[Insert intro music] 'Let's play a game. Where all of the lives we live, can change.'

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I didn't proof read...hehe.

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:DDDDDDDDDDDDD

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            I was free-falling, staring up at a stormy sky that had a gaping black hole at the center of it, where lightning struck and clouds spun around in a vortex. I was wearing a yellow dress, which was oddly untouched by the air around me as I fell. I was calm. I reached my arms outwards towards the clouds as if someone would grasp them, but nobody ever did.

             The drop was endless. I knew I was dreaming. I also knew that I had no control over it.  

            I turned over, spreading my arms out, facing the dark, menacing, and endless seam of ocean water below. I was gaining on it. Feet away, inches... I closed my eyes as I crashed through the freezing cold water, spiraling deeper into the ocean's belly. Like a cyclone, the water spiraled around me, cocooning my body in a tight prison, suspended in-between the surface of the ocean and the bottom.

            Underneath the black surface, the water was a bright, clear blue.

            Something large crashed through the water at an awkward angle, dark red ribbons of blood and bubbles surrounding the massive frame. They were almost immediately wrapped in a cyclone of water, just as I had been before, except this time, the cyclone was black and much larger and frightening, and it was forcing its prey rapidly towards the bottom of the ocean.

            Something bad was going to happen. I reached outwards again, stretching towards the surface of the water, as if someone would grasp my hands and free me from the ocean.

            A muffled scream from the cyclone met my ears. I tore my gaze towards towards the black cyclone, and the prisoner's arms shot out of the cocoon before they reached the bottom of the ocean. They had bulky, muscular arms enveloped with beautiful, yet haunting obsidian colored markings. All at once, the prisoner viciously exited the cyclone, rocketing towards me like a shark, their powerful arms and legs eating up the distance between us. There was shadow that fell over his face, too thick for me to process anything about him except his lean physique, and torn, odd clothing. The cyclone of water seemed to reach for the man's feet as he raced towards me, but he was swimming too inhumanly fast for it to catch up to him.

            The man grabbed onto my hands, bringing us both towards the surface of the water. 

            I was in a park, surrounded by large trees. It was sunny and warm, and I was barefoot. The grass beneath my feet felt like pillows. My eyes roamed over my surroundings until I spotted a familiar swing left in solitude, and wooden fixtures built up into a tree house next to it.

            It was Thomas Gregory's playground he used to have in his backyard when we were kids.

            A butler stood near the playground, hands clasped elegantly in front of himself, with a bored expression on his face. A younger version of my mother, as well as two other women sat on a patio, chatting around tropical drinks.

            "Slow down!" a boy cried.

             A little girl with black hair dressed in a frilly yellow dress and pig tails rushed past me towards the tree house holding stuffed brown bear. She had a mud stain on the front of her dress as well as one on her cheek. A massive smile lit her face as she neared the tree house, running from a boy with blonde hair and blue eyes behind her.

            The blonde boy picked up a rock and threw it at the girl in the yellow dress. She tripped over herself and crashed to the ground.

            "Ow! Tommy!" the girl with the yellow dress shouted. It was then I realized the boy was Thomas Gregory, Marcy's ex boyfriend and our childhood best friend. "That's cheating!" When the girl with the yellow dress glared over her shoulder towards Thomas, I saw that she had my large, sapphire eyes.

            Little Faith.

            "Is not!" Thomas raced past her. "I win! Woo!"

            Little Faith turned over on the ground, staring in horror at her knee. It was split open and gushing blood. But when she squeezed Mr. Wiggles to her chest and shut her eyes, the wound started to knit together until there was nothing left.

            "Faith?" my mom called out, starting to get up from her seat. "Faith, are you alright?"

            Little Faith opened her eyes, looking down at her healed skin, and smiled.  "Yes, Mommy!"

            My mom slowly sunk back into her seat, worry etched in her young features. The other women ushered her back into the conversation.

             "No, we win! I got here first!" a breathy voice shouted from the tree house. A little girl with light brown hair, brown eyes, and pig tails that matched Little Faith's, stuck her head out from a wooden window. Marcy. "Girls rule, boys drool! I'm fastest!"

            "Girls win!" Little Faith jumped up from the ground, cheering. "Now you have to push us both on the swing, Tommy!"

            "You cheated!" Thomas cried, flipping a blonde curl out of his eye.

            Little Faith swung her feet out on the swing, fixated on something in the distance.

            "Prove it, Poop-Head!" Marcy stuck her tongue out at Thomas.

            Furious and red faced, Thomas sprinted towards the tree house. "I'm going to get you!"

            Marcy popped her head back into the tree house. "Ahhhhhh!"

            Still focused on something else, Little Faith hopped off the swing, clipped a little pink leash onto Mr. Wiggles, then skipped away from the playground and towards  a tree forty or so feet away from Thomas and Marcy and the adults. She shimmied between thick shrubbery to get to the tree she was fixated on, making herself invisible to her distracted friends on the playground and the parents.

            "I see you, Mr. Kitty!" Little Faith whispered to the tree, looking up at the branches. Her cheeks were rosy from skipping. She touched the bark with her tiny hand as if she was about to climb up. "What are you doing up there, Mr. Kitty? Come down from there--!"

            A cat dropped to lower branch, its back arched as if it was about to attack. It was black with mismatched green eyes. It narrowed its eyes at Little Faith, swung its tail side to side, then launched itself at a spot right above Little Faith's head.

            REWR!

            The cat landed right on an eyeless, grayish-purple creature that had appeared out of thin air behind the black haired girl. It was about the size of Little Faith, with rotting flesh and yellow fangs. Little Faith jumped back in shock, running with Mr. Wiggles behind a shrub. Her eyes were wide with panic as the cat clawed at the creatures face, biting, howling and hissing, until finally, the ugly thing burst into a pile of fire and ashes.

            The cat fell gracefully to the ground, peed on the ashes, then wiped its paws delicately on the grass.

            Little Faith silently sobbed behind the bush, biting on Mr. Wiggle's ear. She was afraid to move or speak. "Mr. Kitty?" she whispered, voice trembling.

            The cat stalked around the black haired girl, black head lowered as if it didn't quite trust her, then it cautiously sniffed her. After a few moments, the animal began to weave between her legs, purring loudly and affectionately. The wind kicked up, dispersing the ashes of the demon on the ground until there was none left, and slowly, Little Faith's horrified look towards the cat relaxed into something more serene.

             It was clear Little Faith no longer remembered the cat attacking the demon.

            The animal turned over its shoulder, mix-matched eyes tearing into mine.

            The scene changed.

            I was now standing in my bedroom but it was quite different than it currently was. My eighteen year old bed was switched with a much tinier one, with a hot pink canopy draped over it. My giant wooden desk was replaced with a toy kitchen and a Barbie Dream House. Tons of stuffed animals of different shapes and sizes laid over the pillows. And everything around the room was miniature and decked out with flowers, sparkles, and pink. Lots, and lots, and...well, lots of pink.

            "No, Mr. Wiggles, that is not how you drink tea," a small voice whispered, drawing my gaze. My eyes fell to a smaller version of me in the corner of the room, wearing a princess crown and a pink tutu. She sat at a small table with Mr. Wiggles across from her and a small stuffed black cat to her right who's head barely topped of the surface of the table.

            The girl's long black hair was over her shoulder in a neat French braid, which was tied together with ribbons and twenty-too-many rainbow clips that she had clearly put in herself.

            Little Faith picked up a cup, putting her pinky up "This is how you drink tea." She sipped, making a loud "ah" sound. "See? That's how you drink tea. Just like a prince. You try." She set her cup down, watching the bear in silence. "Good. Mr. Kitty, now it's your turn. Drink your tea."

            The stuffed black cat fell over onto the floor, making a computerized "Meow-meow" sound.

            A soft breeze kicked up in the room, swaying the thin material of the canopy over the bed. Startled, Little Faith whipped her head towards the corner of the room, where a menacingly tall shadow now stood.

            Little Faith lunged for Mr. Wiggles over the table, hugging the bear to her chest, fear pooling in her eyes.

            Seconds stretched into minutes.

            "You're scary looking," Little Faith finally said, voice diminutive against the silence. "Are you going to eat me?"

            "I don't eat tutu's," the shadow gibed, then stepped away from the corner. The Angel of Death seemed to shrink everything around him with his massive frame the further he walked into the room, head bent dauntingly forward to avoid hitting the ceiling, combat boots heavy and creaking the floor boards. Something beneath his cloak rattled, maybe a few weapons. "Isn't it past your bedtime?"

            "M-my mommy says not to talk to strangers." Little Faith's chest began to rise and fall faster and faster the closer the man got to her. "She'll hitt-ed you with a baseball bat."

            The shadow snickered lowly. "Mommy is sleeping." His voice was rich and mellifluous as he spoke to the child. "I want to have a little chat with you about something you did the other day. Remember when you cut yourself on the playground?"

            "Yes," the girl said softly. "Am I in trouble? Are you the po-wice?"

            "Not yet," Death murmured under his breath, then more loudly, "No, you're not in trouble. But you can't do that ever again, understand? It's a bad thing, what you did. Very bad."

            "But I had a cut..." She pointed to her knee. "It hurt-ed..."

            "You're not allowed to do that ever again," Death commanded, voice shifting into something much more cold. "If you heal yourself again, then you'll be in big trouble."

            "Will I be in a time out?"

            "No."

            "Then what will happen?"

            "You'll...attract things..." Death searched for a way to put it. "Bees."

            Little Faith looked horrified. "Bees?"

            "Yes. Bees. Lots of bees. And I'm not talking, Honey Nut Cheerios, bees. I'm talking, mean bees. And I'm the one who has to swat them away."

            "Will they have stingers?" Little Faith whispered into Mr. Wiggles. "Big stingers?"

            Death mocked her terrified voice. "Yes."

            "Wait, are you a pedo-feel-ile?" Little Faith slowly got up from her chair, gripping her magic wand in one hand, and Mr. Wiggles in the other, guardedly watching the giant man. She eyed the bedroom door a few times, evidently planning an escape. "I don't trust pedo-feel-ile's. I'm not supposed to talk to them. Daddy says to hit pedo-feel-ile's in the dodge balls."

             "You mean, pedophile."

            "That's what I said."

            "Right." Death snorted. "I just want to chat. A harmless chat. I'm not a pedophile. I just want to chat."

            "You're big. What do you eat that makes you so big?" Little Faith randomly inquired, gawking in awe at the cloaked man with the black hole for a face. "And you have sharp teeth. Were you born like that?"

            She could see his face.

            How?

            "Souls," Death blurted before he could stop himself. Then he started to backtrack. "I mean--smores. Not souls. Smores. I don't eat souls! I eat, uh..."

            "Souls?" she squeaked. "Like, people? You eat people? My daddy watches zombie movies." She was rambling like little kids do. "I saw some of it one time when he thought-ed I was asleep. The zombie bit someone's head off. There was blood, but Mommy said it was ketchup. It was scary. Are you a zombie?"

            "No," Death deadpanned. "This is going downhill real fast, isn't it?"

            "Are you a zombie?"

            "You literally just asked me that..."

             "I think he's a zombie," Little Faith whispered to Mr. Wiggles. "He kind of looks like one..."

            "Just for that, I'm going to eat you."

            The girl opened her little mouth, letting out a scream so high pitched that Death covered his ears.

            "ZOMBIE! STRANGER!" She dashed across the room, tutu bouncing up and down. "STRANGER!"

            "Geez, you're fast!" Death disappeared and reappeared in her pathway. "I'm not a zombie or a stranger, and I won't eat you," he explained in an annoyed tone. "We've met before, you just don't remember."

             "Hi-ya!" The girl brought back her wand and smacked him hard in the knee.

            "You little fu--!" Death caught himself before he let out the F bomb, gloved hands tightening into fists. "Damnit, that hurt! I mean, dang it! What the hell is that thing made out of? Lead?"

            Little Faith's sapphire eyes went wide. "Bad word!" she gasped, pointing up at the cloaked monster. "You said a bad word!"

            "So?" He growled. "I'm allowed to say bad words. Trust me, nobody will notice."

            "I noticed! I'm telling!"

            "Listen here, you little shit. Stop yelling with that stupid high pitched voice!" He squatted down at her level, gripping her by the arms. "Look at  me," he demanded."  She had been trying to pull away and scream for help but then she locked onto something underneath his hood and went dead silent, sapphire eyes wide and innocent. "I call the shots around here. I'm the gown up, and the evil one, and here's how this is going to go. You are not going to heal yourself or anything else again. Understand--?"

            "Potty mouth," Little Faith interjected. "Your mouth is a toilet."

            "Excuse me?" Death lost it. "You're a Devil Child!" he shot back.

            "Onion-Toed, Black-Blobbed, Tricycle Rider!"

            "Shrimp!"

            "Boob!"

            Death inhaled sharply. "That was just uncalled for."

            She freed one of her chubby arms and whacked him with her wand again. "Get out of my room, poop-head! I'm telling Mommy about you!"

            "Go right ahead, go cry to Mommy! See if I care! Do you really think I want to do this right now, kid? I could toss you like a baseball across the world. Do you have any concept of what that trip would be like? It wouldn't be pleasant." Death stood up and swung back the lapels of his cloak, revealing a tight shirt, tight black leather pants, and a silver studded belt. "The last thing I want to do at ten at night, is stand here, and be disrespected by a little twerp who doesn't even have any front teeth!"

            "You smell like bologna!"

            "Do not!" he growled. "It's Armani. Smells better than that ratty old bear in your hands!"

            "Don't talk to him like that!" Little Faith hugged Mr. Wiggles tightly to her chest. "You dumb blanket!"

            "It's a cloak!" He brought his sleeve closer to her face. "It's clearly a cloak!"

            Little Faith pulled at the material of his cloak. "It's a blanket."

            Death swatted her hands away. "Hands off, I just got this dry cleaned," he growled under his breath. He plucked an imaginary piece of dust off of his shoulder, then entered the conversation again. "It's a cloak."

            "Blanket."

            He inhaled slowly, as if he was having great difficulty controlling his anger. "Do you have any idea who I am? Aren't you, like, Catholic? I'm pretty famous in the Bible. At least, I think I am. I've made a name for myself, you know. I'm all over the Urban Dictionary!"

            Little Faith stared up at Death, soundless for a few moments. "You're very big and scary, but I like you." Then she smiled, flashing her nearly toothless smile. "Do you like tea parties?"

            "You like me? A tea party? When the hell did you start liking me? Did I miss something?" He sounded so repulsed. "Devi's horns, this kid really is something else," he muttered under his breath.

            "Can I touch your teeth? Are they plastic? They look sharp..."

            "What? No, they aren't plastic, and no, you can't touch me!" Death barked out a cruel laugh. "See, this is just another reason why I hate kids. You never answer any questions directly, and you're rude as hell. You know, maybe that hurt my feelings. Maybe I'm sensitive above my teeth. Maybe I'm scarred for life because of that. See, there's irony in what I just said, but you wouldn't get it, because you're like, what? One year's old?"

            "I'm six and a half," she corrected snootily.

            "Wow. Big difference." Death pointed down at Mr. Wiggles. "I can't believe you still have that ratty thing."

            Little Faith cradled the bear. "He's my husband. He's ma...t-ur." She tried to form the word again with her mouth. "Mature."

            "Oh?" Death crossed his arms over his chest, and oddly enough, his voice softened a little. "I wouldn't tell your dad about your "ma-t-ur husband" Mr. Wiggles."

            Little Faith giggled, playing with the ruffles of her tutu, unexpectedly nervous. "Do you want to play house?"

            Death seemed to look down at the girl for the longest time, as if contemplating something. His next words were callous and spiteful. "Listen, sweetheart, I'm the freaking Angel of Death. As in, I kill people. There's nothing funny about that, or--or housewife about that! No, I do not want to play with pretend food with you that you've probably licked, farted on, and spat on thousands of times!"

            Her large blue eyes looked up at him, filling with tears. "But--but I like you," she stuttered. "Do you not like me?"

            "What are you doing? Are you...crying?" Death awkwardly shifted his weight. "Listen...I stick to my decisions. So don't even try to manipulate me."

            She puckered out her lip, a single tear falling down her rosy cheek.

            "I know what you're doing, and I'm neither looking nor falling for it," Death hissed, clearly growing more and more agitated. He turned away from Little Faith, facing the wall. "I've seen your kind do this before. Oh, the waterworks. Oh, look how sad I am. Oh, spare me. I'm not falling for your theatrics. Nope. Not happening. Do you think I'm falling for this act? I'm not. I see this kind of stuff every day. You can't phase me..."

            "I just wanted to be friends, Blanky," she sniffed.

            "Blanky? You--no! No, no, no, no, and no. I'm not falling for it, princess."

            Death finally turned around, looking down at the girl.

            They stared at each other.

            She sniffed.

            "Fine," Death snarled, "I'll play with you."

            I hovered between consciousness and sleep, vaguely aware of the way I was cradled against a warm, masculine chest. Masculine? Wait a minute... As my eyes curiously fluttered open, I felt like a hammer had begun smashing into my eyelids and my nose over and over again.

            I had been dreaming.

            No, something...else.

            A single light flickered on in the room without anything touching it. I was now comforted by the familiarity of my bedroom.

            I was wearing fresh pajamas and my skin was slightly wet.

            A shadow shifted in the room.

            "I'm just going to cut to the chase," Death said, placing me down on my bed. He had been carrying me. His velvety voice brought chills down my spine, and I was reminded of the vivid dream I had had moments before. "Yes, I saw you naked and changed your clothes. Would you have rather been covered in blood laying on your bed? Exactly. So don't complain."

            "I had a dream..." I muttered.

            "Alright, MLK. Don't expect me to tuck you in or any of that shit. I don't do 'tucking in.'" He threw a blanket messily over my legs. "There. That's my good deed for the century."

            Suddenly, a wave of dread caught up to me, and I grabbed onto Death's hard shoulder before he could pull away. His body tensed under my touch. "You saved me from that demon," I whispered, heart pounding wildly in my chest. "Malphas. You saved me from me. He was going to kill me--"

            "First of all, do not touch me." His tone was cruel and icy. The Grim Reaper pulled away from my touch, taking a few steps away from the bed. "Second of all, not saved. I don't save. I was making sure what was mine, stayed mine. Saved, would imply that you're safe now, and that I'm the hero."      

            "How are you not the hero?"

            "For starters, I punched you in the face. A hero wouldn't have punched you in the face. Then there's the only thing about me--oh, I don't know, being completely and utterly evil?"

            I brought my hand to my nose. "You punched me?"

            He shrugged. "I went easy on you." Death hovered around the room, intrigued, touching things with his gloves and putting them down. He had an enormous presence in my bedroom, shrinking everything else around his large, cloaked frame. "I gave you my blood to heal you, and you had a strange reaction to it. You were being annoyingly manic, uncaring." He turned his head slightly towards me. "How do you feel right now, BTW?"

            "Like I'm hung over."

            "You've been hung over before?"

            I bit my lip. "No..."

            He snorted. "Figures." Death picked up one of my perfumes, analyzing it. "Do you remember inviting me into the house? By the way, this room is much more tolerable than it used to be. Less...pink."

            I blinked slowly. "I let you into the house?"

            "Yep. Didn't even have to force you." He set the perfume down, clasping his hands behind his back, tilting his head to the side at a canvas painting I had forgotten to stack in the corner of the room. Dang it. He picked up the canvas. "Oh, hello," he said to the mix-matched green eyes. "You two are uncomfortably familiar. I think I'm going to put this down now and leave before this gets any more awkward..."

            "Wait."

            "Nope."

            "I didn't even ask you the question yet."

            "Is it about Malphas?"

            "No."

            "Then let's hear it." Death leaned against my dresser, sighing loudly and uninterestedly. He opened a drawer and felt the padding of one of my bras. "Nice." He looked up from the bra. "Fair warning, I don't like to answer questions without something in return...."

            "Can you really not come into my home unless I ask you to?"

            "Unless I have permission, I can't enter your home. I also was forced to answer that. Isn't that just great?" Death sounded aggravated, as if admitting one of his weaknesses rendered him powerless. "It's an evil thing. God likes us to be polite on certain occasions, I guess."

            "Oh." I lifted my head up from the pillow, but my head felt forty pounds heavier than  normal and I feebly let it fall back down. "I seriously feel like death. If this is what being hung over is like, I'm never going to drink alcohol again."

            "You feel like death? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" He sprayed one of my perfumes in the air, sniffed, then recoiled, coughing and waving the scent away from him. "Don't ever wear that. Ever."

            Before I could react, he opened my bedroom window and tossed the perfume outside. I was too tired to stop him from touching my bras or my perfumes.

             "You must be really sick, if you're letting me play with everything in your room like this," Death began, once he shut the window tight. "You're withdrawing from my Fallen blood." He walked over to my dresser and sprayed another perfume, then made a noise of satisfaction. "Is that, strawberry?" He read the label. "Strawberry Frosted Cupcake. Look at that. There's a lot of irony in that, you know..."

            "How? My aunt got me that one."

            "Never mind. Just wear it, I like it." He placed the bottle down with finality. "The withdrawal should wear off soon. It's only been a few hours. BTW, I kept my hands in all of the appropriate places, and in case you were wondering, that proved to be very difficult."

            My face flushed. "Um, thanks?"

            "Yep," he replied, popping the 'P'. Death opened my underwear drawer, hovered his hands over the contents, and whistled softly. "Jackpot!"

            "What are you doing?" I demanded.

            "Stealing your panties," he mumbled, snickering evilly. He was back to his playful self, and I definitely favored this side of him over the gloomy side I remembered in the storehouse.  "See, I have this nasty habit. Call me damned, cruel, and evil, but when I  do something nice for someone, I ask--no, I expect --twice as much in return. So this is just part of the exchange. Your panties, for sucking disgusting demon venom out of you." He turned and tossed one of my thongs across the room, sling-shot style, then stuffed a handful of thongs into the lapels of his cloak, patting the spot with his gloved hand. "Nice and safe in there. I'll save those for later..."

            I tightened my lips together, restraining a string of sassy comebacks and remarks. I wouldn't get any of my questions asked if I was sarcastic. "That dream I just had..." I started.

            "Here we go." Death brought his head back, groaning dramatically "What about it?"

            "Did that...?"

            "Yes indeedy," he replied, baritone voice pleasantly flooding my ears. "Most of that dream was from your memories. The memories that I took away from you."

            "Why did you take them away from me?"

            "You were assigned a Guardian Angel about a year after I spared your life." He explained this all in a very bored tone. There it was again. The avoidance of the "save" word. "You knew too much about me, and if your Guardian Angel had found out about anything you knew, he would have used it against me. You can't trust anyone these days. Gaurdians will do anything to have my ass destroyed." He waved a hand in the air. "They really should just get in line behind the other millions and millions of people that want me gone."

            "You mean John would have used the information against you?" Could I have trusted the side my Guardian Angel was on, or was Death the one that I had to trust? My throat tightened, as I remembered the blonde, gentle man at Thomas Gregory's party. "Did you really kill him?"

            Death stilled, like a perfectly built statue. "I don't have to answer that," he said vacantly. "You knew too much about me as a child, so I took your memories away, and that's all I have to say about that."

            "But if I'm remembering those memories now, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of you taking them away in the first place?"

            "Of course not." Death whirled around. I could sense him grinning. And that was terrifying. "Because you don't have a Guardian Angel now. So it doesn't matter if you're remembering everything, you have nobody left to tell but me." Suddenly, he pushed off from the dresser, coming towards my bed. "Speaking of me. Me, want some of you."

            "What? No!" As achy as I was, I managed to get up off the bed away from him. But I was too dizzy to get away a second time when he moved around my bed in a blur, pinning my arms up over my head and against the wall.

            "Actually," Death began throatily, fingers biting into my arms. "Now that I'm thinking about it, I hope you remember every single memory I took away from you." He leaned into me, hips pressed against mine, hooded face hovering invading my vision. "I hope you get it in your little mind that I'm going to treat you like I treated you when you were a child. When you were all cute and couldn't say words correctly, and weren't as much of a irritation."

             He let go of my arms but blocked me from moving.

            I was too aware of the heat of his body.  

         "That way," Death continued, sliding a finger down my cheek. Leather against skin, "when you sign my contract in your blood, you get one hell of a wakeup call."

            He giggled.

            Giggled.

            It gave me violent chills.

            "You're bipolar." I tried to look up at the ceiling. The floor. His chest. Anything but the empty spot where a face should have been beneath his hood.

            "Oh, I'm bipolar?" Death brushed his lips against my cheek, then kissed the hollow part of my throat. I groaned involuntarily. "We both know I'm not bipolar, Faith. I'm just crazy."

              His hand clamped down on me like on curling iron pressed against the back of my leg. Whenever I tried to push him away, a part of me withdrew and sought his scolding touch.

            "Actually, more like psychotic," he whispered at my neck, slowly licking my throbbing pulse. "I'd have to be by  now because of what I do, wouldn't I? But you like that about me. You like that I'm a psycho. Does it turn you on, baby? My little Catholic sl*t?"

             That made me grind my teeth together. "I want you to go away," I said firmly.

            "You don't really want me to go away," he got out raucously, gripping my jaw with black leather, tilting my head up towards him. "You want me to stay." Then he mocked in a high pitched, cheering voice, "Stay, Death! Staaayy! Make me do sinful things!"

            "Death," I warned.

            "Yes," he panted purposely, coarsely, suggestively. "Yes." Now his face was even closer, consuming, invading my space, and his hand was dangerously close to an area a man's hand had never been before. He snickered at my ear, moving his hand to a safer zone. "My, my, am I making you uncomfortable? You're all flustered."

            My body pressed against his touch.

            This was another game.

            A game of control. Of power.

            I fought his control. I fought it with all of my might. "There's nothing to look at but a black hole and a cloak. It's all part of the curse, and now I'm starting to understand why." My words were somehow steady. "I'd rather see a black, empty hole where eyes, a nose, and a mouth should be, than that heartless smirk I know you always wear on your face, and that livid, hateful look in your eyes that I paint almost every day on that stupid canvas! You're haunting me! It's a blessing that I can't see the rest of whatever monster is underneath that--!"

            He kissed me.

            His scent was overwhelmingly toxic. Leather and cloves. Cologne. He had stubble. That was shocking, since I had expected the Grim Reaper was too obsessed with sharp objects not to shave. I was very wrong. He had stubble too, and it was rough and scrapped slightly against my soft skin in a way that was more than satisfying. I had never imagined kissing a man with stubble. He had two piercings on his lips--one of many, from what I was gathering of from his bad attitude, and it rubbed against me; clung to my lip like dry ice against flesh.

            I was more than aware of his lips. Soft and full, but never gentle against mine as he roughly captured my first kiss. My first kiss? No...

             Death parted his mouth, deepening the kiss, and pain danced over the scar on my stomach. I went to pull away, but he slipped a strong hand underneath the back of my shirt, leather gripping the flesh of my back, pulling me even closer to him. Our bodies molded together. He lifted me up. My legs were wrapped around his waist, chest against chest, hip against hip. I gave into him again, his tongue skillfully meeting mine.

            Something exchanged between us. It transferred from his mouth to mine, spreading through me like an epidemic, affecting every part of me, weighing down my limbs to the point that if Death had let go of me at that very moment, I would have slumped against the wall and fallen to the floor. A great loss. No, many losses; fatality taking another. And another. And another. It was endless. Stronger than empathy. I was him. I felt his pain. Crushing. Crushing. Crushing. Darkness. Endless... darkness. Everything in my body felt like it was being compacted together.

            Was this how Death felt all the time?

            Images flashed in front of me. I was seeing them from another's eyes. There was a man. He was at my feet, laying on his side, convulsing. His hair was longish and brown and soaked with sweat and blood. He wore some sort of ancient armor, and a sword was buried deep in the center of his chest.

            "FINISH HIM!" a rough voice laughed.

            I looked down at my hands. They were a man's and were covered in blood. This was it. I had to kill this man. Then, it would all be over. This was it... The man on the ground started to turn over--

            Death pulled sharply away from my mouth, breathing raggedly. His hand wrapped around my throat like a vise. "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" he barked, shaking me. He squeezed my throat even tighter. "GET OUT!"

             GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

            A phantom hand reached into my chest and was squeezing my heart, as someone wrings out a towel or a sponge. My lungs felt a great weight press against them. A sob lodged in my throat, but I didn't choke or cry out. I wanted to delve further, feel more. I stopped breathing for a moment, and I could have sworn my heart shut off altogether. But then my eyes welled up with tears. The sensations left me all at once.

            I inhaled sharply, slumping against the wall.

            Death was gone.

* * *

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*shimmies away  into thick fog*

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