The sound of squeaking tennis balls and wheezing breath echoed in the dim, musty room. A thin trail of sweat dripped down Nathan’s wrinkled forehead as he inched his walker towards the wispy-haired woman in front of him, hatred burning in his eyes.

He raised an arthritis-ridden hand, a gun shaking in his grip. His caterpillar brows furrowed as he bared his gums, a trembling finger tightening around the trigger. The gun barked, leaping from his hand and clattering down onto the white tiled ground.

"Damn it," he muttered under his breath. "This old body's just not what it used to be."

The bullet had flown wide, punching through the dust-covered wall behind the woman.

“You’re a pathetic excuse for an assassin,” the woman croaked, hobbling forward and leaning heavily on her worn cane. The oxygen lines running into her nose made her already tired voice nasally. “I don’t know how I never killed you after all these years.”

“I’m still better than you ever were. Maybe I should just let old age take you and save myself the trouble, you crotchety old prune,” Nathan said. “You’ve lost your touch. There was a time when I wouldn’t have known you were coming until you were on me, but I heard your joints popping from the other room.”

“You’ve always talked too much. Let me help you shut that mouth,” the woman replied, pulling her own pistol from her fanny pack and pointing it at Nathan. Her hand shook just as much as Nathan’s had.

“Do it, Cleo. I’d like to see you hit the broad side of a barn with that thing,” Nathan said, giving her a grin. It might have been more intimidating had he remembered to put his dentures in that morning.

Cleo pulled the trigger and the gun lurched out of her hand and fell to the floor. The bullet whistled by his head, shaving off one of the last of the few hairs he had remaining. Nathan cackled for a moment before it dissolved into a ten second coughing fit. He was leaning down to pick up his pistol when a sharp pain erupted in his lower back.

“Augh!” He cried out, his knuckles whitening around the walker and his eyes going wide as he caught himself. Cleo smirked and knelt to grab her own weapon. She then let out a groan and staggered, throwing her weight onto the cane as her own back gave out.

“I guess guns aren’t our thing anymore, eh?” Nathan asked with a pained, wheezing laugh. He called on his decades of training to push the agony into the back pits of his mind and mute it, focusing on the task at hand.

“That’s fine. My hands work just fine.”

“Obviously not.”

The two of them hobbled towards each other, gritting teeth and gums against the pain wracking their ailing bodies. The room was small, no more than twenty feet across, but it still took them nearly a minute to reach each other. Their bodies were a far cry from the well-oiled killing machines that they’d once been.

Nathan’s chest felt tight. His body was stiffer than ever before, and his limbs no longer reacted as swiftly as they once had. The old man’s eyebrows knit together as he narrowed his eyes – partially in determination, partially because he was trying to focus on Cleo's blurring visage.

His head felt light and wobbly on his shoulders as he stumbled forward, his free hand reaching out for Cleo’s throat.

She mirrored his actions, tossing the cane aside as they finally grew closer. The two of them wrapped their thin hands around each other’s throats and started to squeeze.

“Hurry this up, old hag,” Nathan wheezed. “I’ve got bingo in an hour. This job has made me work for far too long, and I look forward to retiring.”

Cleo’s response was two rows of bared dentures.

It had been nearly sixty-five years since he’d taken this job. Sixty-five years of chasing this woman across the planet, of infiltrating and espionage, of near misses and close calls. He’d be damned if he didn’t finish the job. He'd be damned if he—

Nathan’s world started to grow darker. His eyes felt heavy and his mind more sluggish than he was now used to. Cleo’s face was drooping slightly and both of them were breathing heavily. Her breath smelled of prunes.

A sharp pain pierced through Nathan’s chest like a red-hot stake. He gasped and his grip went slack as his eyes widened in shock. Throughout his career, he'd been shot more than a couple of times, and this felt frighteningly similar. But he hadn't heard a gunshot. Had his hearing aid stopped working?

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Nathan felt the pressure on his throat vanish as Cleo’s hands scrabbled at her heart, tears welling at the corners of her crusty, wrinkled eyes.

The two of them fell forward at the same time, their bodies slumping against each other on the ground. Nathan felt his hip break from the fall. And then the world started to slow down, and a burst of clarity lit up Nathan’s aging mind. A sudden reminder.

“Damn it all,” he breathed. “I’m going to miss bingo.”

Cleo let out a single, pain-wracked grunt that might have been a laugh. It was the first one that Nathan had ever heard her make. Finally, together, they breathed their last.

***

Water. Icy cold, inky black. Plunging into his lungs, filling his nostrils, blinding his eyes, stinging his skin with a bitter chill. Nathan coughed, and more poured in through his throat, freezing him inside and out. He was soaked in it, floundering around in it like a child as it rushed past him, spun him end over end. A pebble in the river at the mercy of the current, that was what Nathan was.

He kicked and kicked and kicked, but it was like fighting against a beast of unimaginable strength. Desperation clawed at his aching lungs, the world around him blurring into a dizzying whirl of foam and salty spray. The roar of the river drowned out everything, his screams dying in his chest.

And then a light, streaking in from above the waves. Beckoning him. It danced and flickered, casting fractured rays that reached down into the depths like long, glowing fingers.

Nathan clawed toward it, ripping his hands through the water, willing himself upward. The light grew brighter, more intense, lances of emerald green amongst the black.

The light stretched toward him, enveloping him in a frigid comfort, and then pulling him from the waves. Nathan gasped and sputtered, water dripping from all of his naked, shivering body.

There was a wooden boat, lilting back and forth in the frothy white waters, a single man standing on it, watching him. No, not a man. A demon. A reaper. Tattered cloths clung to the being's frail form, its skin darker and bluer than the waters around them. In one hand, it held a towering staff, its top rocking back and forth with a shimmering, green flamed lantern. Those same flames burned in the demon’s eyes. Twin coals of ghostly fire set into its skull.

[Charnun the Ferryman – Lvl. ???]

Nathan moved to speak, but found his throat tight, frozen. All he could do was watch as the light brought him over the rickety ship and then deposited him onto it.

“Knower of Death,” the demon said, its voice echoing around him. The howl of the wind and crashing of the waves suddenly sounded quieter, as if they had moved far away and it was just Nathan and this demon. “After you, I will have one more voyage. You are my final Echo.”

Nathan found his voice. “I– what?” he asked.

The demon carried on as if it hadn’t heard Nathan at all. “The River of Souls ceases for none. Without a guide, most are lost to the current, swept away.” A particularly powerful wave crashed into the side of the boat, rocking it violently and sending a spray of salt water onto Nathan’s face. “Our destination is a unique one. We go to different places… I to gather one last passenger, you to the abyss.”

“Abyss?” Nathan wiped at his face, feeling colder than the water starting to take hold of him.

“Your journey has ended. We shall be there soon. Do not fight it.” The demon’s skull-like face split into a cold grin, devoid of joy, but filled with relief. Like a man anticipating a well deserved rest. “That will only make things worse for you.” The light burning deep in its eyes flickered, dimming to a menacing glare.

Abyss. Hell. A life filled with nothing but death, nothing but pain. In truth, Nathan knew that he deserved nothing better. He wasn’t evil, but he had done evil things. This was his reward.

The demon leered at him. The boat rocked back and forth. He felt a deep anger in his chest, a roaring fury, louder than the crashing waves. He’d lived his life at the whims of others, following orders unquestioningly. Not anymore. It was time to fight for himself.

His eyes latched onto the demon’s fiery gaze. He snarled, pushing himself to his feet, water dripping from his muscles, the demon watching like one would watch an ant. And then he threw himself forward.

The demon watched him, eyes aflame. There was no emotion in them. It was the first time Nathan had ever looked into the eyes of someone he was about to kill and seen nothing at all.

And, with every bit of meager strength that he could muster, Nathan descended on the demon. Water slicked his fingers as they pressed against the blue skin and tattered robes of the figure. It felt like touching ice. It burned, blistering his skin in seconds as if he’d grabbed a flame. But he didn’t relent. He shoved.

The demon fell just like that. A singular heartbeat and he was standing there, watching Nathan with callous eyes. The next he was over the edge of the boat.

Its splash wasn’t even audible over the crashing of waves and roaring of wind. Nathan watched as it sank into the river, eyes of fire staring up wide, emotionless, no bubbles escaping its open jaw, until it was gone. As if it had never been.

The lantern stayed standing on its own, swaying softly despite the violent rock of the boat. Its fire suddenly puffed out and streaked toward Nathan, impacting him in the chest. He staggered back as a warmth spread through his bones, an energy, a power.

And then all was dark once more.

You have slain [Charnun the Ferryman]

1 EXP gained

Trait: Mantle of the Ferryman gained

God Class [Ferryman] gained