As would be fitting, the last keystroke of my story accompanied the last breath of flame from the candle. There was a final puff of smoke, a sizzle of melted wax, and I was in complete darkness. Without light the room seemed to cease to exist, and I floated in blackness. Surrounded by nothing, I felt microscopic. Was this my final resting place then? Had it not been good enough? Was I dead?

“You’re not dead.” The disembodied voice was accompanied by a disappointed sigh. It echoed through my head like a ripple through a murky puddle of water. “Yet.”

There was a scraping noise, it sounded like a match on a matchbox. A familiar glow of fire lit the room and I was sitting across a desk from Death. If anyone tried to imagine a room wherein Death had business meetings, I don’t think it’d be hard to come up with the right picture. A small dusty room like the one I’d just been in, only with bookshelves covering the walls and row upon row of dusty tomes covering the shelves. Every last title on the shelf was unreadable to me, whether it be from decay, dust, or that it was written in a language that I didn’t understand. I could even see a spider industriously expanding his home in the corner of one shelf. The only thing missing from my picture was Death.

He was sitting behind a large weathered oak desk holding his match to an ancient looking pale yellow candle that despite its obvious age, looked utterly unused. The candle was the only thing on the desk, until he dropped the manuscript I’d just written on the desk resulting in a hollow thud that resonated through the dusty room. The spider on the shelf stopped for a second at the sound before continuing his home renovation. I had expected a cloud of dust to accompany the dropping manuscript, but the desk was surprisingly clean.

“It’s pretty good. Not the masterpiece you’d led on about, not by any stretch, but an easy and enjoyable read. I especially liked the ending, poetic way to end a story, really.” I needed a second to realize that I was face to face with Death and he was reviewing a book I’d written in just three days. It felt like a lot to take in, but out of habit I was excited by the review.

“So... you liked it?” I asked hesitantly.

“I’ll shelve it.” Was his only response. As he said it a binding grew out of the backs of the pages and slowly expanded into a spine and cover. Without any emotional context, I didn’t know what to make of his review. Even when he stretched out a long arm and squeezed it between to two massive tomes on the shelf behind him, tearing out a chunk of the spider’s work in the process. There was an awkward minute of silence before I worked up the nerve to reply.

“So what... what happens next?”

“Well, I’m interested now.” Death breathed calmly. “But I’m still not entirely sure you’re worth any negotiation. So I’m willing to give you a week of probation. Write something better than what you just did, and we can negotiate a permanent deal.” He pulled open a desk drawer and pulled out a piece of paper and an ink pot with a ragged looking feather quill sticking out of it. “Just sign your name on the dotted line.” He turned the spidery text strewn page around and offered me the quill. I didn’t bother to read it, I just signed. It was the only offer I felt I’d get and I’d rather take it then wonder what it felt like to die. I took a second tentative look at my name on the bottom of the yellowed page before handing the quill back to Death. He removed it gently from my hand with another yellow grin.

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“If you start having any troubles, don’t bother trying to reach me, I’ll already know.” He waved me away toward the door behind me.

I was about to leave when I turned around, my hand already on the cold brass handle. The chair that Death had just been sitting in was vacant, I was left alone. It wasn’t until then that the ominous chilling feel that any rational person should have had in that situation struck me.

As I turned back to the door my surroundings melted around me and I was standing in front of the door to my apartment complex. My key was in the lock and my backpack was on the ground leaning against the door. I looked around me, but there was no sign of Death, not even a man in a black suit. Just a bunch of pedestrians, some of whom were giving me weird looks. It was unsettling. I wasted no time getting inside and nearly forgot about my backpack.

The first thing I did when I got to my apartment was look in the mirror. No weird discolored rose, just me. My face was pale, which was to be expected from a frightened delusional. The color wouldn’t return though. I checked my eyes next, like a misplaced eyelash could cause me to trip Death. I was freaking out, more than I ever had, and I needed to calm down. I pulled my phone from my backpack and tried calling my mother but all I got was her answering machine. I couldn’t find the words to say what had happened and I eventually just dropped the phone and tried to breathe evenly to calm down.

I tried to walk slowly as I made my way to the fridge and pulled out the first edible thing I touched. It was a roast beef sandwich wrapped in plastic for whoever got hungry first. I stood by the kitchen counter as I scarfed it down. I almost wanted to turn on the TV for some noise, but then I wouldn’t be able to hear if Death appeared. It made me nervous just thinking about being caught off guard by him. The food hadn’t helped at all, I felt just as nervous with a full stomach as I had without, only now I had something to throw up.

Doing my best to suppress being sick I peeked into my room. It felt like I was trespassing for some reason, like this room wasn’t mine anymore. Everything was just as I’d left it though, a huge mess. It helped me calm down a bit. Looking at my computer negated that feeling so I tried to avert my eyes. The thought of the computer brought back my anxieties, failure at writing, being unable to write for Death, my inevitable demise that would follow shortly after. It made me think about what I would have to do, even though I wasn’t completely sure the last three days had been real or not. Even so, the idea of writing anything else... it made my skin crawl.

My mind was swimming. Attempting to rationalize the whole encounter away, as I did with anything that scared me in my life, would not work. Death had not been some shadow of a monster in a scary movie, he had been a very real and very powerful force. Real enough that I had been able to punch, and grab hold of his coat to try and stay on my feet. I had never hallucinated before, at least that I knew of, but I couldn’t imagine a hallucination feeling so real. It was hard to think straight with those flashes of random things that I thought had happened, but I still couldn’t be sure of, flying through my head. It was early, but I laid on my bed and stared at the ceiling until I could clear out my mind enough to sleep.