1 [things are getting more organized! yaay!]

Nobody likes endings. But what they don't realize is the end is only the beginning of something else. And the beginning of what I'm about to tell you starts with an ending.

The pain didn’t bother him. He looked down and struggled to get his eyes to focus, but they wouldn’t listen to him. They just kept flitting around, blurred. He tried blinking, but they wouldn’t close.  He was losing control over them.  Finally, on their own, they sharpened on what could only be his own blood surging out of his gut. But it was a muted pain.  He watched, captivated by his own blood, until his eyes lost focus again.

His vision was all over the place. The colors were weird. They were too bright. Things he never noticed before came into focus. The molding around the ceiling really was beautiful. Someone must have worked really hard carving it. He wondered who the craftsman was. It was odd that he never noticed it before. He tried focusing on the people in the room, but the molding kept grabbing his attention. Then the window. There was a fly on the window and it was annoying him. His eyes focused on it so well that he could see the veins in its wings. He watched it rub its hands together as he bled to death.  He chuckled at the thought but instead it came out as a horrible dying noise and caused stuff to splatter out of him.  He could barely feel anything. It almost felt like it was happening to someone else. It was like he was two people, each feeling different effects of the damage.

The shriek behind him told him that it was scaring other people. He choked back his chuckle, wishing the conniving fly wasn’t suddenly so funny.

Red tinted his vision. There was a loud ringing in the room that he was sure no one else could hear.  It was drowning out the sound of Rosellin’s screams. That’s right…. Rosellin was behind him. He backed up against her, pushing her against the wall. He didn’t want any sharp objects coming at her.

His ears felt heavy from the inside. They weren’t working very well. Her screams sounded odd, twisted, like they were coming from something that was being whipped around at a high speed.

Apparently he lost his footing because now Rosellin’s arms were around him from the behind, holding him up. She wouldn’t stop babbling at him. But it was just white noise now. What really bothered him was the fact that his head felt like it was floating. The world was fluttering around him. To him everything was happening at light speed but it also felt like time was lagging along- his body and his soul experiencing the same thing in different ways.

His killer drew back again. He watched, absorbed, as the sword, his sword, plunged forward towards his chest.  He thought of Rosellin, behind him, and held out his hands to stop it. He couldn’t let it go through him- because it would hurt her.

The sword planted itself in his chest, just missing his heart, not quite impaling him.  Then it was yanked out. He didn't notice.

As abruptly as it had started, it stopped. He blinked. His chest stopped bleeding. The world froze. The red cooled down to black. He turned around to check on Rosellin.

But she wasn't there.

Instead a woman was standing in her place who he had never seen before, although she looked somewhat familiar.  She wore all black, and a white mask.  She was watching something closely. When it was all over she acknowledged him.

"Hello, Shade." she said.

"Hello?" he responded. "Who are you?"

She didn't answer but walked forward, kneeling down over his body. He watched her.

After examining the body for a moment she looked up at him.  "You're dead." she said. "You need to leave. Right now. If you don't, something terrible will happen."

"Something terrible?" he said, trying to comprehend the situation. "But hasn't something terrible already happened?"

"Dying isn't terrible." she responded. "There are things much worse than this."

He paused, thinking. Then he said "Like what?"

The grey eyes behind the mask met his. "You don't want to find out."

Shade aimlessly wandered the outskirts of the city, climbing a hill just for the heck of it.

Who was that girl? Was that Death? Why didn't she tell him where to go or what to do? Wasn't that Deaths job? 

He sat down, not out of physical exhaustion, but to let his thoughts catch up with him. And they did, all at once. Toorima... His best friend….. killed him. Why?! He watched the sun set, the summer wind blowing through him. He frowned when he couldn’t feel it or smell the grass in the air.

 He was supposed to be married tomorrow. For a second, he had really thought he would have been married. He shook his head. He had never seen himself getting married.  Although he loved Rosellin, he always had this nagging doubt that it wasn’t going to happen. But despite his doubts… for a short amount of time he believed that it would.

The city was beginning to glitter, all the torches and lights turning on for the night. 

His future was gone. All the things he pictured them doing. Getting old together, playing with grandchildren. Small things. Companionship. Holding each other hand. Taking care of each other when they were sick. How pretty she would have looked in her wedding dress. But he had always known it wasn't going to happen. It had all been just wishful thinking. 

He watched a blimp glide by and lower its altitude. Despair choked him. Why did Toori do this? How was it even possible for her to do this?! None of it made any sense!

Shade had never been a fan of change, or the unknown, and this was the biggest change he would ever face. He would have to adjust somehow. 

Didn't dead people go somewhere? What was he supposed to do now?

Was Rosellin still alive? Did Toori kill her too? If so, would he find her wandering the city, like he was?

Asphodel frowned at the injured, bleeding body of the boy. "Are you sure that injuring him was the best idea? He might die as soon as we pair them."

"He'll be fine." Replied Carmine. "He just won't be able to move for a while. Did you take care of the boy?"

"Yes." Asphodel responded, looking back down at the prone shape.

Slowly his breathing returned to normal and his eyes opened. For a split second they were black, like Thanatos's, until he blinked and they returned to green. He stared straight ahead, confusion flitting across his face. Carmine leaned over. "Hello, Thanatos." He focused on her.

"Who-" he started, and then made a noise of pain. A moment later he tried to choke out: "How-"

"You'll remember me soon enough, old friend." Carmine replied. She glanced at Asphodel. "Asphodel, take care of him." She nodded.

Thanatos turned his head, studying Asphodels face. She met his eyes for a second and then grimaced, pulling her mask down and followed Carmine out of the room. She returned a short time later with herbs and a basin of water.

She knelt down next to Thanatos, smashing the herbs down into a sticky paste. "That mask-" Thanatos said "do you know what that is?" 

"Yes." She responded as she worked. 

He watched her more closely, trying hard to read the situation. Her body language indicated that she was clearly, very unhappy. "You shouldn't be wearing it." He continued. She didn't respond. He lapsed into silence. 

There was something familiar about this girl. 

He flinched when she began cleaning the wound, feeling sick, and close to passing out. "Sorry-" she said instinctively. She continued working on him. The wound was a bad one. If it did manage to heal on its own, it wouldn't heal properly. She straightened up. "This is a bad injury." She announced. "If we're lucky, you won't survive." There was a hint of smugness in her voice. 

He said nothing, but smiled. The fact that he was suddenly trapped inside of a mortal body was a very bad thing. Who were these people? And how did they manage to do this?

He watched with tunneling vision as Asphodel rinsed the bloody rag in the water basin. As she reached down to clean the injury again, he grabbed her wrist, feeling for a pulse. There was none. Startled, she yanked her hand back. "I knew it…." He said, before he lost consciousness.