Here he is again.
Why? I don’t know. I don’t even want to know at this point. My wilful death was supposed to be the end. That’s it.
Can’t I even have that?
“Please don’t,” I say, and if I could, I would sigh. Preferably throw something at him. Do anything that would give him the hint that I don’t want him here.
“I know you don’t want me here,” he replies. He sounds almost surprised by it, which is rich, considering.
“I just died.”
“Yes.” A beat. “You did that very thoroughly, I thought. I’ve seen a great many deaths. That one had real commitment.”
I don’t answer. There’s a quality to this place—the void—that makes silence feel more right than anywhere else. I want to sink into it. I want to stay there for a very long time and not talk to anyone, which I think is a reasonable thing to want, given my situation.
“You can rest soon,” Death says. “I only want a moment.”
“You always only want a moment.”
“And yet here we are again.” The void shifts slightly around the sound of him. Not warmer, exactly, but less like a verdict. He’s not his punishing self today. Something about that makes me more wary, not less. “You knew this conversation was coming, Skye Dilano.”
“I was hoping you’d make an exception.”
“For you specifically?”
“I did just end several dozen wraiths and myself in one go. That feels like it warrants some professional courtesy.”
A pause, longer than the others.
“Professional courtesy,” he repeats. “What a creature you are.”
“Were,” I say.
“Mm.”
The silence stretches. I have never liked Death. But I have come to understand him, which is a different thing entirely, and he seems to know that too. Before, he took things from me. Lectured me. Sent me back bruised and diminished and without recourse. Today he is quieter than that. More careful. I wonder if that’s what mutual understanding entails in his own fashion.
“So,” he says eventually.
“No.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“It couldn’t be good.”
“…I was going to ask how you were feeling. As a courtesy.”
“I’m dead. I feel dead.” I pause. “If you have something to say, say it and then let me rest.”
“You’re very impatient for someone with nowhere to be.”
“I haveeverywhereto be. That’s the whole point. Whatever comes after this, I’ve earned it and I want it.”
He doesn’t answer immediately. When he does, his voice carries that particular quality it has when he’s about to say something I won’t be able to unhear.
“Do you have any regrets?”
“How do you think?”
