flesh,” spat Satan.
Death looked at Pestilence, who smiled as if to say ‘sorry, I really didn’t want it to come to this.’ “Sorry,” he said. “I really didn’t want it to come to this.”
“It’s fine,” said Death, laughing. “Satan just didn’t let me finish. I wanted to make one last announcement: I’m retiring from retiring. I want to go back to my old job as Death.”
“You…uh, you do?” asked Satan. He looked at War, who shrugged.
“Yes. I’ve realized that we can’t change for change’s sake, because then we can’t grow and learn. I wanted a complete change of pace, but it wasn’t because the other option was better; it was just different. We can’t hate everything we’re used to just because we’re used to it.”
“He’s right,” said a man, removing a baseball cap from his head.
“Life isn’t a one-way street,” Death continued. “We can go out and explore the world, but we need a home to come back to. I had a lot of fun doing this, but it’s time for me to go back to what I was doing. But that doesn’t mean I can’t come back here and take a break for a while. The work is what makes the breaks that much more satisfying.”
An old woman with a walker and bug-like glasses looked at the debris around her. “We’d prefer if you didn’t come back,” she shouted.
“So I think I’m done being Derek Derek. Thanks so much for helping me through this adventure. But it’s time for me to go.”
Satan put his hand on Death’s shoulder. The touch was warm and soothing, and he looked up to see Satan had a tear in his eye. “That was beautiful, man,” he said. Pestilence nodded and hugged Death. He settled into the unfamiliar sensation of physical closeness, and embraced his old friend. Satan, War, and Famine joined in a group hug as every single person in the crowd looked on with their mouths open and eyes wide.
“This is just really
