Death Count

Chapter 1

Reina walked to her apartment alone with her thoughts, still unbelieving of the strange things occurring throughout the day. As a waitress at Tally's Cafe, she's seen her fair share of oddities. A man with narrowed eyes once stared at her for a solid hour, never ordering anything. Another time, a young child ordered six ice cream cones and devoured it all alone in one sitting. But today, she's been seeing brief visions of numbers above people's heads several times, and was positive it wasn't just her imagination. She turned to point them out to her coworker, Jade Santiago, several times, but by the time she turned back, the numbers had vanished. Her mind working furiously over the events, she was oblivious to the nearly bare trees lining the sidewalk and the few cars passing the street. Suddenly, a deep, strange voice snapped her out of her trance. She turned her head towards the source in shock.

Though it was dark, she could still see it clearly. The figure, a lot taller than the average male, rose above the ground, and he looked like the most fearsome being ever imaginable. He was standing stock-still, completely motionless without showing even a trace of breathing. He hovered above the ground by an inch or so, and his pale-gray skin, if you paid close attention, seemed to grow translucent and then solid repeatedly. He wore a pitch-black cape connected in front of his neck, with a cowl that hid the majority of his slick black hair. Underneath that, he was wearing a coat of armor, painted an almost-black shade of gray, all in sharp contrast with his blue eyes. Oddly enough, he seemed only twenty or so, and even more so, on his arms were blurs of red numbers moving.

"And?" the figure asked.

Reina stepped back frantically, almost into the street. She didn't hear their first question. But still, the shadowy figure made no movement towards her. She looked side-to-side, hoping someone else could perceive the horrible "illusion" that she was seeing, but all she found were pedestrians staring at her oddly.

"Are you scared, Reina?" He repeated, chuckling.

How the hell does he know my name? Reina was about to skurt tf out of there; she had no time for this demonic bullshit. But instead, fear froze her into place. She shrunk back as though to hide herself behind her wavy, darker-than-Victoria's-future hair that enveloped her shoulders. Of course, it didn't work.

"I take that as a yes. And you probably should be. So," he said, glancing at the blurs of digits on his wrist,  "How much time do you think you have left to live?"

She didn't respond for a moment due to fear and adrenaline coursing through her body. Hesitantly, she guessed, "Um.. a lot..? I hope..?"

"Well, you're correct. Now, roll up your left sleeve," he demanded.

"Wha-"

"Just do it," he interrupted, a note of impatience sliding into his voice.

Though she was dubious about this non-human telling her what to do, she complied & rolled up her sleeve. Luminous, neon-blue numbers were imprinted on her wrist, and seemed to be counting down to zero.

249 yrs. || 364 days || 9:53:13

Each character glowed like a firefly, unlike anything I had seen before, but the supernatural shimmer was familiar.

    "W-why am I seeing this? What is it?" Reina stuttered with a trembling voice, recognizing the same familiar glow and symbols from earlier that day. "And... who are you?"

    "That's your countdown until death," he said straightforwardly, "And I'm Miteus, a Death Counter- a Death Changer, to be exact. I can see how long people have left to live and what their cause of death is going to be." That explained the glow Reina has been seeing before. It was the same kind of light that surrounded the numbers above people's heads throughout the day.

"As a Death Changer, my job is to make the deaths of people as natural as possible, essentially preventing them from accidents and all those bad things. As a Death Counter, I can sense when someone's Death Count changes drastically, because of a decision that they are about to make, when I'm nearby, so I have to roam around the city to find out if anyone has an endangered Death Count. Once there, I immediately prevent them from doing whatever is going to kill them. You should understand after training."

    "Why do I have 250 years left to live? And wait..." Reina paused for a brief moment, processing the bizarre information before asking in confusion,  "Training? What the hell is going on?"

    Miteus answered, "I've chosen you to take my job as the Death Counter. A death counter lives for 500 years after they receive their powers, and I've been alive for 499 years and 364 days." His reply still confused her.

    "So you're going to die, like, tomorrow?" she asked, feeling slightly alarmed. This ghostlike person had found her on her walk home, told her she had supernatural powers, and then he claimed he would die tomorrow. Smooth, Miteus...

"Yes, and that's why we must begin training immediately, until dawn. I've already given you half of my powers, so that's why you've been seeing those Death Counts above people's heads throughout the day. Also, with half of the powers, your basic human needs, such as sleeping and eating, are cut in half, so don't worry about getting tired during the all-nighter. You can still do these things after you receive your full powers, though, if you just can't accept the fact that you're not human. You better get over it though." He half-smiled, a crooked grin in line with his slightly mocking tone he had been using while he explained.

She squinted at him. "I can't even cook an egg, but you're choosing me to do this job? I'm not qualified for this shi-" Of course, he cut her off.

    "Well... you're special. You hide in the corner of the room and no one sees you," He waved his hand dismissively towards me, "...Just like her..."

    She didn't quite understand what he meant and didn't hear the last thing he said, but she decided to just not say anything about it.

Suddenly, the thing that concerned her earlier popped into her head. "Hey, why was my friend's "Death Count" red?"

    He  frowned. "Oh... looks like your little friend, Jade, is in trouble, then..." Reina looked around, but she was nowhere near. Having no idea what he meant, she opened my mouth to speak, but he simply covered her mouth with his hand, a grim expression on his face.