As ‘I’ awaken I realise that I am lying sideways on the ground, lacking strength and only capable of looking at whatever is directly in front of me due to my inability to turn my head away from whatever it is I am looking at. In front of me I see an aged man sitting on what I can only assume is a throne.

The throne has no decorations, made of metal akin to silver but strangely with a light dark hue seeming to hide behind the metal. The throne consists of 4 rectangular prism type stones, one of which is made as the seat and  another stone being the backrest. The last 2 rectangular prisms are situated on either side of the seating stone and appear to be armrests. The ground a metre in front of the throne is elevated and located higher by 50 cm than the ground prior to the elevation. This is obviously made so that people feel inferior to the person in the throne as they will have a lower eye level than him. After waking up and being given the chance to survey the seat and the man on it for a few seconds, I hear the aged man speak to me,

“Great, your consciousness was only in purgatory for about 8 years. Thank myself that you are not one of those shattered souls, Hell they can take up to 800 years to reform.”

Although my head is clear I am incapable of making sense of the words that he said for some reason at this time. I find that my strength is slowly returning and I manage to push myself off of the ground with the small amount of power that I just recovered.

As I stand, although my head is still fixed facing the man sitting on the throne, I now have a wider field of view and become capable of making some observations of where I am located. I find that I am in a cavern of some sorts, with naturally formed earthen pillars on my left and right, along with some stalactites on the ceiling, but a lack of stalagmites everywhere excluding the edge of the wall behind the throne that I can see. The wall isn’t far from the throne, only being situated approximately 10 metres behind the throne.

Unfortunately since I still cannot rotate my head in any which way, I cannot see how wide the cavern that I am in is. However, since I am now standing now I now possess a better view of the old man.

The old man has a white beard that reaches down to the centre of his chest ending at a point. He also has hair that has gone white corresponding to his age. He has wrinkles on his face that also appear to have come with his age. In general his face appears to be that of a normal old man, but his clothing and actions say otherwise.

He is garbed in a black robe of sorts, however different parts of the robe’s edges seem to fade in and out of existence, causing them to appear similar to moving waves. I also notice another strange thing, I am not sure as to why I noticed this almost instantly, but I observe that his chest isn’t moving. Does he not breathe? Also, probably the most terrifying thing that I realised instantly was the incredible feeling of death that he exudes.

It is as though I am facing a person that has killed millions and has been killed the same amount of times. At that moment the meaning of the words he said began to appear and I finally made sense of what he had said. After analysing the words I make a few quick deductions about my situation and some questions come to mind.

Because he said I was in purgatory for 8 years, I must be dead although I cannot remember anything about my death and even anything about when I was alive other than that I am certain that I once was alive.

-‘Thank god’ is the right term, not ‘thank myself’. Is he god?

This place is terrifying, so I find it difficult to think of this as heaven. Is it hell?

My strength still feels weak, I am barely capable of holding myself up. It is as if I am bound by incredible gravity.

This man is the most terrifying existence I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Frankly, I am amazed that I have the ability to not relieve myself in my pants.

The man raises an eyebrow and speaks.

”You aren’t the only one who is currently terrified of the creature in front of them. Your deductions are terrifying, even though it has barely been 5 seconds since you stood up.”

“I apologize if I have scared you, and may I ask of you to answer my questions since you appear to be capable of reading minds.”

The man’s eyebrow drops back to its original position, he adopts an angered face and leans forward slightly as though he is about to get out of his throne. The feeling of death he exudes all of a sudden becomes twice as strong. This causes me to drop to my knees sweating and panting from lack of breath while clutching my heart which feels as though it will break out of the chest entrapping it by it’s intense beating. My head is still facing him as I cannot move it or look away from him as much as I want to. He then speaks with a deeper, angered voice.

“Do not believe that such petty actions can truly make me afraid, I just said such a statement because I wanted to transmit your capability of understanding my surprise. I am not a being in which you can invoke fear so easily.”

As the pressure he releases eases up and allows me to breath again, I decide to crack another ill-placed joke.

“Sorry milord, but you were the one who said he feared me and that is enough to make my day. Besides I believe you will not smite me as there is no point in smiting an already dead person.”

The events from before repeat in which he increases the pressure and appears angry but all of a sudden he releases the additional pressure, causing it to return back to the original powerful, but bearable pressure. He then laughs. As opposed to his appearance and how terrifying he is, the laugh is joyful and seems to warm peoples hearts, similar to that of how an old man would warm your heart if you make his day and he laughs, with absolutely no ill feelings.

“I’m sorry, I always like to do the ‘Supremely Powerful God of Death’ act on people I meet for the first time. Forgive me, I honestly don’t care in the least about how you take the fact that I feared you when I met you, and yes it is true that I was afraid of you due to your sheer intelligence. Once again I have to pat myself on the back for being capable of calling such an intelligent soul to serve me, even if it was by means of lottery.”

For a few seconds I stare at him dumbfoundedly as I cannot believe that this person was the owner of that terrifying aura that nearly killed me a few seconds ago. After picking all my thoughts up I decide to ask a question.

“... So if you don’t mind me asking you to fill me in on the situation, fill me in on the situation please.”

The ‘Supremely Powerful God of Death’ leaned back into his throne and appeared to ponder for a moment before he appeared to come to a decision.

-It is so obvious that you are acting, after all you wouldn’t call me here if it was otherwise. Goddamn it old man, hurry it along-

The aged one frowned and then proceeded to speak.

“First of all I want you to agree not to say anything before I finish talking, the questions will come after as I may answer some along the way. Do you agree to this?”

I nod and he continues to talk after receiving the answer from me.

“First of all you are being rude to the elderly asking us to hurry it along, not all of us wish to die you know. We haven’t ever wished to hurry our lives along as it would just lead to an early grave.”

He grins and then looks at me as though waiting for a reaction from the joke he told me.

-Good joke, but can you please continue with the explanation, I have an urge to know the answers to my questions-

His grin changes into a frown before becoming a jovial face again.

“You ruin the fun, well I guess I will listen to your request and begin with explaining who I am and then who you are.

I am what you people would call Death or the Grim Reaper or Hades or Pluto or Lord or Satan and yes, this is Hell. Honestly it amazes me how you guys could have so many names for my existence. I am usually impressed by the ingenuity of humans, but in this case I am even more impressed at how you guys can’t just decide on one name and leave it at that. Phew… Getting past that topic, I believe that I should explain your existence to allow you to understand more about me.

You are what people would call a soul. The soul of an already dead person. You have died and that is the hard fact. I also took the liberty of erasing all memories of your experiences as a human being. However I have let you keep all memories involving the information you gathered during your lifetime, but even if I wished to possess a soul with intelligence, I thought it would be entertaining to let you shape your own moralities and thought process so that I can watch your adaptation and giggle.”

-... I believe that according to my memories this is what would be considered an evil person but as he said, I have no true sense of what is right and what is wrong, just what was correct and what wasn’t in my previous world. So unfortunately I believe I cannot really do anything to judge his schadenfreude personality-

He glares at me for a few seconds once again and then proceeds with his explanation.

“Soooo, breaking it down since I am an immortal, I got bored and decided to bend the rules a little and attach my power of death to a random soul so that it would naturally come here before me. You were actually really quick as other souls, as I mentioned earlier, can take up to 800 years to actually come here. Apparently you didn’t have much attachment to your previous life which could end up keeping you close to the place which you have the most care about. So you shouldn’t hate me much about taking away your experiences and feelings as a human.”

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-I don’t believe I feel as much hate for you as irritation right now-

“I know I said don’t interrupt and you are keeping silent, can you keep all the menacing thoughts away as well? It kind of disturbs my concentration on the topic at hand.”

-I will try, but I doubt it will work-

“Good, now getting back on track after being disturbed so many times, I will now discuss with you what I brought you here for. I mean other than entertainment of course and what I shall gift to you.”

He grins menacingly, as though finding a fun toy to play with.

“There is a world which I will send you to in which you will act as my employee, entourage, follower, priest of my religion or slave. Pick whichever you find more suitable, although I am in great favor of slave.”

-And there is that infamous grin of his, you can clearly understand his personality with that grin-

“Menacing thoughts” he chimes in before continuing the explanation.

“So I will send you off to this new world, in which there exists magic and creatures and lots of factors to keep me entertained as opposed to your Earth, especially in your 21st century after all the wars. I honestly don’t care what you do. Although I said that you are my slave, you can do whatever you want. I just want to see how much havoc you will wreak upon the world. I will bless you with the marking of death, believe me it’s not as bad as it sounds, before sending you off to be one of those babies left outside an orphanage. What you do with your life is not my concern, I will help you if I feel the need and sometimes I will throw challenges at you. If you wish for a safe, happy lifetime I will do everything to stop that.”

-And there is his infa- -

Completely ignoring me he continues.

“I shall also grant you this weapon. Honestly I haven’t called it anything because it can take the shape of any weapon if you will it. If I were to call it anything it would be ‘Death’s Weapon’.”

He takes a cylindrical rod that appears to be made of a metal reminiscent of silver but with a black glow below the metal. It appears to be made with the same material as the throne but the glow is much darker as opposed to the throne’s. The rod has a diameter of 3 cm and a length of 30 cm length.

-Appears similar to the throne, doesn’t it?-

“Indeed it is similar to the throne due to it being in my presence. When metal stays in my presence or the presence of death for a prolonged time, it begins to be converted to what I call ‘Mortisite’. Mortisite is the hardest substance, even envied by the gods as my power is vastly superior to the majority of the gods. Sadly mortisite has 2 drawbacks but also has a positive, reinforced by the one of the supposed drawbacks.

The drawback or negative point is that mortisite is incredibly rare as it takes billions of years in my presence to form, along with the fact that mortisite can only be formed in natural ore veins that have access to my presence, in this case the veins that are located in this cavern.

I already looked and this ‘Weapon’ and the throne are the only pieces of mortisite that I possess, and even so the piece that I am giving you is the most refined. All these pieces naturally converted from their original form in my presence into these chunks but since my presence was spread out evenly and half was absorbed into the ore chunk which you know as Death’s Weapon and the other half into the ore for my throne, the ‘Weapon’ possesses a much higher concentration of my aura.

So overall, I am giving you an incredibly expensive weapon which you cannot hope to buy even if we had one billion of you possessing my aura. You simply don’t have the lifespan, aren’t I such a benevolent being? To simply give away such a work of art, I feel like I have accomplished a good deed.”

I attempt to turn my head away in disgust but I forgot that my head is still incapable of movement and give up on moving it, just rolling my eyes, but nonetheless I get my message across pretty well with my eyes and thoughts.

-I would feel devoted to you and  be very thankful for the gift if I was not aware of the fact that you just gave me this gift to hope to ‘spice things up’ in the world you are sending me too. Am I wrong.-

“Nah, you are pretty much correct, in fact that was a great deduction, yet again you make me think that choosing you as my little guinea pig was a smart idea. So where was I? Ah right, I will not explain how to use this weapon as you will learn by yourself and eventually I will teach you a technique, but only if you are strong enough. But I will give you a clue.

You can expand the ‘Weapon’ if you put some aura or magic power into it, however you cannot change its fundamental pole shape, but you can create a sword that can hit physical objects. I will leave you with that clue about the weapon, how it manages to become a sword won’t take long for you to realise.

Oh yes, forgot to mention that this ‘Weapon’ shall reside within your body until you are three. If anyone asks about it just say something about it being a memento or something, you are smart you will figure out a solution.

Now shall we go into the more exciting bit about your powers? Hahaha, I won’t give you a choice anyway, now listen up and don’t forget because I won’t explain it again. Since you are blessed by me, you will have this weird birthmark on your chest that is the symbol of death. Honestly, I think when I made that symbol I was feeling a little tipsy, after all it looks relatively weird. The symbol has a use, I mean other than looking weird. It basically acts as a link between your soul and the body that you are residing in. After all it is not your body so I have to make some kind of glue to stick the soul to the body. However as you, the you as a soul is dead and not actually one with the body, but merely attached to it, you are capable of sensing the aura of death with a sixth sense.

In this new world that you are being sent to, every person has an affinity with a certain element, and you will gain an affinity with a hidden element that only allows the non-living to use it. Yes, it is just as you imagine, affinity with the element of death. Now I basically finished my explanations, any questions?”

“Oh, I can speak now, you locked my speech away after I agreed to not interrupt you, couldn’t you put your faith in me at all?”

“Faith is a strong word, especially for immortals like me. However I must ask is that your only question?”

“Of course not, well for my first question: Is this allowed?”

He ponders for a second, then replies.

“Are you talking about me bringing you back to life and attaching your soul into the body of a dead human being or about me bringing you here?”

“Both”

“Well yes it isn’t outlawed by the gods, although it is true that an immortal favoring a living being as well as an immortal giving a living being an object and a plethora of rules involving humans and immortals doing stuff to help the living beings, whether it be directly or indirectly, are all banned. They only apply to as I said, living beings, you are not a living being but rather an already passed on soul, so for all they care I can eat you and there is nothing illegal about that.”

“I find it strange that there is no rule about this though, kind of begs the question as to why other immortals or gods haven’t tried this before.”

While stroking his beard in an intelligent looking manner he replies to my question.

“Well my dear child, the reason for this is because interacting with the dead is my kingdom of power and only I am allowed to do such a thing. Hell, they never even expected that I would attempt this since I seem like such a loyal dog. Hahaha, well at least I won their trust and am capable of doing this under the radar.”

“So it isn’t legal.”

“No my child, it is legal, just bending the rules a little and the gods may get a little mad if they realise, but they don’t need to know.”

“... Okay, so here is another question: Who or what am I in that world?”

Death strokes his beard again.

-I swear if he does that again simply to waste time, I will rip his beard out personally-

“First of all calm down before I proceed with answering the question. Me and you both have all the time in the world before I have to send you to your new home. Now as for the answer to the question, you are an elf child and you won’t really be treated differently for that. Elves are accepted fine by humans and in that orphanage too. Also your name is ‘Sephtis’, I was inspired to make that name after looking at your cultural background. ‘Eternal Death’ is a cool enough name, is it not? Is that all, because I am getting impatient and want to watch you grow up in that world already.”

-Who has all the time in the world now? Well I better reply before he answers this question-

“Yes I am ready to go, send me off at will.”

“Well, it was nice talking to a person that didn’t lick my boots 24/7 for once, I hope you will entertain me enough to let me spend at least a millennia before getting bored again.”

Right after he finishes saying that, the floor beneath my feet opens and I find myself able to move my head again. I am given just enough time to be able to see the darkness below my feet that I am about to fall into and enough time to think.

-Well, shit-

Before falling into the deep abyss.