Eight Legs Too Many || ONC 2021 and 2022

Chapter 7: Shiori discovers there are worse things than Death.

Full title: Shiori discovers there are worse things than Death. One of them is named Boris.

~*~

If Death invoked a baseline aura of terror, this newcomer was a thousand times worse.

It wasn't that his face was particularly fearsome. If you ignored the flickering scarlet eyes, his face bore a vague resemblance to a chihuahua, with its bulging eyelids and tiny chin, and a mouth that looked like it might bark at any moment. But there was an aura of frank horror that trailed behind the man like the greasy wake of an oil tanker. Perhaps it had something to do with the scepter he carried. Taller than Death, it reached practically to the ceiling, and its crown was adorned by three ominous-looking stones.

The newcomer had started out faintly translucent, but as Shiori watched, his outline grew more solid, his eyes less red, until-minus the scepter and unearthly robes-he might have passed for a human man.

The bartender huddled behind the bar. It was clear his twenty-plus years of overcharging for pink margaritas had not prepared him for this. The few living customers who remained in the vicinity were likewise crowded behind the bar, or huddling under tables like Shiori, or hanging out of windows with only their fingertips visible.

Even Death was huddled in on himself. He looked even more pathetic than usual, and he visibly wilted as the newcomer drew closer.

BORIS. Even his usual rumble was subdued. WHAT DO YOU WANT, BORIS? HAVEN'T YOU TORTURED ME ENOUGH?

"Just... checking in on you in your exile." The voice was greasier than Bertie's face, smarmy and gross-the kind of voice that made you want to drop whatever you were doing and take a long shower. "I didn't expect to find you all the way in Mexico. Who is this?"

With horror, Shiori realized Yoko was still sitting next to Death, still in the open. Her sister's eyes were wider than those of a deer in the headlights, and her body was glued in place like that same deer's head would have been after getting hit by the car and then taxidermied.

"Have you fallen in love with another mortal woman?" the new specter-Boris?-scoffed. "And here I thought you couldn't fall any lower... So long as it's only mortals you've been hanging around with, I suppose I have nothing to fear. You haven't been searching for... anyone else, have you?"

He ignored Yoko and leaned closer to Death, his gaze searching.

Death leaned away. LEAVE ME ALONE, he said feebly.

"Of course," Boris purred. "Provided you play your part when the time comes. And it's coming soon, isn't it? Only one more month left. I can't wait to see who gets chosen to be the new Death, can you?"

I WILL BE CHOSEN, Death declared, but there was very little confidence to his voice. IT WILL BE ME, AND I WILL SEE THAT YOU ARE TAKEN TO TASK FOR YOUR SHENANIGANS!

Shiori was trying to puzzle out what the two of them were talking about-Chosen to be the new Death?-when she was distracted by a silvery gleam at the edge of her vision. She glanced to her left. Silver figures, barely more than wisps of smoke, leaned down over the crumpled bodies that lay prone upon the tiles.

As Shiori watched, transfixed, one of the specters bent forward and placed its hands upon the corpse nearest Shiori-a woman in a glittering green dress.

"I think you'll find it is you who are taken to task for giving humanity so much slack for so long," Boris was saying silkily, but Shiori's attention was no longer on him. She watched as a silver specter-oddly humanoid-gently reached forward to stroke the dead woman's temples.