Dancing With Death
A human hits a hard time and pays the price, but could it be a blessing in disguise?
Dancing With Death
By: Fiad Dinenanu
A group of vultures circled in the clear blue sky, not a cloud visible in any direction. Only the slowly rotating birds broke the monotony. This is what he sees as he lays here in the desert. God knows how far from any city. Any person at all even. He was as good as dead. Now that I think about it, this is probably a bit confusing for all of you. Let me start over.
This boy's name is Jack, an average boy of twenty years. Nothing special, shit job flipping burgers, shit apartment downtown, shit car, shit life. Then he met her, the most beautiful girl he had ever laid eyes on. Long blonde hair, tan skin, an amazing pair of legs. And god she had the biggest chest he had ever seen. But she would never be interested in a guy like him. Guess she ended up being more trouble than she was worth. But instead of cutting his losses, he decided to try and fake his way into her heart. Because you know, that always works. He took out a loan from a pretty shady group. Quite a large amount of money. Jack knew he would never be able to pay it off even if he worked every waking moment the rest of his life, but Jack's lust stricken mind didn't care, he had to have her. Using the money Jack rented a penthouse, bought a sports car and a flashy suit. Now here is the funny part. It worked. She was apparently quite into rich guys. Ha, great for him right? The next few months went wonderfully. Jack was living the life. Not aware that some goons were always watching him. He couldn't care any less about repaying the loan. Hell, he had half forgotten he had even taken a loan and hadn't just inherited some large sum of money from a rich dead uncle. But just like all things in life, it caught up with him.
Jack was on a date with the lovely lady, walking through a park as the sun set after a quite expensive dinner, when three guys dressed in black ambushed them. One of them held his date back as the other two approached Jack. The goons were big men, towering over his slightly below six foot frame. Jack was never athletic, was never a fighter. Jack was far from unfit, but he had nothing on these guys. Jack got his ass kicked, he was knocked out from a particularly strong blow to the head after a few minutes.
By the time Jack woke up they had loaded him into a van and had gone far away with him tied up in the back. Blindfolded as he was, he had no idea where they were, just that the only thing he could hear were the tires quickly moving on the road, some classic rock playing on the radio, and his own breathing. This catches you up to all but a few minutes, but to sum it up they punched Jack a few more times, told him that he shouldn't have fucked with their boss, took his blindfold off, and tossed Jack out of the moving van.
So here Jack is now. Laying under the scorching desert sun. It had been about half a day as far as Jack could tell from the sun. He had been walking the entire time, no sign of any life. Just endless sand in all directions.
"I'm going to die here." Jack said to no one in particular as he stared to the sky, the glaring sun beating down on him. Despite this he smiled, finding out he wasn't actually very upset by this. He didn't have anything to live for. His current life was a lie. His old life was crap. No one would care if he was gone. His own parents were dead from a car crash several years earlier, no siblings. No one he could truly call a friend. The world would go on without Jack. Letting out a small coughing laugh, Jack closed his eyes, waiting for death's embrace.
Like this he laid for several hours, his only company the swirling birds, the sun eventually going down and leaving him looking a starry sky. Once more he closed his eyes, knowing in his mind he would not open them again. About to pass into his final permanent sleep, Jack heard something. Something with four legs displacing the sand, and the sound of a horse snorting. Mustering all his strength Jack sat up looking around. Not noticing the sudden burst of energy he had, fully awake and aware. Standing in front of him was a large black horse staring at Jack. Just from looking at it, Jack knew that this horse was unnatural. Its skin clung to it's bones, no meat or muscle at all. The horse's eyes nothing but hollow sockets over never ending darkness, but Jack could feel its icy cold gaze burn through him, making him shudder. Its skin hung in ragged strips from it in places showing the bones beneath, through one such gap he saw that it had nothing but blackness inside as well. Raising his head, Jack looked to the horse's back only to bring a hand up to rub his eyes, thinking he was hallucinating.
Upon the horses back was a black robed figure, his face completely shrouded. This figure dismounted the horse, which dug at the ground with tarnished hooves and snorted in impatience. The figure slowly lowered its hood, revealing a skeletal bovine head, seemingly floating upon a cloud of shadows. It was after seeing this that Jack realized what was going on. He was actually dead. He had accepted it hours before that he was going to die, but here he was. Dead, deceased, pushing up daisies. The shadowy figure then spoke to Jack, its raspy voice sending shivers down his spine.
"Your time has come mortal, the sands of fate have run dry and it is your turn to cross into the void. Just the countless before you have, and the countless after you will follow." Jack's mouth moved with no sound coming out. Not wanting to accept what he was hearing was really true. He realized he did not want to die. He was scared shitless. He may have a crappy life, but it was his life. Who knows what could have come tomorrow for him. But the fact was clear in his mind, he wanted to live. The figure before him spoke again. "I do not have forever mortal. I have many souls to collect this night."
"Please, please I don't want to die. I'll do anything!" Jack pleaded with the figure, standing prepared to run if need be. He looked downwards, just now noticing that he had been sitting in his body the entire time. The lifeless form still laying in the sand from earlier. Jack gagged, feeling like vomiting at the site of his own corpse. The figure looked at Jack hunched over, covering his mouth and gagging before shaking his head and reaching up to the floating skull. Placing a hand on each side he lifted it away from his body, the skull fading away as it got farther from him before vanishing completely.
Jack gained control of himself without losing control of his stomach after a minute, making sure not to look at his body again he looked to the figure instead. Taken aback at what he saw. No longer was it a bony figure supported by shadows. But a rather healthy looking older man, Jack would guess in his late seventies by his white hair and slightly wrinkled skin. The only odd thing about him were his eyes, clouded over as if he were blind, but he was looking right at Jack. So that couldn't be the case. After letting Jack take him in the figure spoke once more.
"Listen up, Jack was it?" He did not wait for a response before continuing, "I get this all the time, 'Oh please spare me, it wasn't my fault. I don't deserve to die!' Normally I ignore them and drag them kicking and screaming into the dark to be judged." He paused to look at Jack's forlorn face, a smirk appearing on the old man's, "But now and then, every couple hundred years. I get bored. And need someone to amuse me. So I take one of the pleading bastards as my plaything."
Jack swallowed audibly. "W-what do you mean?"
"Sometimes I throw them in a pit full of hell beasts, telling them if they can get out they will get a chance to live again. Seeing them scramble around is amusing. Sometimes I just torture them for a few centuries, only a moment passes in the real world of course. That one is always fun, they never live long after that anyway. The list goes on, but I can see it is just tearing you apart hearing this." Jack was staring wide eyed at the man in front of him, his mouth hanging open in shock. "But for you I think I will pick one of my personal favorites. You see Jack I am not just Death of this world, but of all worlds, all planets, all universes, all realities. And I can tell you there are quite a few of them. Some very similar you wouldn't even notice a difference, some very different. Moving between them is not hard at all, I just merely have to will myself over. Where you come in is this. I just love watching people out of their element, it pleases me much to see them panic and panic and just have no idea what to do. Some may call me sadistic. And they are probably right." The figure chuckled as he got a large grin on his face. "My offer, should you choose to accept it, is this. I will move you to one of these other worlds. I will even be nice. It will be right here on this planet. Well not quite. It is in another reality. One I have never dropped anyone in before, so it will be oh so fresh for me. You don't even need to complete any challenge. You will be just as alive there as you were here just a scant few hours ago. You will be free to live your life in that world. So what do you say Jack? Will you accept my modest proposal, or be carted off to the afterlife? I assume you would go to the underworld. You haven't exactly led the most saintly life. But what do I know, for all I know you could go to Heaven, or Valhalla for all I know. I don't judge."
Jack looked to his feet, noticing the shoes on his corpse before quickly turning away. He thought things over in his head, 'He is right, I have no chance of getting anywhere good. The last thing I even did was live a constant lie. Plus, it can't be that different he said it himself, some I wouldn't even notice the difference, he also said no challenge...' Giving another audible swallow Jack looked back up to the man. Tensing up he spoke, sounding strangely loud in the empty desert around them. "I accept your offer Death."
He smiled again, this one filled with much more malice. Extending a hand he placed a finger on Jack's brow, Jack quickly felt tired and started fading out, the last thing he heard in this world were these words spoken by the old man followed by a low laugh, "Please, call me Nex..."
Groggily opening his eyes Jack slowly stretched. Still in that moment before wakefulness but after sleep. That split second where you don't have a care in the world, you don't care where you are, who you are, or anything at all. But that carefree moment only lasted a second before his eyes shot open fully as the night before came flooding back to him in one big flash. Being kidnapped, dying, and finally making the deal. Realizing he wasn't in his penthouse Jack jumped to his feet, eyes darting all around the room he was in. It appeared to be a bedroom. He had been on the floor. Overall it looked like an average room. Bed, dresser, mirror, closet door slightly ajar, some random clothes scattered about the floor. From the looks of it this was a girls room judging by the bra and few pairs of panties littered about. Trying to to stare at them he inspected the rest of the room. One window set into the wall opposite another door, which he assumed was the way out. Walking over to the window he looked out, the apartment must have been in a sky-rise as he could not make anything out in any real detail on the ground. He saw the dots of little moving people, the swift moving cars on the street, a bit in the distance he saw a park. Thinking to himself, 'Place doesn't seem far off from home. Maybe I was right. Maybe I won't even notice a difference.' Smiling to himself at his luck he turned back around going back to inspecting the room. He picked up a discarded shirt, noticing some slits in the sides and bottom of the sleeves. Like someone had torn them down the side, but there was an edge to them and a button near the end of the sleeve to close it normally. These were made that way. Raising an eyebrow he thought out loud. "Huh, wonder what those are." Looking at the rest of the shirts on the floor they all had the same slits. "Weird, must be the style around here or something. Is that the difference in this world? Everyone dresses weird. Eh whatever." Moving to the door he assumed would let him out of the room he turned the knob, exiting into a central room with a few more doors off of it.
This room was a decent size, a fourth of it acted as a kitchen the rest a sort of lounge. A couch and chair faced a flat-screen on the far wall. An open door next to the TV led to a bathroom. The other three doors closed. Everything looked normal. Just like a decent apartment in his world. Opening one of the other doors he walked into another bedroom. This room was much more orderly and clean. Nothing thrown about, but a bit dusty. A bed was pushed to one wall, some shelves on the other side with various nick-knacks on them. Walking over to the shelves he picked up a trophy. Upon closer inspection it looked like a typical golf trophy, a player on top mid swing. The only differences being that under the ball cap there was another piece of metal jutting out where the player's nose would be and what appeared to be a tail sticking out from the top of their pants. Scratching his head a bit in confusion he sat it back down. "Huh, most be a novelty or something. Strange, but whatever. Guess I should get out of here before whoever lives here gets back."
Turning around he came face to face with someone. Not just any someone. This someone appeared to be straight out of a horror film. Standing a bit shorter than he was and looking like what Jack could only describe as a large bat. A large bat wearing clothes. A large bat currently swinging a 9-iron at his head. Then nothing. For the third time that day Jack had been knocked out.
Groaning as he opened his eyes the first thing he noticed was that he was back in the first bedroom. The second thing he noticed was that his head was throbbing in pain. Trying to sit up he realized he couldn't. Just noticing the third thing was that his arms were stretched above his head and his wrists were sealed in a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs around the metal headboard. Pulling on them with no success he gave up and looked around the room again. All the clothes were off the floor and hidden away, the curtains were drawn but he saw no light coming through them so it must have been some time since he was hit. Jack shouted out for whoever hit him, but instantly regretted it. A sharp pain going through his head at the noise. A moment later the pain faded back into the dull throbbing. Hearing the knob turn and the door opening he looked over to it. The bat coming in, looking at him warily, the golf club over its shoulder. It sat in a chair beside the bed that he had failed to notice. Jack took this moment to take in the bat's appearance in more detail than before. Starting at the top of its head he noticed it had straight black hair pulled back in a ponytail, a portion of the hair had been dyed purple and it was the only piece of hair free, hanging down over her face. Moving down he noticed that it was covered in a thin layer of dark gray fur. It had green eyes. The bat's face had a medium length muzzle coming off of it, two fangs somewhat visible poking out of its mouth. Two large ears poked from the top of the head through the hair. Moving down a bit he noticed that the bat was very much female, a pair of B-cup breasts on her chest. Not wanting to stare and get another hit upside the head he looked to her arms, noticing now what the slits were for, along the underside of her arms, and a bit down her side was a thin membrane, he assumed her wings. The button on the sleeve going through a small hole in it to seal the plain blue shirt on. Looking down more the bat was wearing a pain of plain blue jeans and he could not see past her knees due to the bed blocking his vision.
The entire time she was studying him as well, too panicked about just locking up the strange man in her apartment to really care about his appearance. It was only after she locked up him and gotten herself a large drink to calm herself she noticed that he wasn't like anyone she had seen before. That was the only reason she hadn't yet called the cops. A quick glance showed a mostly hairless man laying in her bed. A plain white shirt and black pants nothing strange about that. But he had no fur, or scales. Just some tanned skin. She had never seen anyone like him. He had some short sandy blonde hair on top of his head, brown eyes, he wasn't fat, but nor was he really skinny. She would call it a swimmer's build. Lean but hidden muscle. She was lost as to what species he was. She was broken out of her thoughts by the man, wincing as he spoke, "What are you?"
"What am I? I should ask you the same thing mister. And what the hell were you doing in my apartment? How did you even get in? Were you trying to rob the place?" The words left her a mile a minute in a frantic voice in steadily rising volume.
Closing his eyes tight through the pain her shouting caused he manged to spit out a reply. "Please stop shouting. I can explain everything. Well not really. I just sort of woke up here." He decided it would be a better idea to act like he didn't remember anything, rather than seem insane talking about a deal with Death.
"That doesn't explain what you are." Her hands gripped the club tighter. Jack thought a moment, trying to come up with a way to explain what he was. Deciding to just blatantly say it, not sure what else to do. But he quickly came up with a small backstory.
"I'm a human, I have no idea how I got here. I went to sleep in my bed last night, and when I woke up I was on your floor. Honest."
"A human? Never seen anyone like you. Never even heard of anything like that." She leaned the club against the dresser behind her, still within easy reach but now that she saw that he wasn't trying to break free she calmed a bit. Jack shifted on the bed, his arms sore, his mouth dry, his head aching. He wished he had some ice to put on it. He licked his lips.
"What about you? I've never seen anyone like you."
"Well there aren't too many bats round these parts. Most of us stick to more humid areas, round the equator." She put her finger to her lips as she thought, seeming to stare into space for a moment before coming back to reality.
"Wait, if there aren't any people like me at all. And only a few like you, what is everyone else like? I looked out the window and saw a bunch of people walking. I just assumed they were all like you than." Inside his head his thoughts were all jumbled. 'This world is a lot different that I thought. How am I going to live here? What if this girl calls the cops? What will they do? Will they turn me over to some scientists to be a lab rat? What if they lock me up for life? What am I going to do about money? Where am I going to live? I'll be an outcast!'
Oblivious to his inner turmoil she answered his question. "Well we are a pretty diverse city. My room mate is a lizard. But he isn't around much, always travels around to play in golf tournaments this time of year. I think at the last census the largest population here was wolves. Dragons are around, but a bit rare like me. Hmm, really there are too many to name."
In his current state he just started thinking out loud not realizing it. "Maybe I can blend in. Maybe no one will notice me."
The bat girl looked at him quizzically. "You running from the cops or something, human?"
"No no!" He quickly reassured her, "Just worried about how I am going to live here. I don't belong here. I don't know anything about the place. Hell you hit hit me with a golf club when you saw me." Sighing he let his head fall back onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. This had all exhausted him, physically and mentally. He pulled at the cuffs some, they were digging into his wrists. The pink fuzz on them not doing much to protect his bare skin.
"In my defense, I didn't hit you because you looked different. I hit you because you were a random guy in my house." The bat girl thought some for a moment, the room completely silent.
"Well if you promise not to try to murder me or something, I suppose you can stay here. It is the least I can do for possibly giving you a concussion."
Jack stared at the bat girl sitting next to the bed. He had no idea what to say, this random girl he had just met. In possibly the worst circumstances ever. Any sane person, even Jack himself, would have turned him over to the cops long ago. "Why would do that for me? You don't even know my name!"
"Let's fix that, what's your name?" The bat asked of him
"It's Jack. Jack Morris." He responded a bit skeptically.
"Well than Jack Morris, I simply cannot throw someone out into the cold. Just not who I am. You look like you need help. And I can help you out. My mom would always get mad at me for bringing strays home. Always said she was waiting for the time I brought some half dead fox home. Guess a very confused human is close enough." Giving him a warm smile she pulled a small key from the dresser and undid the cuffs. As they fell off Jack rubbed his wrists, getting the blood flowing back into them, a tingling sensation filled his hands. A moment later he lunged at the bat, holding her in a tight hug.
"Thank you, thank you..."
After a short moment of panic thinking the man was attacking her she calmed down and returned the hug. One thought going through her head, that her life was going to be getting a lot more interesting. "Come on, it's late. You can crash in my roomie's bed. I'm sure he won't mind." Letting go of the bat, Jake slowly stood, wobbling a bit before she put his arm over her shoulder. Helping him balance and move to the other room. Laying him on the bed she started to walk out, flipping off the light. About to close the door when she heard him say something quietly. "What was that?"
"The name of my savior, I never got it." He said, already half drifting off.
She smiled, "Ash. Ashley Wilson."
"Goodnight Ashley..."