18.

Everyone’s afraid of Death, and that’s maybe why he’s so lonely. There is one however, that looked Death in the face and wasn’t scared by what lay there. One look, that’s all it took to stop Death in his tracks and make him forget what it was he came to collect. She met his eyes with her own and within them Death could see sparks of light that rivalled the stars in the sky. But deeper than that he noticed a seed of loneliness that he’d never seen in any person of the living.

It matched his own.

She lowered her eyes after a second, mumbled an apology for getting in his way and continued on her way. And he let her go. instead of collecting, he simply followed her on her journey. She didn’t mind. She felt his presence behind her, but instead of feeling the usual panic of knowing someone is following you in the dark, she felt comforted. So she slowed her stop and allowed him to walk beside her. It was a strange concept for them both to grasp, but neither wanted to go back to walking alone. They spent this time together for many years. Never talking, never anything more than a presence at each other’s side. Death left to collect the world’s losses every so often, but he always came back to her. Occasionally he would bring her back gifts. Nothing fancy, nothing special. But Death did not know the concept of friendship, he had never had someone to share the world with. He had seen the living leave items and flowers n the graves of those that he’d collected and so he assumed that dead flowers were normal. She never showed it enough but she appreciated everything that Death brought her.

No one had ever cared enough to bring her gifts before.

She had never liked fresh flowers anyway, they never lasted as long as you wanted them to. As the years got older. so did their friendship. Slowly, Death began noticing his only friend was ageing. He had seen the grief of the living steep into their lives and he had never fully understood why it was such a loss for them. Until now. Over time, he had done what he could to help her live as comfortably as she had made him feel. Keeping her warm with a gentle breeze when she was walking home in the winter. Pushing the wind under her feet to help her walk when her feet got too heavy for her to lift alone. Scaring those that made her life harder than it already was with the threat of an early trip to their grave. Just even lending her his presence for when she was in her lowest moments and she wanted Death to complete the job he couldn’t do from all those years ago. But Death had begun to notice a change in his only friend. It was subtle at first, but the stars in her eyes had begun to shine like supernovas. And slowly, ever so slowly, the single spark of loneliness that had once lived in her eyes began folding in on itself. Until one day it disappeared completely. Death had not known it possible to recover from whatever lay in both of their souls. Death had not even known that he possessed the humanity to feel such things, but no one had ever been there to show him that he could. He was hateful, in a way, that he had been allowed to exist within a friendship. He had the rest of time now to sit with the revelations of all that she had shown him. But he was also grateful that he had been able to experience the comfort of a human friendship. His infinite existence between this world and the void had never offered him any comfort, destined to be alone and ferrying the lost souls between the two planes as punishment for an act that he never remembers committing.

She knew that her end was almost upon her. She knew soon that she could not cheat her friend out of his job forever. She knew that he still had no choice but to complete the task he had started all those years ago. She could live for 20 lifetimes and still never show enough gratitude to the bringer of death for giving her a reason to live.

And so the day came.

For the first time, Death did not want to collect. The ability to have felt love for the friendship and opened the flood gates for other human emotions to seep into his soul. He felt selfish. He wanted to keep her at his side so that he would not have to experience the loss he had witnessed so many times before alone. But Death found himself incapable of being selfish. He could not punish the one who had taught him so much. And so they found themselves back standing in the same spot as they had been so long ago. She could barely hold it together as she stared at her feet on the pavement. Death just stared as silently and as still as he always did, but what she could not see was the utter regret and sadness that was coursing through him. Neither had ever spoken a word to each other, and neither felt like now was the time to start. But finally, and for one last time, she raised her eyes to his and he could understand everything that was being conveyed through her eyes. And she could see that his eyes were mirroring her own. She was looking at her the best friend she had ever had, and instead of feeling sad she only felt content. That she had been allowed to experience some happiness in this lifetime.

She nodded at Death. One single and slow nod of understanding. Death gave one back, the nod offering all that needed to be said.

And so Death caught her final breath in this world and gently collected the most beautiful soul he had ever laid eyes on.