She is Death

The sun burns. I can feel it stinging my neck, feel it searing my scalp through my hair. Sweat is pouring from me but she looks effortlessly cool, as cold as ice, unfazed and unaffected by the heat. She's wearing a heavy, knitted green jumper and the faded baggy jeans she favours so much but no sign of perspiration shows on her pale skin - she's the perfect embodiment of the nineties grunge era but with the face of an old movie star; a bright blonde Audrey Hepburn in Converse. My perfect girl.

I should have realised it was all wrong.

"But - but you're just a teenager." I breathe, shaking my head. "You're just a girl in my class."

She throws back her glossy head, a laugh rippling through the hot summer air. It's unsettling and my skin wriggles over my bones, tingles down my spine and curls my toes inside my shoes. There is something off about this laugh, something unnatural - it doesn't seem to sit well with her, falls a little too uneasily from her tongue and trips past her teeth.

"No, this is just the shape I've assumed because it makes you most comfortable. If you happened to be at ease around a little old women who smells of freshly baked cookies and wears a purple cosy cardigan, that's what I would have become. It probably would have been a lot harder to befriend you in that form though..." she explains with a casual shrug, her tone pleasant and light. It isn't the voice you would expect to hear, if you know what she is.

"Show me," I demand, stepping closer and catching her odd scent of the outside - roses and dirt, like a garden. Or a grave.

"If you saw me in my natural state, you would run. You'd cry and beg for mercy, you'd pray that I wouldn't be the last thing you ever saw." she says flatly, turning her head away from me slightly.

I squint my eyes at her and peel the damp shirt away from my back. It flaps disgustingly back into place though, providing a temporary coolness before quickly warming from my body again, and clings like a second skin.

"So you're really Death?" I have to clarify, to make sure I have this right - to know I'm not losing my mind.

"Yes."

"All those people you've killed." I say, meeting her gaze with loathing.

It's hard to keep the bitterness from my voice. I've been lied to all these months. I thought she was just a girl at school - just the girl at school - and it's difficult to understand that she's this terrible thing, the cause of so much misery. She's as old as the world itself and I have a crush on her.

"No! I am not responsible for murder. It's your kind that decide the way someone is going to die, you're the ones who take life into your own hands when you have no right to."

She breaks off and stares at a little kid playing on the swing set, something close to longing on her face. I wonder if she was ever young, if she was born like the rest of us or if she just popped into existence one day when she was needed. Who created her?

"I can be sympathetic to those who don't deserve it - can you say the same? I take away the pain. Don't call me a monster. I don't create cancer, or tumours, or floods, earthquakes or hurricanes. I don't control those things - I just do my job when they've done theirs. It's the natural balance and someone has to keep it that way. Life and Death."

"Life? Is there a being - an entity thing that brings life?"

She puckers her lips and I get a strong feeling that she's resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

"Yes, we cross paths occasionally. He's charming, if you go in for optimism; his idea of it is excessively warped though. I suppose you're going to moon over him now, aren't you? He's the giver of life so he's immediately the best of us?" she asks tartly, hoisting herself onto the crumbling brick wall nearby.

"I never said that."

She huffs at my statement and brings her legs up to her chest, peering at me over her knees with a sardonic grin. I change the direction of conversation; partly because I don't want to infuriate Death but mostly because I worry that if I stop to think, I might have a mental breakdown.

"So are you alone - I mean, uh - is it just you?"

She smiles a little. "No. There are more - you do know how many people die, don't you? Not to mention all the creatures. There's no way I could take care of all of them. I never see much of the others though, we only gather when there's a big job - the Black Plague, for instance."

I nod, like it makes sense when actually, the thing that is most playing on my mind is how none of this makes any sense whatsoever. It shouldn't be real, I can't be having a casual talk with Death.

"You must be very busy. I can't believe you spend so much time talking to me when you have all those people to go to." I state, rubbing the sweat out of my eyes.

"Mm-hmm."

Then something clicks. I slowly lower my hand from my face and look at her with mounting fear. She stares back unashamedly and unapologetic because she has to know what I am going to say to her next.

"If you're Death, then why are you hanging around with me all the time?" I don't want to know the answer but I have to ask.

"I usually get this sense - kind of an alarm when someone is approaching the end of their time. It could be weeks, maybe even months before the inevitable. I normally lay low until the last several days so the person familiarizes themselves with me, so they won't be scared when it happens. They'll have a friendly face nearby, even when they think they're going to die alone."

Bile rises in my throat and I feel the burn of it, taste the bitterness at the back of my mouth. I remember when I first met her, five months ago, when she looked so startled that I had bumped into her outside school.

"You have to know," she goes on quickly. "My relationships with any human has never gone beyond brief curiosity. You were different, you took me by surprise. I've never spent so much time with one of your kind."

"Is that meant to make me feel better about dying?"

It feels strange as my lips shape the words, such a blunt way of confirming my own death.

"I - yes, I thought maybe..." she says, flustered. There's a sheen in her pewter eyes, something I've not seen there before. When she finally speaks again, her voice is tight but controlled. "I thought it would help, to know that Death is your friend. You should never be afraid of me."

Suddenly, my annoyance at the heatwave has dissipated. It seems almost silly to concern myself over such trifle things. My eyes smart and I blink away a few tears desperately, hoping to pass them off as sweat. I take a few moments before I say anything, wanting my voice to be as level as possible when I next address her.

"When will it happen?"

A brief pause, as short as a heartbeat.

"I don't know, I'm so sorry. I'm just doing my job."

A scuffle of rubble scattering as she jumps off the wall. Out of nowhere, her hand is held out in my eye-line, palm up, level with my chest. I catch a glimpse of the chipped red nail varnish on the edges of her fingertips and look up at her, into those metallic eyes, my face wide open. Every emotion I feel is acute and I want her to feel as I do.

"Trust me, please. I'll look after you when it happens."

I exhale, dragging it out, then take hold of her outstretched hand. I don't know why I'm surprised that it's as solid and warm as my own.

"I believe you."

It's impossible, this beautiful girl and me. Who would have thought that there was a bigger picture than just the two of us? That she was destined to take me away from the world? That she's existed for so, so long and I can't believe that I never saw it before - all those years behind her eyes and in her expressions and not once did I catch on. I feel stupid.

To those who see us, we're just a sad boy and a pitying girl holding hands in the middle of the park.