not even a draft

Round 2!!!

As the time came for them to meet up, there was a cold and hushed breeze accompanying the journey, which they did not seem to mind, but I scanned the direction from which it came and saw the familiar black silhouette of cloaked figuring holding a scythe like some kind of crescent-adorned walking staff.

As my eyes alighted upon them, I felt their gaze. We gave eachother a professional nod, as we both had jobs to do in the near future, despite being diametric in a sense, we retain this air of professionalism as even we dare not upset the balance of things as they ought or ought not be.

A letter ascended from the heavens and beyond time like a divine laser pointed at my hand, it materialize like a splash of liquid energy elastically reforming into what I was meant to obtain. picture a drop of rain hitting a puddle, and then picture the film rewinding and halfway through the drop of water freezes into an ice sculpture, now that but with magic laser beams.

Holding the simple paper envelope in my right hand between my thumb and forefinger, I used my nail to fling the loosely adhered and more or less facetious wax circle upwards (no one can tamper with these letters and the outer sheathing of the envelop is nonstick so it is truly just to make the envelope open easier of all things).

I pulled out the folded paper, it looked like 1980s printer paper complete with perforated margin, however the margin was still attached and had a ream of good natured spellcraft running down its length.

As I dropped the empty envelope with my right hand, it sublimated into nothing, breathing out a chorus-like sigh of magic as it vanished.

I now held the letter in both hands and carefully read through my directives. I was to tear the right margin and drop it, if I agreed with the objective- at which point the letter would become contractual, and bind to my soul until I had succeeded or spent all eternities trying.

If I instead wished to reject the directive, I could drop the entire letter, which would vanish, but send me back to my own personal dominion until I was requested again.

These margins typically re-attached if incompletely torn or torn before the attached letter was read in full.

I paused time in order to read it; the world grayed-out, I waved the reaper over to read it with me, as I wanted their opinion on my odds of succeeding atleast once in a timeline somewhere.

They drifted over and backwards in frozen time, appear by my side before they had reach me, appearing to send out a second self whom glid upwards to  meet their original downwards self only to vanish.

"Nice." I said, and they gave me a pity laugh, and then we turned our attention to the letter.

"So, you have to keep them ALL alive?" Death asked. "Well, sorta, just those ones." I said visually circling the time-stopped gaggle of fearless goofballs, with my right index finger.

"Mhhmm, well, when you rewind time, I still have to process the eternity of that unaltered timeline, before I catch up to your new altered present." Death chided. "I know." I said quickly.

"I know you know, said death, nodding wisely, but I sense a third presence with us here." We turned towards you, and it would be funny if you said something like 'nice', but you don't have to.

"Anyways,-" I said, turning back towards the letter "-so...?".

"Well, I saw that in this new timeline you helped the dumbest member of their friend circle worm his way out of a crippling accident... so that won't make it any easier...".

"I know, but they're so happy, I didn't want their crippling sense of mortality to numb their joy like that. You know?"

"Indeed I do, but I've taken morons and misers in equal measure."

"I tend to like the morons more though..." I said, hiding a smile you could hear.

"I can tell." laughed death.

"So, should I physically manifest? I'm think if I just tell truths with omission of forbidden knowledge, I could just announce danger. Like in a videogame. What do you think?"

"I think that's your best bet, because I won't be holding back, you're only allowed to indirectly impede my job. I've worked with you before and you still flinch when you see me coming. No offense..."

"None taken. Plus in a quasimortal form, I won't be able to perceive you, so that should make our occupations easier, right?"

"Right." Death nodded.

"Okay then!-" I said tearing the margin and rubbing my hands together excitedly "-I'll be seeing ya fairly soon, I think, but not to worry, at the end of time, when it all goes again- you'll get to look forward to my antics again!" I laughed.

Just as we were about to shake on things, I remembered "-Oh, you said he was crippled, but I swear I felt you take him to where he needed to go? Did someone already alter things here?" I asked.

"Mmm, no, I needed to take him to see the sun and the stars for a bit, they usually revive him in a full body cast and he stays that way for 2 weeks on a 3 week recovery schedule, and then tries to bounce back to his peak shenanigans, but falls several stories from the roof of a building, so I take him to the next place after that, he's a good sport about it though. Sometimes, someone grabs him from behind to talk sense into him, or his shoelace gets caught on a ledge he normally misses- in those timelines he turns his life around as well. Like I said, good sport. Total moron though."

"Ah, that makes a lot of sense. Cool." Then we shake hands to agree on the direction of time.Of note, shaking hands with death, a 4 or 5 dimensional shadow of a being hidden from most, well, it's technically just charge repulsion from your own reflected electric energies, but it feels like trying to press two magnets together while something cold is traveling up from the point of contact. I find it soothing, but one time when I was working in a team, the others in my group look horrified and I sensed they parasympathetically perceived it as nails on a chalkboard, so, it was funny; they looked like tiny spooky anxious man from the famous 1893 "the scream" painting. Hah!

As soon as we shook hands, death was back upon their perch, readying for me to unpause time, their meta-time doppelganger appeared to be drifting eerily towards me, but, again, it was actually drifting casually away from me in reversed frozen time.

I planned to let the doomed group of morons march around the bend in the direction of the trouble they were seeking, and then I would manifest out of magically/psychically repurposed surrounding natural detritus such as dead leaves, dust, bug poop, dandruff, etc... while no one was looking; then I would just awkwardly walk up barefoot, and explain the situation, which they wouldn't initially believe, and that was fine, because even the universe does things out of order most of the time.