Contractors, entities which deal in mortal souls like commodities. A stock, a bond, a lifetime. And our main character, Albert Carol, is about to lose his. When Death comes knocking, all is not what it seems. Death isn't some omnipotent psychopomp, he's a businessman with a penchant for calling himself the grim reaper; and he isn't even Death proper, it's just persona. It's all lies and fakery, and Albert just so happens to be a very talent weaver of half-truths. ------- This is the oldest surviving digital copy of the novel now known as Oathbound, and the most modern version of that story can be read here. I began writing the first iteration of this story, what I will call "version 1" or "V1", in 2011. I was... much younger and more full of myself and thought I was probably some kind of YA literary prodigy and that I'd be discovered and published while still in my early twenties and this story was going to do it. It did not. For reasons that will become apparent should you choose to read this story. For the record, I don't dislike this version of this story. It is the most "finished" in what I will call the story boarded timeline of the novel. Reading this version of Oathbound before the partly finished modern version will probably still spoil some things. I'm sharing this version as a sort of experiment, and also as a sort of record. The story is "finished" but I don't think I'm finished with it. I don't think I've killed Albert William Carol quite enough times for that. Maybe you'll see what I mean. These chapters will not be edited from their archived state, and will appear as they did (more or less) originally on DeviantArt (believe it or not that is where they were originally hosted).