Chatterbox: KYNGDOM™ RP Board

It’s cold here. 

The dead don’t have to worry about heat. They can’t feel it. And yet, I can. It’s odd, when you think about it. Technically, I’m dead as well. Maybe it’s Death’s punishment for me. Endless darkness, endless cold. This is what happens to those who escape Death’s grasp the first time. She still doesn’t allow me to visit Alexandria. Nor Lily pur Lamour, nor anyone else. She doesn’t even allow me books in this endless black. To read books, I must send a part of myself into the world of the living, and have my ghost-like figure hover over someone as they turn the pages. As you may have guessed, this freaks most folks out. I only do this when the people who’re reading are least likely to notice me. When they’ve fallen asleep reading, or when they’re really, really sucked into whatever novel they have open. Though even this has it’s problems, because when the former happens I find myself rereading the same page over and over and over again, and that becomes rather boring. Jabberwock poetry is fun the first time, but after reading about slithy toves a hundred times over, I begin to fall asleep myself.

It’s dark here, too. 

My eyes, despite being nearly 20/20 vision, cannot easily see in the darkness. I can only truly see here when Death brings her lantern over, or when a new soul arrives to be escorted away to the afterlife by one of the two of us. I always wish to go back. Always. Death doesn’t let me see my sister. She doesn’t let me see my friends. She just puts me to work. I wish I could die, every day, but the problem is, I’m already dead. So instead I wish for life, the one thing I know she won’t let me have.

Suddenly, she appears. I know she likes to do this. To speak with me. It seems like her favorite pastime. Sometimes I wonder if she keeps me around just to speak with me, because she is as bored as I. 

“Hello Death.” My words echo strongly through the darkness. I realize I haven’t heard my own voice in ages. My mouth feels odd, strangely dry, and every syllable is forced. Like I’ve forgotten how to speak. 

“Hello Maria. Nice to see you.”

“You know I don’t feel the same. You also never seem to be able to remember that it’s shadow. shadow of everywhere.” Despite my cold tone, Death smiles. Her lantern glow is ever so menacing. I wonder how I ever felt it to be warm. 

“A silly name you created when you were eight,” she says with a wave of her hand. “Anyways, the real point of our meeting. The mortals are readying themselves for war. The Final Battle, they call it. It is coming. And you want me to let you go fight in it.” Her hand plays with the sword strapped to her thigh. She still looks like Mina. She has always looked like Mina to me. Death looks from the sword she’s fiddling with back to me. “This is the part where you attempt to bargain for your life back.”

I take a step forward, but then realize it’s useless. Even after living here for who knows how long, I’ve only ever been able to move when Death allows me. At the moment, my legs and wings are frozen in time and space. I can only move specific parts of my upper body. 

“Death, please let me go,” I say. I know this is exactly what she wants. Her pretty little servant, once a powerful general, to beg for a second- er, third- chance at living. “I know we’ve discussed this before, but it’s different this time. I have a better bargaining chip.” 

“And that is?” 

“Well, I’ve thought about it. When I leave to the Mortal Realm, I can give you my wings. That way, you know I’ll be coming back. And I don’t even need to go for a long time. Just until the war is done.” I twist a lock of my dark hair with my finger. “That’s all I ask.”

“Wars have stretched the length of years. Why, there was even one that was so devastating it lasted fifteen. Tell me, why should I let you leave if you could be gone for fifteen years?”

“You could go that long without me. Fifteen years in the life of an immortal like you is equal to a fraction of a fraction of a heartbeat.”

She smiles.

“Fair enough. I suppose I will let you go after all.”

I can’t believe my ears. This is amazing. Even a few years out of this hole is worth everything I have. I want to dance around the room and sing hallelujah. I want to laugh and cry and smile, all at the same time. But this is Death. There must be a catch of some sort. 

But there doesn’t seem to be. She takes the sword holstered at her thigh from its sheath. She walks around me, her- no, Mina’s- tail swishes back and forth as she passes. I feel her paw as it touches the down feathers of my wings, but her blade catches me off guard. It strikes me quickly, chopping off both of my wings in an instant. I hear myself scream. The sound is terrifying and ugly. My hand immediately goes for the place where the stubs of my wings should be, but there aren’t any. They seem to have disappeared. Death holds each of my wings by the tips, smiling. I can tell she’s used her magic to make me appear human. No, I’m not a mutant anymore. I’m a human. How odd it is. 

“shadow of everywhere, my former Angel of Death. Are you ready to return to the Mortal Realm?”

I barely have time to respond before I feel myself begin to… fade. Lapse, in and out of this reality into another. It’s an odd sensation, but I’ve felt it before. Only twice in my life. 

I feel it every time I die. 

I’m nearly back in the Mortal Realm when I hear Death say something more. 

“One last thing. You’ve been trapped in the place between my realm and yours for a very long time. And if this time is counted, you’ve escaped me twice, living three lives. That’s two more than any mortal is ever allowed. That’s why I’ve kept you where you are. However, if you took five lives in place of your own, then you’d be allowed to travel to my realm. Be with your family again.”

“That seems too easy.” I say. My voice is hard to hear. It’s lapsing with my body.

“You didn’t let me finish. I want five very specific lives, Maria.”

“Whose?”

“One, the life of the first true friend you ever made. Two, the life of the first boy you ever loved. Three, the life of your most faithful servant. Four, the life of the reluctant wolf, and five, the life of a dark angel’s child.”

The darkness is fading now. I’m beginning to see the other world, the Mortal Realm. I’m barely registering what Death is saying. Yet it’s there, toying with my mind and my memory. Another riddle she’s going to make me decipher. I’m so close to the Mortal Realm that her final words are no more than a whisper.

“Get their lives for me, little shadow, and when you return to me, you finally go to the afterlife. But fail to kill even one of them, and, well, you will be stuck in the infinite black forever.”

And then I feel my feet touch solid ground. I can’t shake off the fact of what Death has just told me, but I take a deep breath and immerse myself in the present. I’m surrounded by trees, the dirt warm beneath my feet, the sky a pale blue above me. A temperate forest. I can see the tip of bleak peak in the distance, and I think I can hear voices and music on the breeze. 

I am back in Kyngdom.

I wonder if the price will be worth it.