Tayte shuffled her way to Ayo.

His busted body was marked with bleeding wounds. His cracked helmet was still on, showing his bloodshot eye, and his heavy breath could be heard. As Tayte studied him and his twisted leg, her mind wandered. The same question kept popping up. With no regard for his well-being she asked Ayo, “What are the Tombstone Trials?”

She waited for an answer in silence. A groan arose from the injured motorist.

“I still can’t tell if you’re working with Nangobi or if this is just a plan of yours alone. What’s your name?”

“Tayte Enberg.”

“Never heard of that name. Do you go by anything else?”

“Back in school, I remember people used to call me, ‘Grim-Reaper Girl.’”

“Sounds accurate.” Ayo let out a wet cough that made his damaged body shake.

“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable if you took that helmet off?”

“How about you ask one damn question at a time?” Ayo snapped back. “Why the hell are you asking me about ‘The Tombstone Trials’? You’re telling me you pulled all of this off with no knowledge about the Trials?”

Tayte shrugged. “I guess I did.”

“Wow.” Ayo coughed once again. There was a brief silence and then he explained with a slow breath, “The Tombstone Trials is a competition. Think of those dumb ones you see on TV, except with magical bullshit mixed in and a lot more death. It was set up by the gods of Death.” Ayo paused.

Tayte eyed back with a blank stare.

“Nothing fazes you, huh?” He continued, “Each Fighter represents a land with a corresponding Relic. Mine is Ethiopia, and yours is, evidently, Japan. With the land you represent, you’re also fighting for the respective god of death and that god will be the one to reward you when you beat all the Trials with all the Fighters of other lands out of the picture. The Champion, or Champions, of the Trials will be granted free roam of the afterlife for a fixed period and a face-to-face meeting with their god of death. The god will follow through with any request they can make possible with their deathly power. These requests can be personal or on a cosmic scale. It really just falls on making a smart wish.”

“I see…” Tayte said. She looked around. “Are you telling me all this just because you know you’re going to die?”

“Sure,” he said lifelessly.

Tayte scanned Ayo’s forlorn figure. “Well, you are definitely going to die.” She turned around on one foot. “Hopefully, it won’t take as long.” Finishing as she walked toward the storm drain.

“Wow, you’re just cold-blooded, aren’t you?” Ayo said, in the middle of a chuckle and a groan.

Tayte made it a few more steps and then halted. Voices of relatives replayed in her head, her mother’s being the loudest of all of them, filling her mind with short lectures and affectionate reprimanding.

Before she knew it, her legs were backtracking their way over to Ayo. She lowered to her knees and gave out a hand.

“What’re you doing?” Ayo said in a feeble voice.

Tayte patted him gently on the back.

“Go away,” he rasped.

Tayte’s gaze unfocused. She dug deep within herself for emotion. As soon as she snapped back to reality, she asked, “Why… do you want to beat the Trials? What’re you going to ask for?”

“Fuck off,” he said with a hard F.

“What do you have to lose? You’re going to die, anyway.” Tayte looked away and withdrew her hand. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I’d just like to… understand.”

“There’s nothing to understand. I’m not going to put on a sob story for you.”

“Are you really going to die with your helmet on?”

Ayo didn’t speak, but Tayte could sense a vexed air coming from him. She studied the helmet and realized that the skull of the animal it was shaped after was a hyena. She touched the top and then dragged her finger across the eye-shaped visor.

Ayo smacked her hand away and turned over onto his back, screaming in pain. “Goddamit, would you just leave already?”

Tayte stayed put. Her hand was on the move again to probe.

Ayo sat up, undid the strap, and removed the helm, stopping Tayte. “There. This is what I am working with.”

A hairless, brown, scornful face was looking back at Tayte. An aged line of stitches was traced from his nonexistent brow and curved across his bald head.

“Happy with what you see, eh?” Ayo said, his voice breaking. “This ain’t no ordinary ugliness. This is the kind of ugly they make documentaries about.”

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“Do self-deprecating jabs make you feel better?” Tayte said, solemn like a therapist.

“The opposite would just be lying to myself and that would make me more miserable.” His dark brown eyes glistened.

Tayte inspected more features of his bruised face and it was blighted with deformities, most of which she suspected weren’t because of the injuries. “So, is that what you’re going to ask for? A new face?”

“No, that doesn’t fit into their criteria.” Ayo plopped his back onto the ground. He made a low howl of pain. He waited for the pain to subside and then focused on the sky as he continued, “And the problem isn’t what I go through now, it’s what I’ve been through in the past. The future is already as bleak as it can be. It’s like I’m in this void where there are only two things: me and this long, wide road. I’m standing in the middle of it and in front there’s a giant hole in the road and behind me it’s shattered; just pieces of debris floating in the empty space. Whenever I try to go around the sinkhole, it increases. The edges become more difficult to tiptoe without falling in. But if I can somehow go back and fix those broken pieces. Then maybe that hole in the road will fix itself. I just want to go back.”

Tayte ruminated for a moment as she passed her hand over the crunched grass. “You want a redo… I remember we had a clien—a deceased’s family that believed strongly in that concept. Reincarnation.”

Ayo coughed and grinned. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. “I want it to be on my terms. I get to decide which family I am born into and the place. All the physical and mental genetic attributes I’ll naturally develop as I grow.

“Now, in this field of work, as a grave-robber. I’ve made plenty of cash and got all the female attention I dreamed about. Got to ride the fanciest bikes and cars. See exotic countries and taste mind-blowing food. Yeah, I can experience all that, but it doesn’t and never will make up for everything I missed out on back then. I’m still broken. How am I supposed to stay happy when the new memories I create aren’t strong enough to replace the old ones? Nobody is really my friend. The people who hang out with me now only do it because I throw money at them or because we’re doing a job together. I never got to experience genuine love or childhood friendships. The ups and downs of being young. Making mistakes and getting into humorous situations like—”

“The ones you see on TV,” Tayte interrupted. She tilted her head to the side. “You keep coming back to that. A big fan, huh?”

“American TV made me realize just how much I missed out on. When I completed my first job, I was 25. I was completely on my own and, well, I had enough to buy my own TV with cable. This time I could follow programs from beginning to end.” He let out a weak laugh. “I binged. But as the years went on and the more jobs I did outside of Ethiopia, watching TV became painful. It’s a basic human right to experience all those things, right? Then how come we all don’t? It’s not fair.”

“Life isn’t fair. It never is and never will be. It’s just life.”

“Alopecia universalis. It prevents hair growth. I want to be born without it. I want to grow up as a cheerful kid this time. No poverty. No shitty school with shitty people. A family that gives a damn. A body that I like. I want to be happy… Not just in the present, but to always have been. Happy enough that when I get sad, I would have a massive collection of good times to pull from my head to cheer me up. That’s what I want.” Ayo let his head fall to the side, facing Tayte. “And now, I’m just going to die.”

“My condolences.” Tayte said dryly.

“You said you’re a ‘mortician apprentice’? You suck at this.”

“I’m going to get better,” Tayte said and the words tasted sour in her mouth.

“So, now that you know about the Trials. What do you want?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anything I want from a god of death to be honest.”

There was a long silence.

“You’re telling me…” Ayo started, “you got yourself involved in this mess, beat me all without knowing what the Trials are, and now you’re saying right in my face that you don’t want anything from it?”

Tayte noticed the pulsating veins crawling up his neck and scalp. He was holding back the urge to rage out.

He raised his clenched fist and called, “Bouda.” A brown glow came from inside his sleeve and the spotted hyena’s paw jumped out; Ayo caught it.

Tayte fell on her back and moved away.

Ayo forced himself up, releasing the internal screams of pain as he stood with a broken leg. He stretched his fractured arm forward with the paw in his hand. “Wit’a!” he called.

A dot blinked out from one of the paw’s spots and transformed into a werehyena.

Tayte rose to a crouch as the werehyena approached her, growling and cackling in its steps.

With newfound vehemence, Ayo said, “I’m not going to let myself be killed by someone like you. You don’t even care about winning! Unbelievable!” Ayo twisted the glowing paw in his hand. “K’ome!” The werehyena gave out a sharp cry and its fur protruded upwards.

It rose and stood on its feet, doubling in size. Its frame became more toned, and the claws extended as its cackle became more demonic.

Ayo moved his head to the side and Tayte looked back at him with a grim expression and then directed the same look up at the beast’s ultimate form.

Her opponent laughed alongside his beastly companion, and then immediately coughed violently. Spewing blood all over the grass.

Tayte glanced over to Ayo. “I don’t think you’re in good enough condition to sustain it.”

“Go ahead, make it split,” he said. “You’ll be dead before I reach my limit.”

Subtly, Tayte glanced at her side. “I’m telling you, you’re not focused—”

“Shut up! You think you’re better than me? Wipe that condescending look off your face and just admit that you’re scared. This thing is going to tear you apart, but leave just enough nerves intact to make sure you feel every single moment of it eating you alive and I am going to watch with a big, fat smile on my fa—”

Bang.

A single bullet flew out of Ayo’s nape. He slowly surveyed the area as blood drizzled and spurted from his throat.

Chris appeared. He was hunched over and blemished, blood oozing from his forehead with his scoped pistol in his hand, treading up to Ayo by the side.

“I told you. You weren’t focused,” Tayte said and moved her eyes back to the motionless werehyena.

Ayo grabbed his spouting throat and wobbled backwards. A choked laughter came from him. His eyes moved wildly in every direction. “I just…” he gurgled. He stumbled around some more until his leg snapped and he dropped. The werehyena withered into nothingness.

Tayte and Chris moved up to Ayo. His arms spread, eyes wide open, and with a beautiful, broken smile on his face.

He was talking, but it was burbled. Tayte and Chris neared to decipher the words and then ashes began to blow into their eyes, forcing them back. They watched the grey ashes emanate from Ayo and into the sky.

Then, he became a husk, like a shell, and it cracked into pieces. More ashes arose until there was nothing left of him.

Tayte and Chris exchanged looks. Analyzing each other’s bruises.

“Thank you,” Tayte said.