Between Life and Death

Memories of a Lifetime

●DEATH●

Death felt his heart stop, the patter of adrenaline causing a steady thump to die down to nothing as Life's words echoed through his ears. "W-what?" he sputtered. Suddenly, it hit him - he and his court were too late, and Karma had already told Life about the memories he took. Who knows what he told her, what truths he twisted and reformed into lies to get what he wanted.

That sneaky bastard.

His shock hardened into burning anger towards Karma. "He told you -" Death began, but Life cut him off.

"He told me everything. You're a liar!" she spat at his feet, and Death's already broken heart broke a little more, the pieces carving a hole inside his chest, hurting him all the more.

"Oh no," he heard Truth whisper, "We were too late." He grit his teeth. Truth's words, although repeating what he had already thought to himself, made their situation fully sink in. He was about to grab Life's wrist to teleport them away to her kingdom, to figure things out somewhere else, when a cage, twin to Life's, fell around him, latching to the ground. Similar cages fell around the rest of his court as well, making a total of eight cages in the cavernous, dark room. Death felt for his scythe, and groaned in frustration when he realized that his scythe was on the ground, too far to reach. The rest of his court tried using their weapons as well, trying to cut their ways out, slashing and pulling on the bars as hard as they possibly could, to no avail. Laughter echoed around the chamber, and Karma jumped down from somewhere higher up in the chamber. He made his way to Life's cage, and held out a hand for her, the way Death had only a few moments before. This time, however, Life accepted the hand and jumped down next to Karma. Death's blood boiled seeing Karma with Life, and imagined what lies Karma had fed her.

"Look at you, Death, I haven't seen you in a while. You're looking well for your age. Although I can't say I love that robe. Much too brooding for me," Karma drawled, wrapping an arm around Life's waist just because he could, knowing it would set Death on edge.

"What. Did. You. Do," Death growled, sending Karma laughing again.

"Nothing. I just told her the truth that she has a right to know. Isn't that right, my dear?" Karma asked Life, and Life nodded, glaring at Death. She pulled herself closer into Karma's arms, her gaze loving and warm.

Death clenched his fists at the sound of Karma calling Life "dear," and at the sight of Life not only accepting it, but cuddling up to him like a sheep cuddling up to a wolf in the disguise of a puppy. He wished for nothing more than to punch Karma in the face.

Silence blanketed the group, and it was Karma who broke the silence with a sigh. "Death, you are much more naive than I thought. I was always one step ahead of you. I knew you would use Truth to find Life, so I hid out in my bunker for a few days before moving here to tell Life the truth. I also knew that you would plan to ambush my home, which is why I transferred Life here - so I could ambush you during your ambush of me. Ha, that's a mouthful. After that, it was easy to track you - you were so angry, your aura was easy to spot. You didn't even try to mask it. From there, I just had to time everything right to capture all of you," Karma explained even though no one had asked for an explanation.

"Be quiet and let all of us go. We have jobs to take care of. The balance as to be maintained," Death said through clenched teeth, and this elicited a laugh out of Karma.

"Oh, Death," he said condescendingly, "you say that, but it wasn't your job to wipe Life's memory, right? If you had done your job properly in the first place, then none of this would have happened. You two could be living happily, eating cheese on a blanket in a field, holding each other at night and all that crap."