“I’m not sure if you’re up to helping this guest, Urie. She’s a bit, well…” I watched as the two associates peeked outside the lilac velvet curtains, both of them scanning up and down my newly refurbished body.
“What’s wrong with her?” I assumed it was Urie asking as the curtains fell. He clearly had just begun his battle with puberty with the squeaky depth echoing in his voice. “I’m not saying she’s hot, but she’s hot.”
“No,” the woman hissed as I tried to contain my laughter.
“That’s not a real woman!”

Tsk. Tsk. How fragile her femininity must be to try and tear down a fellow female. Sure, I wasn’t born in this body, nor did I deserve these boundless curves and perfect bosom, despite knowing that this is the skin I decided to wear and the looks I choose. I sighed, wondering how luxurious it must be to inhabit one body for decades. But, living in one prison for eternity sounds awfully dreadful. Why slowly rot, when for the simple price of damnation one can live forever?
“She’s a necromancer.” She seethed the words out.
“How do you know?” Urie said smacking his body against something in the back.
“Lord please have mercy on our souls. Just what are they teaching you, kids, in school?” The inflection in her voice indicated she had no need for a response.
“The normal things.” He responded having no regard for her hidden meaning.
“Clearly.” She hissed, “it’s their eyes. They have eyes of the dead.”

Despite her ignorance and disregard for my feelings, the fiend was right. Despite all I’ve done to maintain and create the perfect vessel, not even I could hide these fogged-over gunmetal eyes. After millenniums of failed attempts at hiding them, we – as a collective elected to forego any more attempts and embrace the dead. Guess that gave us away, sometime during the BC times I believe.
It ended up outing us and we had to, come out of the grave, as to say and reveal ourselves. Let’s just say it didn’t end well…But we came forward and eventually society accepted our kind as a normal part of life. We became a liaison between the dead and the living in many ways. Many of those jobs are what would be considered, hell we are even Priests now in some religions. But living like these mortals was never something I could settle for. Besides, I got my powers to play with the dead, and Mother Lilith always said to use our powers how we want. And I want money, diamonds, luxury, and piles of materialistic things which could tower above babel! Saliva dripped from my lips as the rush of pleasure filled my body. Fuck having a normal life, I’m here to start a little chaos and drum up some drama for a few million.

“Excuse me?” The voice ripped me from my fantasy, and I turned to see the boy standing before me.
“Can I help you?” He was trying to hide the fear in his voice as he stared into my eyes.
“Ah,” I said not hiding the excitement in my smile as it stretched wide. “Can I see your finest wears, Mr – “
“Robinson,” Urie said softly trying desperately to release his gaze.
“That’s him,” the voice echoed in my head. “I know that’s him!”
Her voice was filled with rage, a cold icy rage only found in the last circle of hell. It was a joyful sound to me, a choir of angels playing trumpets of gold while money rained down.
“Are you sure, little one?” I asked. “I cannot redo this if you mess things up. Remember your mother is paying a fortune for your revenge and you get a single shot.”
“It’s him,” rage filled my blood as she spoke.
“What kind of diamonds are you looking for?” Urie asked instantly cooling my blood. “We got a few new pieces in today.”
I leaned forward lifting my elbows on the glass display, “I’m looking for the finest of diamonds, Mr. Robinson.” My lips rested, “I believe they are called blood diamonds.”
His face twisted, “huh?”
“Blood diamonds, sweetie.” Pretending to laugh I finished the incantation, “I’m sure you have them.” I tapped on the glass, “Somewhere."
“I’ve never heard of those,” he stuttered out.
“Really?” I pretended to be shocked as he looked away. “What about a Rachel diamond then?”
The color ran from his face and he looked at me, “what-“
“A Rachel Reed diamond, would you happen to have-“
“I don’t know what the fuck you are talking about lady!” He shouted at me causing the woman to come running from behind the curtain. “I don’t know any fucking Rachel Reed diamond.”
“Why do humans always say the dumbest shit when they are caught.” I stood up and leaned forward causing both to push up against the wall. “You know why I am here, Mr. Robinson.”
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” The woman shakily said, “the police are on their way.”
“Shut your mouth, Jennifer.” I snapped looking at her, “I’m not here for you. Despite your annoying ass husband constantly whispering in my ear about the money you stole from your daughter’s house.”
She gasped, “e-“
“Yes, Edward.” My gaze drifted back to the boy. “Someone paid a lot of money to get back at you for what you did.”

One by one the lights around the room went off, followed by an explosion inside the glass below me. “I’m not the one you should be mad at honey; in fact, I thank you. Without your dumb actions, I wouldn’t be 3 million richer.” Saliva pooled below me as I spoke, wanting nothing more than to taste the fear pulsing through his body.
“W-what did you do?” Jennifer asked.
“I didn’t do anything to anyone!” He shouted; I could see his muscles tensing to run.
“Didn’t do anything to anyone!” The voice which lived in my head exploded in the room. “Am I no one to you, Urie?!”
“Rachel!”
The curtain beside them burst into flames, “what’s left of Rachel.” She hissed from behind the inferno. “After the horrid acts you did to my body.”
“It wasn’t me!” He screamed, “it was Ashely and Snail who did it to you!”
“You know,” I said running my finger through the pools of silva. “The spirit stays with the body for 48 hours after death. And during that time the dead can choose to move on or stay.”
“It wasn’t me!” His legs locked into running position, but Jennifer put a hand over his chest shaking her head.
“It was Ashely and Snail who did it, but it was you masterminding the whole thing!” Rachel hissed as the fire grew. “This was your sick attempt at showing me love, murdering me, and –“ She screamed out the horrid things they did to her while she was still alive ending by saying the acts he committed after she died.

Jennifer’s hand dropped, “You didn’t?” She turned to him realizing the monster was not I, the demon with the dead eyes but the boy she hired. “What the actual fuck?”
The curtain fell and we all turned to see my child standing amongst the flames. Her body was covered in mud and grime, hair ripped from her scalp, and decomposition beginning on her nude body. She also had me add a few more grotesque features to cause him to squirm as she ripped him apart.
Rachel was a girl after my own heart. See necromancers can reanimate the dead, in their original bodies or something else. But unlike the others, who preferred my golem crafting, she wanted the vilest creature I could imagine. And since I was one of the first necromancers born, I saw some horrid shit in my time.
“Have at him,” Jennifer said backing away.
“Please-“ he reached for her.“Don’t you dare!” she swatted his hand away, “you deserve everything you’re about to get.”
“NO!” Urie screamed out.

Job one of five done today, 3 million in the bank, and a lot of blood to clean up after she’s done with him.

I wish you were no longer bound by the rule that wishes had to be unique.

A slip of paper telling you the answer totally fails to materialize. Clearly you will enjoy figuring it out more than being told the answer. But that can wait for later. You step out onto the peak of Olympus Mons, ignoring the laws of physics that keep different places different.

"Granted" replies the genie, with a swirl of light. On a deep metaphysical level, reality twists. The laws of ethics become as hard to break as the laws of physics were. The laws of physics become as easy to break as the laws of ethics were.

"Really, that worked" you mumble. "Has no one in the world got the least bit of imagination? You just have to phrase your wish to do what you want, while also squeezing in some random password. Actually how come no one asked for anything that world changing before? Am I the only person with any imagination? "

A slip of paper telling you the answer totally fails to materialize. Clearly you will enjoy figuring it out more than being told the answer. But that can wait for later. You step out onto the peak of Olympus Mons, ignoring the laws of physics that keep different places different. With a whim, ski's appear around your feet. Untroubled by temperature or atmospheric composition, you begin to ski.

Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games) vs. Vin (Mistborn)

Thank you!

I'd probably choose to have dinner with VE Schwab. I've met her at a book signing, and follow her on Instagram and she seems like such a wonderful, relatable person.

I haven't participated in NaNo for awhile, but I do have thoughts of expanding one of the short stories linked above (the one with the prince and the peasant girl) into a NaNo attempt.

Thanos vs Sans Undertale

Thanks! I've downloaded the discord app, but haven't done much exploring of the community there yet, but hopefully sometime soon.

I read a variety of genres, mostly fiction. I enjoy cozy mysteries (Bailey Cates's Magical Bakery Series being my favorite cozy series), thrillers, historical fiction, magical realism, and fantasy. Some of my favorite authors are Fredrik Backman (for when I want a character driven story), VE Schwab, and Ruth Ware.

Alfred Pennyworth (DC universe-Batmans butler) VS Edwin Jarvis (Marvel universe-Tony starks butler)

I understand they dont have powers, but they do know two guys with lots of cool toys....

(boring and wholesome tw)

"Infinite wishes?" The genie laugh out loud one more time "what, you're not smart enough to use 3 wishes?" wiping its tears from laugh you get more and more frustrated every time, as you try to find a loophole it just laugh out loud even more while mocking and gaslighting you just like this.

You yell in frustration and the genie echoes the sound mockingly. Finally, they calm their laughter and disappear back into the pot waiting for you to make your three wishes. You've never been a decisive person and three wishes that could change your life would take you at least years to decide on, which, the genie would not appreciate. In all honesty, you don't need much and all you want is to let the genie go. So you finally decide. Rubbing on the genie's lamp, you beckon the genie out.

"I use my wishes for you to be set free and to never need to grant a wish to another again, in the case it lands in the hands of the evil". You say. The genie stares at you in shock.

You're smart enough not to wish for anything as you've heard the old folks tales, and this being your wish doesn't sound all that bad for you or anyone else. The genie finally nods, and you and him part ways. Every year on this night, you coincidently have better luck and things go your way. All the small things, but you can't help feeling as if the genie is looking out for you. You live a happy life and die happy with your loved ones, knowing you helped someone out there. :)

(I love this premise btw)

As Hellboy walked into the train station, he saw Beast and Storm talking to each other out of his ear shot.

"Oh come on, this job never stops." He said as he started running towards beast.

In an instant, beast was knocked to the ground, his air forced out of him. Storm turned to Hellboy, who just said "that's not who you think it is. Run." Before smashing a hole through the ground and dragging beast through it.

"Come here you demon." Hellboy shouted as beast tried to get to a safe place to talk.

"I don't know who you think I am, but I'm definitely not them. I'm no demon, I'm just a mutant." Beast said.

"Yeah yeah, sure you are bud." Hellboy said, grabbing Beast and punching him in the gut.

"Oof, ouch, that broke some ribs." Beast said through the pain.

"Get over it, you're going to hell anyways." Hellboy said, his arm poised back, ready to strike, but right as he is about to punch, he is knocked back by a massive gust of wind provided by storm. "He us not who you think, this is beast, a human that looks like an animal because of his mutant abilities . " Storm patiently explained.

"Alright, but if he bites your head off while you sleep, don't say I didn't warn you." Hellboy said before walking off.

thank you, have a good one

[Poem]

Cheers to eternity,

we poured it down the hatch.

A swollen throat, one final note,

and that was to be that.

For one of us would walk forever,

and one of us could rest. But damned we were, now stuck together.

It was just a fucking test.

That so called witch, that stupid bitch,

Out to have a little fun.

"One to sleep, and one to keep,

a body forever young."

And I cared not, which was my lot,

I grabbed the potion on the left.

Down the hatch, I was the catch,

And his punishment was my death.

And then I slept.

In darkness, I found peace.

The cycle broken. Pieces,

scattered beautifully against

a black nothing. I saw glimpses

of him. I saw all of me. In shards

like stars drifting,

shifting.

"But be warned, lovers scorned,

do not look too closely."

There was a pattern in the breaks.

I shut my eyes, but it was blinding.

Grinding my serenity.

Let me be.

I heard his laughter, the night after,

we shared our first kiss.

I saw his grin, felt the stubble of his chin,

Dear God what is this?

The cracks collide and coincide,

FUCK CLOSE YOUR EYES

REST

TESS

Rest

assured, the shards blurred,

my darkness swept away.

Please

stay.

Try as I might, I'm in the light,

in a body I know too well.

For we both died, the groom and bride,

and his body is my hell.

So I leave him clues, in threes and twos,

to remind him I'm fucking here.

And the look I get, from my dear Brett,

Is haunted in the mirror.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

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(I'm not super well versed with either the Naruto or DBZ universes, but I will try from my little knowledge)

Krillin approached the stage, his eyes glued to the floor.

"So," Itachi said, "you know my ability. It appears my reputation precedes me by quite a lot these days."

Krillin nodded as he got into his fighting stance.

"Straight into this then." Itachi said as he started doing his hand signs.

The announcer yelled across the stadium "Ready? BEGIN!"

Itachi immediately used shadow clone jutsu to confuse Krillin and give himself a feel for how powerful his opponent is. Krillin took the bait, assuming it was some kind of trick, decided to attack the closest one with a punch to the gut. After it landed, he relentlessly hit the clone until it was out of the ring.

As Krillin focused on his target, he failed to notice the other ones closing in. He turned around to meet a wave of fireballs headed straight towards him. He jumped up, very confused but quickly realizing they were all real.

Itachi was surprised by his speed, but took the opportunity to throw shurikens at him while he was in the air. Krillin dodged these with relative ease.

Itachi started to get another attack ready when his clones started falling. Krillin said behind the last Itachi "Good fight, you sure got some cool abilities." Before punching him in the back and knocking him out.

Omni-man vs Superman

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

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Cool ill probably post it here but it will be added to my grater wrold storyline

Also send me the short story, i’d love to read it.

Feel free. I did write a first draft once, and I may do so in the future as a novel But that’s no reason that you cannot use the setting or inciting incident. You are a different person and your story will be different from what I would write. Go for it, unlike some people I have no issues with people being inspired by my work or even ripping off wholesale as long as you do something creative with it. Go wild!

[removed]

Hellboy, and Hank McCoy (Beast) from X-Men, because Hellboy mistakes Beast as something paranormal that needs brought in.

Four hundred and twenty three years. It's been four hundred and twenty three FUCKING YEARS. I'm calm. I'm fine. Everything is fine. I look down the barrel and see him.

"Give me one good reason not to pull the trigger right now, Sam," I say to the asshole at the other end of my gun. "Just one goddamn good reason."

"Fucking do it," he snaps back. "It's not like it will do anything. We're fucking cursed."

I pull the trigger and send the bullet between his stupid eyes. He slumps forward and his forehead bounces off the gun before falling to the floor. I knew he was right, but it always made me feel better to kill him anyways. Ever since he'd drunk that fucking Draught of the Undying. It was supposed to be Death's Draught. Simple. Kill him. Instead it bound his undying soul to the closest being to him. And that was me. Freshly after drinking an immortality potion. Fuck my unending life.

"At least you were quick that time," Sam says as he gets up and brushes himself off. The wound between his brows had already healed. He wiped the blood off of his face with a rag from a nearby table. "Now, you know why I'm here and I can't leave without it."

"Well, it sounds like we'll be here for awhile then. I'm not giving it to you."

"Carly, just be a reasonable fucking person for once in your life. That's it. Just once. I'm not asking you to change who you are. Just to be a reasonable person one time."

"Anything you call reasonable is obviously lunacy. Don't make me kill you again. Leave."

We were standing in one of my stores downtown. Being an immortal, you collect quite a lot of wealth over time. As it stands, I have seventeen stores in downtown alone. How he found me here was a mystery. And he wants what is in my pocket. And he isn't getting it.

"You know, if I ever told people what you do to me, you could go to jail for a long time," he says. It was an empty threat. I own the courts. This is my city. He just fucking lives here.

"Maybe in prison I'd never have to see your fucking face again," I spit as I crossed the store to open the door. "Now, leave."

"Just give me the Clover, Carly." I cringe a little at the sound of my name coming out of his mouth.

"Stop saying my name," I snap. "And you're not getting the fucking Clover. Eat my fucking ass and get out!" He lunges for me and tackles me to the ground. I grapple out and snap his arm. "I have seven different blackbelts, Sam. Stop being so fucking stupid." I stand up and kick him in the broken arm and hear him gasp in pain. Good.

Sure enough, though, the arm heals itself and he stands back up and jumps up before putting his hands up for a fight. Great. He swings at me and I catch his wrist and snap his arm again. I hit him in the gut with my elbow before taking him over my back and slamming him to the ground. I stomp on his head and twist the arm, ripping it out of the socket in the process. He hollered in pain. How does someone live for over four hundred years and not take any self-defense classes? This is just sad. I follow him to the floor and snap his neck. It will only buy me a minute of silence, but I'm going to take what I can get. I sit on the floor and try to find my center.

Sooner than expected, his bones mend and he jumps back up like a fucking kangaroo.

"Okay, that one wasn't as fast as the gun. That actually hurt. A lot."

"Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" I yell. He knows he's not getting the Clover. Ever again. I don't know why he insists on trying me.

"Carly, just give me the Clover. You can take it back whenever you want. I just need it for like, thirty minutes. Long enough to buy a lottery ticket and win. That's it. You've been holding onto it for over a century now! Stop being such a selfish cunt and share the fucking thing!"

I stand up and look at him. How fucking dare he. I kick him in the side of the head and catch his head as he's falling to the ground. I step over him so I'm standing over his kneeling body with his head in the crook of one of my arms.

"Call me a cunt again. I fucking dare you."

"Cunt," he spits out as I choke the life out of him. I snap his neck again and drop him down. I grab his leg and begin dragging him outside of the shop. I drag him out into the middle of the street in the hope that someone will run him over. I turn around, walk into my shop, and lock the door. Every day I have to see him is another day that I need burnt from my memory. Today was no different.

I pick up my phone and call the police.

"9-1-1, what is your emergency?"

"Hi, this is Carly Rae. I'm inside of my shop, Ascension, on the corner of Fourth and Main and some maniac is trying to beat my door down. Can someone come take care of him?"

"Yes ma'am, Ms. Rae. We'll have someone to you in just a moment."

Another night in jail would do Sam some good. And it would keep him away from me for just a little longer. Just one night.

"Carly, let me the fuck in!"

Just one fucking night.

“Call it… sentimentality,” he said, after a moment, and he found himself unable to meet her gaze, and so he began to inspect the diploma hanging on the wall over her tight shoulder, “You are determined to keep going despite it all. The Life-Struggle. Life striving against itself to continue on. The Universal Eros….” He his beak curved in something like a smile, “I suppose you remind me of her. Them. My other half, in so many ways. She’s still here, I suppose, so long as one thing yet lives that strives to keep this universe from emptiness, that still clings on. Even if with all the rest of Life perishing now, she’s… faded back into the Totality like everything else.”

Iqra blinked at that, “Totality? What do you mean by that?”

He finally managed to meet her gaze, now he was on surer, less personal ground, “Exactly what I said. Call it God, or the Oneness, or the Dreamer, whatever metaphor you like. This universe is not the first, not by a long shot, nor is it the last. When you are gone, so too shall I go. Without life, there can be no Death. We little shards of the Oneness, we little flickers of dreaming-delusion will fall away, and there will be Nothing-and-Everything again. Like it was before this kalpa began. And then, eventually, the Oneness of it all will awaken to itself again and it will shatter again as it always does. There is always some fragment, some little whisper within the Oneness that longs to exist, to be, to live… and that’s what does it, you see. As soon as that idea takes root, the Oneness can’t exist any more. For a thing to exist, there has to be a thing that it isn’t in order to contrast it. For there to be Being, there must be Non-Being. So, it splits in two, and then those two split again and again and again and then you have another kalpa cycle. On and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.”

As he spoke, the calm and almost introspective tone of his voice slowly changed and grew almost desperate, despairing, and she suddenly saw a man drowning in some fathomless ocean, “Do you understand, Doctor?” He asked, and his voice quavered and it was full of pain, “Once I take you, that’s it. I cease to exist until I come back and I… am tired. I am so, so tired. You always call me Death. Every time we are here, you call me that but that is not my name. That is not who I am.”

He’d stood up, lurched to his feet, talons raking at her desk and gouging furrows in it and he was staring at her, trembling. Her mind raced, absorbing everything he had said. What did one say to someone who apparently was tired of existing entirely? How did you react to Death all but proclaiming he wanted to die? She latched on to that last, despairing statement and swallowed hard, “Then… who are you, Ayam?”

He fell back into his seat and took a deep, shuddering breath, “Think about it, Doctor. You are the Universe knowing itself. Stars ‘died’ and their dust became other stars, and the worlds around them and the life upon them. But the atoms are the same, and they recombine in different shapes and combinations. Becoming rivers and mountains, animals and humans and plants and animals again. Flowing one to the other through the life-cycle of a world. The atoms in a plant become part of the animal that grazes on it, that become part of the animal that eats it, to the human that eats that, to the earth they are buried in, and the plants anew. The differences between all these things are, ultimately, an illusion. A dream. How, then, can Death be?”

Her eyes widened, as suddenly she understood his point, “You are… change. Transformation. One thing becoming another thing. You’re the very thing that’s causing you pain, aren’t you? Every time the universe ends, another begins. Every time something dies, it just becomes something else. As soon as the next kalpa starts, you exist. Even trying to stop that happening is just… more you.”

Ayam sat heavily in his seat and smiled wanly, “And so,” he said drily, “You see the problem. I want it all to just… stop. To stand still. It is exhausting, to be what I am. This is not the first time we’ve had this conversation. It will not be the last. I suppose there is a certain catharsis, to speak of it. To have it out there. To say it. Even if it’s only at the curtain-call.”

She stood up and rounded the desk, taking one of his talons in her hand gently, “You do not have to do this alone, you know. You don’t have to bear the burden. You are Change itself; surely in the next universe, you can be something different?”

Death stood, and he was tall, and thin, and robed in black and his hand was a thing of ancient bleached bone, “Perhaps,” he said, “Perhaps not. I suppose we shall find out.”

Her eyes widened as she realised too late the change in his form and what he was about to do, “No, wait we’re not finish-“

…

…

…

The office was warm and welcoming, the walls coloured like sunset and the desk was not too broad, not too deep, giving enough personal space between the two sat at opposite sides of it without creating a distance far enough to be intimidating or isolating. There were two bookshelves, one crammed with textbooks and the other with comics, trashy romances, murder mysteries, biographies and practically every genre of book one could give name to. The chairs were comfortable, too. Death had to admit that as far as the offices for the universe’s last therapist went, it did an excellent job of radiating a sense of both competence on behalf of its owner and disarming charm.

The woman who sat across from him on the desk was not very old, not as one might expect for the Last Woman. She was perhaps in her late fifties or early sixties by appearance. Of course in this late year that could mean she was aeons old, but Death had certain advantages in these sorts of things, and he knew she was barely a century in age. An odd affectation for one so young to allow their age to advance so far… but given she was the Last, perhaps she saw no particular point in it any more.

“You know,” she said, “you do not look anything like what I imagined.”

Death smiled, an old and tired smile for a youthful face of dark skin and blue eyes and a tussle of brown hair, “Would you rather I look different?” he asked, leaning back. Jeans and blue shirt became robes dark as the void outside and his flesh withered into bleached bone and those blue eyes shone in the sockets with a light utterly unlike the lost, dead stars. He leaned forward again, steepling talons, the robes fading to white and more like those of a Buddhist monk than the cowled Reaper, a long curving beak clacking with laughter, and long graceful feathers of a white so bright it burned glimmered upon his frame. Pale flames of green-yellow flickered within his eyes, “Take your pick. I’ve worn many faces over the years.”

If the display affected the woman, she didn’t show it. Instead, she simply shook her head, “No, I was just surprised. Please, take any form that you feel comfortable in. This is a safe place.”

The tall, gaunt bird-creature leaned back in his seat and regarded her with slowly-flickering flame, “I was affecting a shape for your comfort, Doctor, not mine. But as you wish. I shall remain as I am presently, then. It is as good a form as any.”

She pursed her lips at that, and this time she leaned forward, fingers steepling, “Is it? Do you have a name, or do I simply call you Death this entire time?”

The avian figure clacked his beak in laughter, “Well that is one of my truer names, if not the Truth of me. But in this body… in this body, I am called Ayam the Pale. It will suffice.”

She nodded, “Ayam, then. Alright, so Ayam why are we here today?” she asked, her voice gentle, displaying a quiet sort of curiosity.

“Is it not obvious, Doctor? You are the last human living. The last mind living, in fact. I just took the last of the Archai in their blackhole computational matrices, and the last of an unnamed species of mollusc-esque creatures that clustered around the volcanic vents of the last even remotely habitable planet in the universe a few trillion trillion lightyears away. I am impressed, really, that you have held out alone here for a whole year. The last living thing in Refuge. The last sanctuary of organic life in all Existence, outlasting even the stars. It was a truly commendable effort.”

His voice was kind, and there was even admiration in it, but something in it made Doctor Iqra Schroeder frown, “You left me until last? God-computers, alien animals, philosophers and mystiques and scientists from a hundred million human clades alone never mind the uncounted number of xeno-sophonts out there… and you pick me to go last?”

Ayam shook his head, “I do not choose, Doctor. That is not my place. I am Death. I do not kill,” he paused, hesitated, and then amended, “Unless I am asked to hurry things along, but I have not done that in a very long time. No, I come to you because it is time. I have put it off for a year and a day, but I can forestall my duty no longer.”

She tilted her head, “Forestall?” She asked, eyes searching his alien face. He’d chosen that form for a reason; there was something in it he took comfort from, but it also made it harder to read him. Perhaps his hesitance was subconscious, and this was another part of it. He wanted her help, and would not admit it to himself, and so made it harder on himself to get it. He would not be the first patient to exhibit such avoidance behaviour, “And why are you stalling, Ayam?”

He hesitated, looked away, “A poor choice of phrase. I wanted to give you time to come to terms with it. That is all.”

She shook her head, “I don’t think that’s true. You left a therapist as the last living thing. You avoided coming here for a year after the last other souls passed on. When you said that you had ‘just’ taken the molluscs and the Archai… that was a year ago too, wasn’t it? When the others here took their lives because of their…” she hesitated, a pain flickering across her face, “Religious beliefs.”

Ayam sighed heavily, and forced himself to look back at her, “I can see that I cannot lie to you. Yes. I left you alone this whole time. I could have come to you then, and given you my offer then, and… put things to rest. But I did not. It was… cruel of me, to prolong this. I am sorry, Doctor.”

She gave him a long, steady look, “If you think you were being cruel leaving me here like this… then why did you do it?”

Nice!