Rhea Mortis tapped a coin on her desk, keeping in time with the ticking clock hung in the corner of her tiny office. Her grey eyes flickered over to the clock itself and a small sigh escaped from her nostrils. She was looking forward to meeting up with her friends for a few drinks at the tavern, but she could not leave until her business was done for the day. Unfortunately, her line of work tended to ignore traditional working hours and she had to be flexible with working at odd times of the day. 

The sun dipped down below the horizon outside the single window next to their door and long shadows began to cloak the room in darkness. With practiced movements, Rhea blindly pulled open the top right drawer of her weathered desk and took a pale, creamy candle from the drawer, plucked the sooty remnants of an exhausted candle from the iron holder and replaced it with the fresh one. She struck a match and held it to the fresh wick until it sputtered to life. Her hand went to her side and she almost thoughtlessly rubbed the oily, waxy residue from the candle onto her pants, but remembering her plans to end her night at the tavern around others, she instead wiped her hand on the rag she kept on a nail next to the drawer.

She had become quite accustomed to the faint, sickly smell of the candles made from human fat, but she fully recognized that it was a very off putting smell to everyone else. Had the candle maker not been so insistent his body be used in a final act of devotion to his craft, using a human body in such a way likely would have never crossed her mind. But since the candle maker, a few others had been willing to agree to have their remains used in the same way. As most of her lifestyle, it was a morbid task of converting human fat into candles and soaps, but it was practical and certainly saved money keeping her workshop lit and tidy.

Candle light now driving away the shadows from her office, Rhea leaned back in her chair and admired the macabre, yet subtle decorations in her office. A single bookcase was stuffed full of books on all things relating to medicine and necromancy, though the smart, professional covers in dark tones of leather with gilded edges made them appear to be nothing more than a rich academics collection at first glance. Most of the books were a study on some part of medicine, a hold over from her start as a medical student, but much like the path her life took, necromantic overtones had slowly made their way into the collection. The only other decorations the small room had space for were the collection of pens and ink used to sign the countless contracts over the years and a well preserved skull from one of those to first sign the contracts.

A decade ago she could have never seen herself sitting in such an office so comfortable with death. She had started her young adult life dedicated to the idea that she would fight against death, save people that other doctors had given up on, but it had all quickly become too obvious that death was too powerful and too inevitable. Once a soul was set on the path towards death it was like trying to save a wild animal from a tar pit. Sometimes possible, but even in doing so both the rescuer and the saved were often much worse off from the effort. It seemed much kinder to Rhea to embrace the relentless march and instead focus on how meaning could be found even after the soul left the body behind. This sentiment was not common and necromancy very taboo, but it seemed that many people when faced with their own mortality, realized that there was a grim practicality and found themselves willingly making the appointment with her to sign their body away for the sake of those they would leave behind.

The sound of pained, shuffling feet on the earthen path outside the door preceded a weak knock on the door. Rhea could hear his pained, heavy breathing through the door. It was a rattling, wheezy inhale followed a bit too quickly by a whooshing groan.

“Come in,” Rhea said loudly.

A pallid man with stringy blonde hair plastered to his damp forehead entered, his brown eyes deeply hollowed. Even the candlelight directly facing him could not penetrate the depths to drive away the dark shadows that rimmed his eyes. The rest of his face mirrored the sunken appearance of his eyes with his cheekbones sharp and angular and the skin stretched over his jaw and teeth having long lost any fat or muscular tone. It was the visage of a man who was more skeleton than person, mortality reduced to a husk that was likely only holding on out of commitments or unfinished business. It was a sight that Rhea had seen so many times. Though it had become easier to put on the polite business formalities while dealing with people in such pitiful condition, it still stirred something deep in her heart and she had to suppress rising guttural emotions.

“Please, take a seat,’ Rhea invited, rising slightly in her chair to gesture towards the empty seat before her desk. “You must be Mr. Hughes.”

The man made no indication whether he was indeed Mr. Hughes. It seemed to take all of his physical and mental strength to put one foot in front of the other as he crossed the room. Rhea could not imagine how he had made it all the way up the pathway behind her home to reach the out of the way office, let alone however far he may have traveled prior to arriving at her property.

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With a loud groan of pain he seemed unable to contain, he gripped both sides of the chair and plopped himself down onto the cushion with a brief expression of agony crossing his features. Rhea did not need to use any of her particular talents in diagnosing illness or predicting death to understand that this was a man whose borrowed time had long expired.

“I am him,” the man finally said after taking a moment to catch his breath.

He extended his right arm to offer a handshake and as soon as the arm raised his left arm reached to hold onto his right side as the movement seemed to shoot immediate pain through him. A cursory glance revealed that the right side of his torso was distended and very asymmetrical from the left. There were a multitude of ailments that could be causing the malformation and pain, but there was no use trying to diagnose at this point.

“Lovely to meet you,” Rhea said while accepting his handshake. “Now, let’s get down to business so that I don’t take too much of your time.”

“I- I’m sorry for being late,” Mr. Hughes said with another soft gasp of pain as he lowered his arm once more. “I tried to leave on time, but I don’t know what strength I have anymore and it seems I have even less than I anticipated.”

“Think nothing of it. Truly. I would rather we get this piece of mind taken care of so you can be at peace.” Rhea turned the piece of parchment on her desk around to face him and scooted over the bottle of ink and pens to be easily within his reach. “The terms of the contract are quite simple. They should have been outlined in the letter I sent to prepare you for what to expect. Did you have a chance to read it?”

His eyes had glazed over and his mind seemed far away. It was typical near the end of the gravely ill to start fading out of being able to keep their thoughts together and in their present mortality. Rhea believed that as mortality waned people began to be able to see through to other realms of existence, perhaps even what afterlife awaited them. At least that was the most comforting explanation she could accept as truth. Regardless, Rhea sat quietly and waited for his mind to return.

After a long moment of silence, a sputtering spark returned to his eyes and he uselessly tried to wet his cracking lips with a dry tongue. “They will be okay- my- my family?” he asked. “You will make sure they are- are…” he trailed off and tears welled in the corners of his eyes. “Taken care of?”

“Yes, Mr. Hughes. They will receive their monthly stipend for as long as your contract states. I believe you specifically wanted until your son is married,” Rhea assured. “You did not mention anything specific you wanted done with your body or any restrictions on how I can use it, but we can quickly amend any in if you have any requests.”

A slight smirk appeared on his lips, causing the severely dehydrated corner of his mouth to crack and bleed. “It does not matter to me what happens to my body.” The light seemed to fade from his eyes once more, but he continued speaking. “I…. have not been a good man. I- I leave nothing of note behind in either wealth or memories, only pain and sorrow. I only want to have done one thing positive for my family, even if it has to happen after my death. My son is still so young, barely old enough to remember me and my wife is young and beautiful, perhaps she can find someone to marry… and my son will-” he cut himself off with a choked sigh of intense sadness. “ Will find a far better father in him.”

It was difficult to see past the pained, pale countenance that had been twisted by pain and illness, but it soon washed over Rhea just how young the man in front of her was. He was likely younger than her and should have been in the prime of his life. While death is rarely kind to anyone, it always seemed particularly cruel when it knocked on the door of the young. 

“I assure you that I will see they are taken care of and your body will be treated with dignity and respect. Let’s go over the terms of your contract to see if you agree as it is.” Rhea said gently, putting her finger to the first line on the parchment before him.

Ignoring the normal structure of the meeting, Mr. Hughes picked up a pen from the jar, dipped it in the ink, and signed his name at the bottom of the parchment and began to stand up.

“It is done,” he rasped out. “I want to go home.”

“As long as you’re satisfied with-”

“If they are taken care of, then I am satisfied, the rest does not matter.”

The man did not turn around again as he shuffled from the office and disappeared into the rapidly chilling early night air. Rhea sat and listened to his struggling steps until they faded away and she exhaled a deep sigh.

Those who came to the end of their lives with burdens and regrets were always the hardest, it was even harder when it was someone young who had assumed that they would have much more time to find their way and atone for their misdeeds before the end. Rhea thought that was why so many people thought of the march of death as so unfair and evil. Death was the great equalizer. It did not care how pious or how wretched someone was, only that the flame on the candle of their life was sputtering at its end. It came for everyone, despite the many attempts to defy and delay the inevitable. The stark reality was simply too much to accept and people placed the realm of death in the same circle as the realm of evil, despite even those the most foul and wretched fearing death the same as those the most holy and sanctified.

Knowing better than to continue to sit and wallow, Rhea rolled up the parchment and placed it in her satchel before slinging it over her shoulder and pulling on her jacket in preparation to make her walk to the tavern. Life and death were sometimes harsh, but much more palatable with a frothy pint in her hands.