This Isn't the Zombie Apocalypse

35. Life and Death Start a Game of Hide and Seek

I was blasted off my feet by their entrance.

Quite literally.

Death stood before me, chilling in its darkness, in its emptiness, in how much it could contain. Beside it, Life stood, radiant, blinding, far too intense for anything worldly.

I simply sat, stupefied. Simple me, simply sitting, with a simple bat sitting in my lap. Actually, no one was moving, all struck dumb, except for Ana, who was crawling toward me at a snail's pace. I reached up, eyes still stuck on alternating between Life and Death, and pulled her by my side. Together we sat, her in front of Life, me in front of Death.

And we stayed like that for a drawn-out moment, and then Ana weakly pointed at Life and breathed a soft, "D'you see it now?"

And I stared, watched as Life swirled into darkness and Death glowed like a white light. Watched as they switched back to their original, and then to the new, again and again and again, until the lines between light and dark blurred, until they were both and neither.

Until, instead of light and dark, they were people, flashing faces. A man in ancient, rugged clothes, a staff in hand. A woman, small and slight, with a pink hibiscus tucked behind her left ear. A boy wearing a bright red uniform. A girl with her hair in braids, her animal hide clothing bright and colorful.

Face after face, person after person, there a split second before being replaced by the next. Each was new, different, from an even more distant time period than the last. Each was foreign except for one, familiar in its face, in its hair, in its demeanor. In the way it took Death's form. It felt new. Important. But it was gone even faster than the rest.

It went on and on, flickering faces until, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped. Death was darkness, Life was light, and the faces were gone.

But then they leaned down as one, smirking in all their opposing glory, and whispered, "Find us."

And they imploded, Life giving and Death taking in equalterms.