Tommy wakes up in an odd place. His body feels weird, heavy like lead. Far away he can hear a small tune on a piano. Familiar, but far and haunted. Above, he sees the sky except the sky is not it's vibrant bright blue but faded like an old picture. His eyes focus and unfocus. Where is he?
When he finally pushes himself up, right next to him is a small table, with white linen. He hears clinking, a voice mumbling. The world around him has almost a gray tint to it, and when his eyes focus, Tommy's stomach drops to the floor.
A man sits at the table, holding a cup of tea in his hand. But the man is not a man. Tommy knows who it is. The cloak is black as the night wrapped around his shoulders, the emptiness for a face. Death. Tommy is dead.
"Tommy," A voice says. It's hardly a voice, Tommy doesn't know what it is. Tommy knows it is not speaking the language of the Living, but he can understand it perfectly. He should be scared. He should be shouting at Death to send him back so he can... What was Tommy doing? He racks his brain. Nothing comes up. "Sit."
Tommy does so. He really doesn't want to fight Death. When he sits in the wicker chair, Tommy realizes how tired he is. He sinks in, the world spinning a bit. Tea materializes on his side of the table and he takes in, sipping the drink. It tastes like a home he once knew. A homemade brew from one of his friends. Her name was... another blank.
Am I dead? Tommy wonders.
"You're almost there," Death answers. Tommy jumps. Death just stares, or what Tommy imagines is staring. "Your holding on quite hard."
"Oh. Why?" Tommy doesn't understand why he would hold on so hard. This place seems nice. He's so warm and cozy.
Death shifts and it seems like reality shifts around him. "That's what you do. Tommy all you do is fight."
"Is that a bad thing?"
"No. Sometimes, maybe."
Tommy tries to study the elusive figure sitting across from him. He realizes with no amount of surprises that his hands are bones, also black. What would cause horror in a different time now makes Tommy almost smile. Death is exactly what Tommy would think it would look like.
The piano tune is a little louder now. It is a tune he knows. My L'Manburg plays softly, and Tommy feels prickles in his chest. Small memories flash across his mind. Wilbur. His brother, partner, the enemy. He wrote this song about an idea that he didn't even believe in. Tommy felt his eyebrows furrow, his face heat as he thought about the genuine memories he created while fighting for L'Manburg. How Wilbur could throw it all away- the tune stopped. It was an unfinished symphony.
"It's unfair," Tommy says aloud. "Life is unfair. This whole thing, whatever it is, is unfair."
Death nods. "You are right. Life is unfair, but you want to know what isn't? Death. I take everyone eventually. No one is exempt from me."
The young boy nods at Death. Sips. Nods again. "I like that. No twists. No surprises."
"Your life is full of those."
"Yeah. I know." The silence envelopes them again.
"You want to know why I brought you here?" Death asks this question. Tommy realizes he does, he just didn't ask. He nods slowly, afraid of what he will hear.
"You need to learn something Tommy. That you have something that those people- Techno, Dream, Wilbur, Schlatt don't have- something that I have not seen in a long time."
"How could I have something they don't?" Tommy was genuinely curious. At one point in his small life, Tommy looked up to these men. He wanted to be like them. Not anymore. Techno was a murderer who cared about no one else except himself, in the eyes of Tommy. Dream was a tyrant. A tyrant who was better than almost everyone else. He held the world in his hands. Schlatt was just a plain bad guy. A selfish man who only wanted power and money. And Wilbur, the man he trusted since the beginning, gave up on the only thing they were fighting for. Tommy would never do that.
"Fear is a soul eater, Tommy," Death started talking. Tommy blinked and listened. "All the people in your world, fear something. Your most strong friends and strongest enemies fear something, Tommy. Dream, the world maintaining order under his rule. Schlatt feared losing the fear he created as President. Techno fears losing his freedom to do whatever he wants. Wilbur is special. He doesn't fear me or much, per se. What he does fear is the consequences of staying alive- Tommy, what do you fear?"
Tommy wracked his brain. Scraped it, searched, and found the answer. "I am afraid of not being able to fight anymore. Losing the will to want something better for myself. That's what I am afraid of."
The air around them shifts. "You aren't afraid of anything, Tommy. Because you will never stop fighting. You aren't afraid of me. Look at you, sitting there with tea in your hands."
Tommy never looked it at like that. Questions fly through his head.
"What if I die sooner than expected? That'll cause me to stop fighting."
Death laughs, and Tommy decides he doesn't like it. It's a sound nobody should hear. Only the ones about to be dragged to the depths of hell. But it's not a humorless laugh. It actually sounds like what Tommy said was, well funny.
"Tommy, I will tell you this now and you better listen. I will not take you out of the story you created until you are the last person standing in it. The last ink that will be used to write this story will be written with by your own hand. ."
A feeling of pride fills Tommy's chest. No one has ever complimented Tommy like this. And it was an all powerful-being doing it. He decided right there and then, staring into Death, that he was just as good as the people he considered to be the best. Or even better. And he was.
"I am ready to go back now," Tommy says to Death.
"You sure?"
"Yes."
"I could take you now if I wanted to, honestly," Death replies, almost matter of factly.
The boy tilts his head. "What's stopping you?"
"Irony. Almost everybody wants you dead Tommy, which is why I chose to keep you alive."
Tommy smiles. "That's sort of funny."
Death wastes no time. "Goodbye, Tommy. I'll see you again, trust me."
It was oddly comforting to know that all came back to here, sipping tea, in a wicker chair, hearing his life anthem playing the back. Death snaps his fingers, and the world fades to white.
The first thing Tommy smells is smoke and fire and his own blood when he wakes up. And it all comes back to him.
