“What happened?” she asked as she opened her eyes to the ceiling of the living room.

“You tell me,” sarcastically.

It wasn’t easy to remember. “Fire, Pink was there, and the hospital. I think a phoenix came out of some ashes.”

“Good enough, I suppose. Now, leave your aunt to wake on her own.”

“We’re going to see Snowman.”

He didn’t bother arguing, instead insisting the deed be done somewhere other than Ant’s immediate vicinity which Luna thought was a good idea.

The other side was the same as it ever was and Snowman was the same as he ever was and that was something special.

She ran to him crying and Donner had the decency to say nothing about it. He pretended not to see and walked on to push the boundary further as it seemed Snowman chose to remain by the roadside when left alone in this place of the dead.

Or so he said it was.

But that wasn’t a conversation worth having. It didn’t matter if he was right, unknowingly incorrect, or lying. Whatever this was, it was barely real enough. He suspected that once they all committed to leaving for good it would disappear. But that, too, wasn’t something worth contemplating. They would have no way of knowing if it still existed if they weren’t there to witness it.

A trail he didn’t wish to follow. Questioning the nature of existence. Luna did it often enough and she was doing it then, too.

“Why did he die after I saved him? I couldn’t save Pink, but I saved him! Why did he die?”

Snowman was better at consolation than Donner. He cared. “He died because he had to. It must have been time for him to leave.”

“Who decided that?! I didn’t decide that!”

“It’s not for you to decide, Luna.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Well, who makes those decisions? Because they were wrong!”

His hand was light upon her hair. “People often think Death is wrong, but you won’t convince her, or him, of that.”

“Not ever?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“So, Death wins?”

A small laugh. “I guess you can put it that way. If it's a game, then Death is bound to win. Though, I’m not sure if it is or not at this point.”

“Do you know Death?” She thought he must. He talked about Death like a person, not something that happened.

“I know a Death,” he said, “and I suspect you do, too. Though you won’t recognize him,” he looked at her strangely. “I don’t know what you did, but you must have had a reason for it.”

“I don’t know what I did either,” she took a step back and wiped her eyes.

He was sure they spoke of different things. “Luna, whether you remember or not doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, I hope you will be happy at least for a while.”

“How can I be happy when everyone keeps dying?”

She sounded sullen now, but the truth of her statement rocked him. He’d asked the same question so many, many times and maybe that was what she’d wanted to forget. This experiment of hers proved it was impossible to escape.

And that was…

“Be happy with the time you have, no matter how short it seems.”

When Luna left with Donner, after telling him all about the death of her uncle and her foray into her aunt’s mind, he was alone again. As he was destined to be.

He considered once more his place on the wheel of fate and wondered if, in a time so long ago it could not be remembered, he’d chosen this. Had he been asked what role he desired to play in creation? Was he made to complete this unending task? Was it punishment for a crime he did not recall committing?

The questions were endless and they came at moments like this.

When he was alone.

What was his Death doing now, while he hid from the responsibility of constructing life? These eons between the end and a new beginning were nothing to them. They could never be long enough. There wasn't sufficient time to forget it all.

Even Luna, who forgot on purpose, knew it to be true in her core.

Perhaps these short years of childhood were better than nothing. The days before her mother died, though they were hardly a fairy tale, were still spent in a measure of ignorance he could hardly believe was achievable.

Would he do the same now? When she was done, when she told him she would stop returning to this place on the other side of the vale, would he do as she did?

He supposed he would wait to hear her final judgment of the situation.