Death's Apprentice

8

"So, did you actually get me a donut?" I asked, walking over to Death. He leaned against the wall beside the gift shop with his hood down.

"I did, but you took too long so I ate half of it. You want the rest?" He offered me half of an apple Bismark. There were no bite marks; he had obviously broken it in two. I took it and the napkin it rested on, before taking a bite.

"Tastes good."

"Well, that's good, it's all they had left." Death turned, cloak catching the air."We can't waste time, we have a lot of people to reap today."

"How many?"

"However many people decided to kick the bucket." Despite the incredibly vague response, I nodded. We stood in front of the automatic doors and Death waved his arms. They didn't open. He sighed, grabbed my arm, and ran through the door. I shuddered once we were outside, rubbing at my arms.

"What was that?"

"Phasing. How do you think I get into places? Not everyone has a doggie door or a spare key. Just, uh, don't try it on your own. It took me years to figure out how to do it without almost losing an arm." Death started walking. I trailed after him, not wanting to be left who knows where. Even with noise being muffled, the streets were oddly quiet. Only a few cars passed us. Death flipped through his book as we made our way around the town. We made the occasional pit stop to reap someone with Death turning into a teaching opportunity. Thankfully, there weren't many of those. According to Death, not many people in the area were scheduled to die that day, but he said he'd rather get them while we were there than have to come back for them later.

Each hour seemed to pass at a snail's pace, and it was a welcome relief when the sun finally neared the horizon. As we walked out from a house on the opposite side of the town, Death pulled down his hood. He turned his face to the sky.

"We should probably go home and get some rest. We can pick this up later," he said.

"Aren't there a lot more people that need to die?" I looked at him. We had stopped at sixteen different houses, all as far away from each other as possible. There was no way the twenty-some people we reaped were all that had died.

"Time's weird, kid. It only flows foward, only moving in one way, but not everything goes with the current."

"Let me guess, you're going to compare us to salmon swimming upstream or something?"

"Actually, I was planning on saying we're like waterfowl, but I like yours. Less chance of Anser getting offended and biting me. Again." Death sighed and grabbed my sleeve. His scythe flashed through the air; we appeared outside his front door. He pulled out his keys, unlocked the door, and let me in. He shrugged his cloak off and hung it from the coat rack. Pulling his book from one of the pockets, he tossed it onto the table.

He sat down and flipped open the book. "There's spaghetti in the fridge," he said. I nodded and warmed the leftovers up for us. I carried the plates over, along with forks. Steam rose from the spaghetti, and it's warmth filled my mouth. Neither of us said anything, only ate as Death crossed name after name out of his book.

"How many people did we reap?" I wiped my mouth with my hand. Death threw a napkin at me.

"Less than I normally do."

"Uh, can I get a number?"

"No." Death closed the book, cover thumping against paper. He walked to his cloak while my eyes followed after him. The book disappeared into the inky darkness of the cloak. He glanced back at me, eyes glowing. "You don't need or want to know, even though you could probably count them if you thought hard enough. Telling you how many deaths your responsible for finalizing doesn't seem like it would be a good idea, you mortals get too upset over things like that."