Not so Human (a short story)

Not so Human

One night (sometime between 11 and midnight) I made my way down an alleyway behind the old theater. I had done this time and time again and it was never creepy and unnerving, but this time was different. This time I found myself face to face with death. He stood tall, a cloaked figure with a dreadfully malicious gaze, masked in the stench of victims long deceased.

Months passed and I was making progress in trying to forget that frightful night. I started trying to convince myself that maybe it was just some horrendous dream. The transparent yet visibly solid mass of darkness. The sockets where eyes had been replaced with an unquenchable thirst for blood. The scent of soil and rot that trailed behind the daunting hooded figure, and the way the air around him seemed to freeze.

"Yeah. Just a dream." I told myself. but I knew the truth...and so did death.

It wasn't long before I came to terms with the inevitability of my ever getting a decent night's sleep again. Every time I closed my eyes I would see that face. That elongated, hollowed out, not quite alive but eternally cursed to never die face. It haunted me. My days, my nights, every waking second, and every not so welcome dream.

Eventually I married, had two wonderful children, and I was able to maintain a job at a car dealership. I was seeing a councilor for, what they described as, my trouble differentiating reality from what is likely the fictional explanation my mind has used to cope with a past traumatic event.

One night I was late getting home. As I ran down the dark road, after missing my bus, I felt the air go cold. My legs stopped moving and my head turn to see what caused the sudden drop of temperature, even though I already knew. I saw two bright lights bearing down on me. I tried to move but it was as if I had been glued in place. The car honked, as if to mock me, poking fun at my inability to escape. And just like that everything went dark. Standing in front of me was the menacing frame of death himself.

He told me he would grant my family long lives and peaceful deaths. All I had to do was sign my soul over to him. I agreed and he told me to hold out my hand. With one swift move he grabbed my wrist, turned it palm up, and push up my sleeve. Then he used his long, yellow, impossibly sharp nail to dig into my skin and draw some sort of symbol.

After I had signed myself over to eternal damnation it was my job to help death in his cruel endeavors. At first it disgusted me. The fear in their eyes when their time had come haunted me. I felt so bad for all of them. I would stand in horror, and watch.

But now i longed for it. There is nothing I love more than to see their terrified faces as that last breath leaves their lips and the life fades from their eyes. I became so obsessed with it that i didn't even notice when death started to fade. Or when my eyes hollowed out and were replaced with the same evil I saw on death that first encounter. I have taken his place now. Death blossoms inside me. I can feel its corruption and darkness rise against my humanity. The man I was no longer exists. All that is left is evil, cruelty, and power.