Death threw her head back and laughed. It might’ve been a pretty sound if it hadn’t been paired with a sneer. “You have gall, child. I have the power to undo you and yet you speak to me in this manner?”
“If you wanted me gone, you wouldn’t have intervened when I committed suicide.”
Her curled lip slowly flattened. The exhaustion crept back into her expression and stance.
“Why them?” I asked. “Why us?”
She regarded me in her quiet, weary way, violet eyes darting around my face. Looking for what? I couldn’t even begin to imagine.
“Was it random or predestined?” I pressed.
Death shook her head. “I cannot see the future.”
“But you know who has to die, where they have to go, and why. How?” I’d asked her once before, but she hadn’t answered. I was bracing myself for another non-answer while hoping for more. I needed to know.
Death gave a one-shouldered shrug as if to prove her indifference, but when she averted her gaze I knew this conversation hurt more than she let on. “I suppose you can call it instinct.”
“But you don’t know for sure, do you?” I softened my voice. I didn’t mean it to be an insult. I wanted her to know I was sympathetic, just trying to understand. “You don’t know the how or why, only that you can. Is it the same with your other powers?”
Death raised her hands before her. She proceeded to turn them from side to side as if seeing them clearly for the first time. “If it pertains to the body and soul, I can control it. But I cannot give life.” She slowly lowered her hands back to her sides. “I cannot spare a life once I know it is time to take it, not without suffering a great deal of pain myself. I cannot venture into the land of the living unless it is to fulfill my role as ferry of souls.”
I had never seen so much sadness in a pair of eyes before. It dawned on me then. “You didn’t mean to curse us, did you?”
“In my youth, I sought to learn the extent of my powers.” Death turned away as if she couldn’t stand to look at me anymore. “I…experimented with you and the others. Both instances were costly mistakes. I stretched my very essence and I nearly vanished into oblivion.” She started walking toward the land beyond the gate. “I swore to myself I would never attempt such a feat again.”
She was ending the conversation. Soon I’d feel that damned hook latch into my soul and reel me all the way back to my body. But I wasn’t ready. I raced after her.
“You could reverse it, couldn’t you? Fix everyone?”
“Why would I?”
“Because you’re not evil!” I grabbed her sleeve and pulled. A part of me thought I’d pass right through her but my fingers wound their way around her wrist, through her silk-like dress.
She spun around by the force of my tug, surprise making her face go blank. I guess she didn’t know I could touch her either.
“You know we’re in pain,” I said, taking advantage of her momentary shock. “You admitted you made mistakes. So make it right. Free us.”
She coolly took another step back. When I tried to pursue her, an invisible force shoved me away. I realized she’d crossed into heaven. It was the most peaceful-looking stretch of wilderness I’d ever seen. Lush and green and open, with sparse vegetation. It smelled like rain falling through trees, like new flowers in bloom, like freshly-tilled earth. A stream trickled somewhere in the distance. Happy voices echoed back to me from places unknown.
For whatever reason, I wasn’t allowed in. It made my heart hurt in ways I couldn’t describe.
“I vowed I would never attempt such a feat,” Death said again as the gates started to close.
I was forced to retreat or be crushed by the swinging brick and metal.
Anger and desperation welled up inside me until they burst from my mouth. “At least try!” I threw my fists against the closed gate. “Prove you’re not a monster and try.”
“I am Death!” The ground literally shook with the power behind her voice. “My actions will not be dictated by the likes of you.”
The hook curved around my spine and yanked so hard it threw me to the ground. I screamed all the way back to the land of the living.
November 19th, 1964
I am afraid. I am afraid to write, to speak, to breathe. I’m paralyzed. But Dymeka urges me forward. He tells me it is important to write, to speak my fears out loud. He tells me to breathe even though I do not need it to survive; I need it to live. In order to live, I need to name my fears. In order to keep myself sane, I need to write my thoughts. But even after all this time, all these years of running, traveling, searching, living, I am still afraid.
We cannot die but I fear regardless. I fear discovery of a terrible truth. I fear discovering our plight is worse than we believed. I fear being discovered by mortals. I fear their torture. Temporary as torture might be, I fear above all else being separated from Dymeka.
If such an instance were to pass, I hope our captors would read this journal and see it as proof that we are in fact very much human. We feel, we fear, we desire. We simply made a mistake. We accepted a gift without truly knowing what it meant.
In all our efforts thus far, we have not been able to reach our gift-giver. We cannot provide any
