I had this idea playing on my mind for a while, having watched Final Destination and thinking about Death just trying to do his job...
And then I thought... What if Death was fuckable.
This is just the prologue, so hopefully there will be more to come soon! (I just need the time and inspiration huehuheuhuehuheuhe)
Anyway this is just something a little different for my high tier babies, if you have any suggestions for other things you'd like me to read or talk about I'm all ears!
Stay sexy, hydrated and kind <3(Read along below if you'd like! Some typos and spelling may differ, I'm an idiot. okilybye)
They say death follows you everywhere. Perhaps in a figurative sense, meaning that no matter where you go… No matter what you are doing, it can strike at any time. Completely unnoticed until it is too late and you’re left wondering what you could have done differently to change the course of fate and alter reality.
I first saw him when I was nine.
It wasn’t a particularly special day, just a regular Tuesday after school. It was autumn, so everything was still so shiny and new in terms of school supplies and clothes. The prospects of the new school year seem so exciting at the moment, until it all comes crashing around you in the blink of an eye.
It was just me, my older brother and my Mother. My father hadn’t been in the picture since I was born, the reason is still unclear to us, but we made do with what we could. My mom was successful in her own way, she was the town oracle. Tarot cards, tea leaves, incense and palm reading. A lot of people loved to assume she had no real business, that everyone turned their cheek towards her because she was too strange and believed in something different than the normal.
What nobody had anticipated was how fascinated with the unknown most people are deep down. Over the years my mom had built up her own clientele, returning customers spreading the news of her ‘miracle services’ to anyone who was open minded enough to listen. They loved bullying us at school for the work she did, but they had no idea their own parents were practically on their knees on our doorstep begging for a last minute appointment to find out why their husband can’t keep his hands off his secretary and if taking a chance on the pool boy is worth a shot.
We had a routine on these normal, boring days. Wake up, eat breakfast our mom prepared and get taken to our respective schools. Adam, being older, already in high school and doing his best to maintain the typical ‘I don’t care attitude’ teenagers have when they’re struggling internally with all the hormones and new opportunities the world is presenting. Me, on the cusp of moving up into middle school, just trying to maintain a good relationship with my brother who probably wanted nothing to do with me and my mom who was so good to us but so busy all the time.
The bullying was manageable. They would usually come up with rumors regarding the smell of my clothes from the lingering incense my mom burned the night before to ward away any bad spirits, mock me for being dressed in second hand clothes and warn everyone else to stay away from me or else they would get cursed. Some days I did wish I had the ability to inflict curses on those who try to hurt me or speak back about my family, but most of the time it was easy to just ignore it and go about my day normally.
The smell of incense was strong that evening, Adam and I already having been home for a while waiting for mom to return from her various house calls and meetings. She insists as soon as we get home we need to have the altar set up, do a cleansing ritual to rid ourselves of any bad spirits and then we can settle in for the rest of the day and so whatever we want. Every single day we did the same thing, so I had always wondered what was so different that day that made everything feel… So bittersweet.
The sun was setting by the time mom had gotten home, all smiles and hugs, chattering about her day and asking us about ours- My gaze diverted from her to a figure standing out on our front lawn. Motionless, black jeans, leather jacket with a black hoodie underneath. His face was obscured, with the setting sun it was hard to tell any of his facial features- Or if he had any at all.
A knot twisted in my stomach, my heart began to race and my mother was quick to pick up on this. She looked around outside once I insisted I saw someone out there, but by the time the front door had opened, he was no longer standing where he had just been. All that was left was the crisp autumn air and Adam teasing me for making mom go outside and look for this ‘mystery man’ I had made up for attention.
We had gone inside as normal, continued on with our night, ate dinner, watched a movie and she tucked me in to bed to prepare me for a good night’s rest to be up bright and early and do our same old routine once again…
Adam had woken me up suddenly, I don’t recall falling asleep and I don’t remember what time it was. I didn’t have time to check before he was ushering me out of my room- Now suddenly filled with smoke.
The home my mother had built now suddenly in a state of destruction. Bright, violent flames swallowing up the walls, curtains, artwork and artifacts we had collected over the years. Our family photos lines the walls now burning to a crisp as the flames engulfed everything in it’s path. Our lungs burned as we fought to breathe through the smog, coughing what we could out of our lungs as Adam fought his way through the heat and chaos to get us out to safety.
By the time we made it out to the front lawn, the emergency services had already arrived, rushing out of their vehicles and to the scene to try and douse the fire now completely tearing down our family home. Everything moved in slow motion, I don’t even think I could comprehend what anyone was saying to me, much less Adam.
All I could focus on other than the fire was the same man from earlier, standing on the edge of the lawn and watching the destruction unfold. His head lifted enough for me to catch a glimpse of his face from my place on the grass, not even noticing my own legs having given up on me and a paramedic trying to ask me questions regarding my health.
His face was emotionless, his lips shut in a tight line as the fire danced in his dark eyes. Time slowed down, all I could think was how tired he looked. The only thing knocking me out of my trance was the explosion coming from the home, causing more carnage to our belongings than it possibly did before.
Our mom never made it out that night.
The forensic team stated she had likely fallen asleep while taking a bath, her various candles somehow knocking over and catching the towels hanging up on the wall. She never woke up and likely suffocated in her sleep from the smoke, so we were at peace with the fact she didn’t suffer before passing away.
I asked everyone who arrived on the scene that day during the funeral if they recalled seeing the strange man standing on the side of the lawn. Everyone told me nobody with his description rang a bell, but it’s easy to miss the little details of who was there because of the insanity of the night. It was easily brushed off, we had more important things to worry about now that we had no home and our mother was no longer with us.
I was quick to forget about it, focus on taking on life one day at a time as we adjusted to our new normal.
The next time I saw him, I was sixteen.
It had been a few years since our Paternal Grandparents took us in. Adjusting to the difference was rough, we ended up packing up whatever belongings we could salvage and moved across the Country to ‘get away from it all’, as my grandmother put it.
They always had good intentions with us, having spent so many years not getting to know us because of how our father cut off connection, but they were all we had. As far as they were concerned, their own son could have been dead somewhere, but at least they still had their beloved grandchildren to care for after they experienced such a tragedy.
We gave them a hard time. Not intentionally, or because we didn’t like them. We just had a hard time understanding how we could have such a perfect, comfortable life up until one night when everything felt so normal. Accidents like this shouldn’t happen, not around the type of woman our mom was.
Suburban life turned to farm life, part of me was thankful we weren’t surrounded by prying eyes and hushed whispers as those around us created more rumors. Nothing for acres besides the barn and animals our grandmother has been tending to for years. Schools changed, and nobody knew our story, but it didn’t motivate us to try and connect with anyone, we wanted to keep to ourselves, whether or not there was bullying, it never lasted long because they could never get a reaction out of us.
High school was as normal as it could be, you’ve got your cliques, your micromanaging teachers, the girls that make you wish you could evaporate into nothing just by standing next to them and having to be perceived day in and day out.
Adam still lived with us at the time, having gone off to college for a semester before returning and claiming education was a social construct and he can teach himself to do anything if he put his mind to it. He did pick up hobbies every so often, but in the end wound up working part time at the local movie rental store a few miles away from the farm. He always boasted about how it’s exactly where he wanted to end up, but I was never sure he had a plan to begin with.
Grandma tolerated his behavior, seeing as he was the only thing that reminded her of her own son. He was starting to become the spitting image of him, compared to the photos archived in the many photo albums littering the little farm house in the country. Our grandfather was tougher on us, strict probably because he felt like he had to be after so many years of us running around basically ‘trusting our gut’ because of the faith our mother had in us to keep ourselves safe.
I hated the winter months the most. Christmas time was tough, not that we ever celebrated the Holidays with our mom in a traditional sense, but because it was a constant reminder that we are going to end another year without her by our side.
My eyes kept focused on the snowfall outside my upstairs bedroom window, the laughter from the sitcom playing downstairs ringing throughout the home as it had to be just loud enough that Grandpa would hear it. Absolutely adamant that the television’s volume is just busted, not that his hearing was starting to go. Adam had been working late, my grandmother finishing up dinner in the kitchen. The smell from the pot roast hitting my senses and reminding me exactly how hungry I was after not eating all day.
Then he emerged from the darkness.
My eyes now solely focused on the shadow emerging from the woods surrounding the property, far enough that I could not tell his features from where I was sitting, but the twist in my gut and the rush of memories from the night of the fire hit my mind like a train. A man I had gaslit myself into believing never existed was now standing in the snow outside my grandparents home.
He never looked at me, his hands buried deep in his leather jacket pockets, the snow kissing his frame as he walks his way further into the moonlight- And yet not a single snowflake lands on him and stays there, seemingly passing through him.
I don’t remember getting up, I don’t even remember when I stopped breathing. Only the sound of my bare feet slapping against the wooden steps to make my way to the front door, the door slamming open with a crash and the vague sound of my grandparents scurrying to find out what all the commotion was about.
Just as he did before, the moment I opened the door and stepped outside to get a better look at the stranger invading the property, he was gone. The land untouched as it had been with the recent snowfall, undisturbed and pristine. I felt like the dance of the moonlight on the snow was mocking me, calling me out for being foolish enough to think this stupid imaginary person existed.
It was only that night I started to correlate the stranger with death.
Even as my grandmother ushered me inside and my grandfather shut the door, the feeling in my stomach never ceased. I felt uneasy, I could feel my own heart beat rising into my throat, everything was bringing me back to the night my mother died and the only person who was there to witness my life’s downfall was miles away working a shitty part time job.
I was inconsolable, unable to explain myself to my grandparents who just looked on in concern. I was sure they were ready to ship me off to an institution that night if the weather had been fine, but instead they insisted I go upstairs and get some rest. It was a dreamless rest, but waking up brought me back into a reality that felt like a nightmare.
There had been no usual wakeup call, no smell of freshly cooked bacon lingering in the air, no sound of the old time-y radio station depicting political news from all around the world.
It was silent. Eerily silent.
After getting up it didn’t take long for the sinking feeling in my chest to return, the sound of my own blood rushing through my ears as I came across my grandmother sitting at the table, a thousand yard stare cemented on her features and twisting her face into someone I did not recognize.
My grandfather was the only one not to wake up that morning.
The autopsy stated it was cardiac arrest, having passed away peacefully in his sleep beside the woman he loved more than anything in the world. It definitely seemed like an off coincidence, but it made my blood run cold.
I didn’t tell anyone about the man, I never got the chance and when the news hit of Grandpa’s passing, it just never felt right to bring it up.
Time passed by within the blink of an eye, I probably spent the next few years disassociating because my memory is very hazy. We remained in the same farm house, Adam eventually moving out to live in a dingy apartment in the city, I stuck around to take care of Grandma during her final days.
I half expected the stranger to make an appearance, knowing the moment I saw him it would only be moments before my Grandmother took her last breath.
But he never came.
My grandmother did pass surrounded by her loved ones, my aunt making an appearance after living abroad for years, having contacted my estranged father who had not been returning her calls. I figured it was for the best, only a deadbeat man like him would make something like his own mother’s death to be about him somehow.
It wasn’t long before it was announced the farm would be sold off, our aunt gaining the inheritance of the land and figuring she was better off selling it to the highest bidder rather than moving up her life in Italy and living on a farm in a small, home she spent most of her life trying to get away from. Nobody could blame her, she never was a farm girl.
I ended up moving in with Adam in the city. I didn’t want to be alone, I couldn’t be alone. I had just begun college by the time Grandma got sick, I knew if I had any time alone I would end up skipping town, forgetting my responsibilities and disappearing into the night to forget all the tragedies that have taken place and wonder if the mysterious man was just a figment of my imagination, some sort of gift I was given being the daughter of an oracle.
I didn’t have a gift. It couldn’t be a gift, not when death followed so closely behind, for years he ended up being a long forgotten memory I pushed to the back of my mind, only resurfacing when he would make appearances in my dreams. Life grew into a new normal, I was working my way through becoming a detective after finishing college, making sure Adam stayed on track and for the most part, things were perfectly normal.
The day I turned 24, we had our first conversation.
I had been staring up at the sky, watching the white clouds go by with no real recollection of how I ended up there. Had I been asleep? Was I dreaming?
Everything felt so strange, like I was floating but still feeling the ground beneath me supporting my weight. I felt so at peace, like there was absolutely nothing worrying me despite having an inkling in the back of my mind that it was quite the opposite just a moment ago.
I lifted my head, scanned the field I found myself in. It was quiet, the type of quiet you wouldn’t normally come across on a beautiful Summer’s day. No birds, no traffic, just the sound of the wind brushing through the trees and stirring up the nature around me.
Then I saw him, again.
And for the first time, he saw me.
Our eyes met, and I could feel my feet remain planted where they were, as though roots sprouted beneath my feet to anchor me in place. His face was serious, as if he was quietly asking ‘Why the fuck are you here?’
Before I could open my mouth to speak, he was in front of me within a flash. My face stopping at his chest, watching this strange man I’ve convinced myself for years didn’t exist now stood directly in front of me, his breath hot against my skin and his eyes burning with what I could only describe as confusion.
“What the fuck are you doing here.”
It’s nice to know I was pretty much on the ball with sensing what he was thinking.
“I… Don’t-” I began, before he quickly snarled and pressed his fingers into his temple, squeezing his eyes shut.
“You shouldn’t be here, you need to go.” He quickly responded, placing his hands on my shoulders and spun me around to face the opposite direction. “You need to hurry. Go, now!”
With a shove, my feet moved forward, completely taken back by the sudden interaction with somebody who didn’t exist until a moment ago.
“Wait a minute-!” I barked back, whipping my head around to look at him. “I’ve seen you before! You’re that g-”
“We really don’t have time for this, you need to go, now.”
I stood there staring at him, dumbfounded. Opening my mouth to speak, but not quite finding the right words to ask him what’s been on my mind. Being in front of him after all this time, having him address me rather than look passed me. It was a strange feeling. My heart wasn’t pounding, my blood wasn’t cold, I could only feel one thing.
Peace.
“Tell me who you are.” I suddenly said, feeling like it was the only thing I could say. I could feel tears welling in my eyes, but I felt no sadness. I could feel a buzzing in my head, but nothing hurt.
His eyes met mine again, it’s as if the entire world stopped moving. There was no wind, no life outside of that moment. Just the two of us, standing face to face.
“My name is-”
A bright white flash was all I saw, the feeling of my lungs burning as I struggled to get my breath back. That peaceful euphoric feeling was gone, all the silence was now filled with the beeping of the heart monitor I was attached to. The field covered in healthy green grass, beautiful flowers and a bright blue sky is now a closed in white hospital room.
The mysterious stranger standing by me now replaced with a doctor in a white coat, a mask covering his features and a bright light overhead, the murmurs around me suddenly coming back into focus as the nurses sprint around getting the supplies the doctor had asked for.
I was in no shape to ask questions, I couldn’t find my voice for a while as they worked on me, dosing me with pain medication to keep me from realizing the full extent of my injuries for the time being.
It wasn’t until three days later Adam had told me I was in a car accident returning home from class. A truck sped through a stop sign and side swiped me out of nowhere and I had been declared legally dead for 7 minutes.
A statement that was enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
It was then I realized this stranger isn’t just a coincidence coinciding with these deaths taking place. He was never a random bystander taking in the chaos or an omen of bad things to come.
He was Death himself. A Grim Reaper.
And the only way to be able to get the answers I’ve been looking for my entire life is to die.