Peter's Room.
Am I dead?
He should be.
No... That can't be right.
I'm alive?
Peter's drowsy gaze landed on the familiar ceiling. His bed was too comfortable, he didn't want to move, and he didn't feel like moving.
The serum healed him.
It did? What happened?
Gradually, memories from the previous night returned.
He...he had walked home? No, that's not right...
He died last night.
I DIED!
Peter quickly shot up, hands and legs flailing as he instinctively began checking the state of his body. His hands grasped his face. His fingers twisted as he felt his skin.
His breath hitched.
The pain was gone!
He clenched and unclenched them, intently scrutinizing every detail, from the lines on his palms to the knuckles on the back of his hands.
"No claws." He noted under his breath. No scales. No green pigment either…
"What the fuck?" He took a breath.
He then moved on to the rest of his body.
Chest… Nothing but unblemished skin
Elbows… little wrinkly but nothing unnatural.
Hair... His hair was alright, his scalp too.
Toes… He quickly glanced at his legs and wiggled his toes. Wait... TAIL!
Nothing, just his plain backside.
The hunger was gone too and his senses were no longer as acute as they were when he took the serum.
The serum must have worn off completely, but that doesn't explain anything, what's happening to me?
"How did I even get to my room?" Peter let out a shaking breath.
He ran hands through his hair, tugging at the brown strands softly, stopping short of pulling them from their roots.
Calm down... I just need to take a breather... What happened last night?
Panicking wouldn't help him. Lifting his shirt one more time, he checked for wounds, but nothing was there. Once again, only unblemished skin reflected in his eyes.
That's... That's impossible...
Peter pushed his shirt back down with a perturbed look on his face.
In... Out... In... Out... Inhale... Exhale...
I'm alive. He considered in astonishment.
I'm alive?
At that moment, it hit him like a wave. His hands began trembling feverishly. Peter stared at his hands, struggling to stop himself.
He couldn't.
Peter let out a shaky breath. "Holy shit... I'm alive."
"I'm alive... Hahaha... I'm alive... Hahahaha… I'm alive... Haha... Sob... Fuck… Sob... I'm... Al-Alive... Hahahahaha..." Each word came out louder and firmer, as if to reassure himself that he was alive.
His eyes felt watery. What-what the fuck is wrong with me?
His joyful laugh steadily descended into silent sobs. His palms pressed against his face as he fell back onto his bed.
What the fuck happened last night?
***
Hours must have passed, but he hardly noticed.
He tried to rationalize his situation, but nothing worked. Peter couldn't understand any of it.
Peter doubted there were any words in the dictionary that could accurately describe whatever this was.
He felt like a piece of him was missing.
Everything was still fresh in his mind: the pain, the anguish, the breaking of his bones, his flesh twisting and ripping.
***
Bullet sinking into his flesh.
Claws sinking into flesh.
The hunger!
Delicious blood and sinew dripping from his maw!
The need to feed—
***
STOP IT! He grabbed his head in alarm, dread and anxiety creeping into him. He stopped himself before thoughts wandered too far. He forced himself to focus. It was strangely easier than he would have liked.
That was...easy. Too easy… He suddenly felt better.
Slowly, he pulled his hands away, sat up and inspected his room. Peter noted the absence of blood or claw marks. He inspected the walls, his clothes on the floor, his desk, and his window.
Looking at the random things in the room was a welcoming distraction.
Everything was as it should be; it was normal, too normal.
Even the clothes he wore were the same ones from last night, the only difference being that they were no longer torn, ripped, or covered in dirt, dust, and blood. His clothes looked as they did before they were torn apart by his transformation.
It was too normal... Aside from the weird lack of color in everything else. It almost grey, lingering effects of the serum, maybe? Tetra chromatic vision? Can't be…
"Maybe I am dead and this is some kind of purgatory?"
"Oh, you're not dead. Trust me, I'd know." A surprisingly melodic feminine voice interrupted.
"Ghaa! What the-what now?!" he startled, scrambled in surprise to the edge of his bed, far away from where the voice was coming from.
It was a woman. How the hell did I not notice a woman in my room?
Dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt tucked under a dark blue denim jacket with tight black jeans and black ankle boots, she looked oddly familiar.
She sat in his chair, watching him with eyes like molten gold. Peter's breath caught. He didn't know her, but every cell in his body recognized what she was—the end of all things
She watched him with an annoyed look, lips pursed, a contemplative look, one that expressed interest and irritation.
Peter stared right back awkwardly. It's like she's looking right into my soul…
"Yes."
"What?" Peter blinked.
"I can see into your soul, a soul that shouldn't be here in any way, shape, or form."
"Riiiigghht... Said the strange lady in my room, sitting ominously in the corner. Yeah, not weird at all, lady." Peter said measuredly as he locked eyes with the woman.
Was it his fault that his go to defense mechanism was sarcasm and quips?
Maybe.
Where is everyone? Should I just scream? It might work. This has got to be the serum. Am I hallucinating right now?
"Nope. I'm real."
Peter froze. Did she just—…
"Yep." Her lips quirked into an amused smile.
"Okay! Okay! Timeout!" Peter quickly stood up and made a 'T' gesture with his hands.
"This. This is too much. I am not doing this. We," Peter gestured between the two of them as he walked around and sat at the edge of his bed. "We, we're not doing this. I just went through some mind-blowing traumatic shit last night that I'm still not over yet. I'm not equipped to deal with whatever this is.
"So, if you could kindly explain to me who you are and why you're here and maybe also explain all the stuff that's happening to me right now. I'll ignore the fact that you just read my mind."
"Please," Peter added, well, pleaded was a more accurate description if he was being honest with himself.
"Think of this as a lucid dream." The woman began. "You died last night. That is true, at least for a moment. Your soul shouldn't be here. The dead should stay dead. I am, after all, the collector of souls."
So I did die. I died. She killed me. Fuck. Shit. Fucking shit. Wait… Then, how am I even here? Peter was genuinely starting to panic, with equal parts terror and confusion, as more questions started piling up in his head.
The eerie grin that the strange woman gave him didn't make it any better.
Breathe. Come down. Let's see where this goes, Pete. Peter stopped himself before his thoughts ran wild. There it is again...
He kept his facial expression as stoic as possible, he doubted it had the intended effect on the woman.
"So, imagine my surprise when something I've already collected decided to not only walk out on its own and right back into its body but steal something from me as well." She tilted her head inquisitively.
"Well, can you imagine?"
Ah. Of course. Collecting souls. Why not? I'm sure I can. Jesus, lady, are you nuts?! There was a woman in his room with glowing eyes who could see his soul and read his mind, if her words were to be believed.
He tried to say something but found himself at a loss for words. He knew what he wanted to say but he couldn't make his mouth form the words.
"What, what are you?" Peter finally asked.
"Oh, do keep up, Peter, I thought you were supposed to be one of the smart ones. But I suppose, given your present…situation, this should be expected." She sighed softly and chuckled under her breath.
"I'm Death, you idiot." She smiled coyly at him, almost as if she was laughing at an inside joke only she knew, all while gazing at Peter like he was some puzzle she couldn't wrap her head around.
No…
No freaking way...
Peter's eyes widened in astonishment, pupils dilating, and his breath hitched as his heart skipped a beat. A flash of recognition struck him like lightning striking the neurons in his brain.
She didn't just look familiar, she was familiar.
She was younger, but there's no mistaking that face. Take out yellow eyes and overbearing presence, and she looks just like her. How did I not see it? How? She wearing Mom's fucking face!
Oh... Peter swallowed an invisible lump that formed in the back of his throat. Holy shit, she isn't lying. Death is sitting across from me right now in my room...
Realization slowly dawned on his face as the entity answered his question, while the equal parts terror and confusion very quickly morphed into pure terror.
She… She could be lying…
"I am many things, but a liar isn't one of them." The entity wearing the face of his late mother replied to his thoughts with an amused chuckle, only it sounded like something straight out of a stuff of nightmares.
An illusory image overlapped with hers. Her face and form started to warp for a fleeting moment, reality and illusion bending and twisting as the image of his late mother was replaced with the image of a skull with grey skin, drapped in dark purple and gold.
Peter Parker did not piss himself that day. He was close, really close. What exactly was one expected to do in the face of the freaking grim reaper- the embodiment of Death in the flesh?
Peter came to the obvious conclusion after a moment of consideration, and Death, in all her mercy, left him to his thoughts.
She's here to drag me back to the afterlife, isn't she?
It wasn't hard to figure it out if he considered all the facts. He did die last night, and he woke up alive this morning, so obviously Death, being Death, is here to balance the scales.
Peter's mind had already accepted her for what she was. The feeling was hard for him to explain, only an idiot would sit across from death and not know who and what she was. It would take a person to experience it to know it. It was like dying.
Oh god, this is no time for irony…
Death sat patiently and watched him. Her lips twitched lightly as if she was struggling to hold herself back, her eyes twinkling with mirth. Peter mistook that ominous glowing gaze for something else, something far more sinister.
"Please don't kill me, I mean, I'm alive right now, right, so you can't actually kill the living, right, Mom? I mean, Death? I mean your greatness, I mean lord death, No sorry, sorry, I meant to say Lady Death, I mean just thinking about it, I don't think I am that important, and-and don't you have like other people to reap, you know more important people, if you do you should you know to go over there instead of wasting your time here with little old me, right, right so… Soo… Yeah… Please don't kill me..." The terrified teen did the only thing he could do when backed into a corner and that was the art of bullshitting. Thankfully, before he could embarrass himself further, Death's soft chuckle filled the room, one that bloomed into a burst of melodious laughter.
"HehehehHAAHAHAHAaahhaahaha," Death held her stomach and laughed with little regard to Peter's terrified state.
Peter could only watch in confused terror as Death, of all things, slowly finished her laughing fit, of all the things Peter thought he would do in life, meeting the literal embodiment of death was not one of them.
"Sorry—Hahaha—Don't worry. I'm just fucking with you, kid…hahaha… If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead. I am still out there reaping souls." She made air quotes around 'reaping,' laughing at some private joke. "As they say."
"..."
"..."
"Really, Peter, you have nothing to worry about. I am only here to talk."
"Wait? Really?" Peter quirked a brow. He was pleasantly surprised that he could talk coherently. His emotions were manageable. Was it because this was a lucid dream?
"Yes."
"You're not here to take me to hell, are you?"
A single raised eyebrow from the ancient being was enough to know that he should stop.
"Right, sorry, shutting up now."
Peter sighed internally as he still couldn't wrap his head around the idea that the literal Grim Reaper was sitting just a little distance from him. He also couldn't understand why he was being so chill about it.
Deep breaths, Peter. A level head is what you need right now. Deep breaths, this can't possibly get any w0-NO. No, not going there. Thank God, that was too close, almost made this worse, smooth Pete, real smooth...
The absolute entity simply sat in silence. Her gaze never left Peter, not even for a moment. She allowed him to have as much time as he needed to gather his thoughts. She found his antics entertaining. Maybe she should do this more often. A certain annoyingly chatty mercenary came to mind.
"You're taking all this in quite well." She almost sounded like she was joking as she said that.
Peter's lips thinned as he gave her a haunted look.
"With all due respect, Lady Death... I was a man-eating lizard last night, and I died, painfully and excruciatingly slowly, too. If Spider-Woman can beat me to death, anything's fucking possible… Honestly, right now I feel like I could accept just about anything." Peter sighed.
"So, If you don't mind me asking, what exactly do you want to know, and uhm… Well, I mean if it's not too much to ask, could you like, tell me what's going on right now, cause you know, I am human and all," Peter asked, he was also curious about her.
"Right…You're 'human and all'. For your sake, I'll be frank, I don't know either."
"You don't?" That wasn't the answer Peter was expecting.
"I'm a finality, Peter. Nothing living walks away from me. I am the finish line. I am the inevitable end. That's usually how it goes until now that is." Death had a curious expression on her face as she tilted her head slightly to rest her chin on her palm. She looked at him as if he was the most fascinating person in the world.
Peter didn't like the way she was smiling at him, though. It put him on edge and made his skin crawl just a little.
"What you did. How you did it." She continued." The way you did it. It should be impossible. Even my siblings aren't capable of something like that."
Death glared at Peter, prompting him to look away just as quickly
Death had siblings, who would have thought? Even with that curiosity aside, Peter felt his brow twitch. That... that didn't explain anything. He swallowed the invisible lump in his throat. A bead of sweat slid down his forehead.
"What did I do exactly?"
Death paused for a moment, the edges of her lips quirked up slightly as if she found the answer to his question amusing. "You stole from me."
"I'm sorry... Maybe I didn't hear that right. You're saying that I stole from you. I, Peter Benjamin Parker. I stole something from you. Death."
"In a manner of speaking, yes." She nodded, her head leaning to the left ever so slightly into her palm. She had that unnerving look again, and the yellow in her eyes also shone a little bit brighter.
"Okay." Peter did his best to ignore her creepy vibe that Death was giving off. "I don't know if you noticed, but I like being alive. Like a lot...I think I'd know if I stole something from you..." Peter paused. He suddenly had an idea, which made sense in a way. Don't tell me…
"It's my soul, isn't it?"
"Yes, and no." Death's smile morphed into an annoyed scowl. "I have your soul, yet it isn't mine. You stole something, but at the same time, you didn't. You see, I let you steal it, I chose you even though it was against my will, and I, for one, can't seem to figure out why it all went down the way it did. "
"What... does that even mean?" Peter stated bluntly. As if this couldn't get more mind-bending, I think I'm gonna have a hell of a headache after. How do you steal something you're allowed to take? He felt the sudden urge to pull his hair out. The fact that this was still the Death he was talking to seemed to cause him to wince and grab his throbbing skull as his mind attempted to come up with a rational explanation for the utter bullshit he just heard.
"You'll figure it out eventually," Death openly avoided the question.
"Oh, right, forgot about the whole' I can read your mind' thing. How can you not know, I mean, you are Death, aren't you supposed to be, you know, all-knowing and stuff?" Peter asked.
"I am, most of the time. There are always exceptions to the rules, but this time it seems whatever force brought you back is greater than even me. If only for a moment."
"Wait, wait, wait, What? A powerful force brought me back? Wait... so which one is it? Actually. You know what? Forget it. It's fine. I don't even wanna know." I. I don't think I even wanna know anymore. This, this is hurting my head. Just yesterday was a big-ass man-eating lizard. Now I'm talking to Death, what's next, aliens raining from the sky? Hopefully, whatever brought me back didn't change me too much…
Peter took a deep breath, then asked. "Just out of curiosity, will this force, I don't know, change me or like take over me or something?"
"That is for you to find out. What I want to know is why I let you take it. Why in all of creation would I allow you to take a piece of me?" Something seemed to change in her, a subtle twitch of her brow, her voice, her tone, and for the first time since making her presence known, she looked away from Peter, confused at her answer like she was coming to terms with what she just told him.
"I'm sorry, I took what?" Peter stared at her with a ridiculous expression. How do you even take a piece of Death? Why am I even asking?
From her tone, Peter could guess that she meant it when she said he had to find out on his own.
Peter could feel a headache forming and worsening by the second.
Peter rubbed his temple. "So, just to clarify. From what I can understand about all this. Something brought me back and in doing so, took my soul from your literal embrace but also in the process of bringing me back to life they left me with a piece of you that you unwillingly chose to give to but I stole it anyway and to top it all of you have my soul but it isn't yours... did I get that right?"
"Yep. That about sums it up nicely."
"I see. I have a piece of you in me. Sure, why not? Anything else I should know?" Peter rambled on, unable to comprehend it even with his intellectual prowess being greater than others in his age group. Maybe I should just stop thinking about it…
"No, but there is one thing I'm curious about," Death tilted her head, intrigued with something Peter wasn't sure he wanted to know.
Peter didn't know why he felt so calm, couldn't understand this strange ease that let him rein in his panic. He couldn't know that Death herself was holding his emotions in check, keeping him rational enough to have this conversation. Some things were better discovered in time.
"Is it about my soul? Cause if it is, can I have it back?"
"Your soul is yours, Peter." Now visibly annoyed, Death glared at Peter, prompting him to look away just as quickly.
"Now let's see what you snatched from me." Death pushed herself off Peter's chair and walked towards him slowly, a strange glint in her glowing eyes.
"You can do that?" Peter asked curiously.
"Yes."
Peter felt his body freeze up.
"H-hey, huh, death, w-what are you doing?"
Peter struggled to lean back, but try as he might, his body remained still, working against him in favor of Death.
"Testing something. The forms I take... they reflect what matters to you, don't they? It's different for everyone. Tell me, Peter, who do see now?" she answered as her form suddenly shifted, a ripple traveled through her body and the image of his mother was covered in shadows and changed.
Her form became shorter, the brunette hair changed into long crimson streaks, and what was once his mother's face was now the face of his not so secret crush, and neighbor, Mary Jane Watson, the green in her eyes shimmered slightly, still possessing that odd glint as she stood just within arm's length of him.
"Do I have to answer that?" Peter asked, his voice expressing his discomfort.
"Yes."
"You... um, look like my uh, my neighbor Mary Jane, seriously what are you doing? Cause whatever it is, it's really um, you know," Peter asked, his heart skipping a beat.
Keep it together Peter, this is death, this is death, oh shit…
His face burned.
"Your neighbor is that so?" She had a knowing smile on her face, and slowly she moved a hand up towards his face.
"Um, D-Death?"
She paid no mind to his plea.
Death's eyes widened slightly as she stopped her hand a couple of inches shy of the left side of his cheek. Peter, following her hand movements with his eyes, let out a sigh of relief. He did not notice that Death's hand wasn't stopped because she chose not to follow through with her intent.
Something was holding it back.
[Ajin-Dormant (Self-Activation)]
"Huh, that's interesting, you don't see it, do you?" Death asked, perplexed, the glint in her eyes seemed to worsen, glowing a bright, brilliant yellow, looking over his right shoulder.
"W-what? See what? Hey, what's happening right now?" Peter tried to calm his rapidly beating heart, struggling to turn his head to look at what she seemed to be looking at, but from what his eyes could see, it was just her hand, inches away from his left cheek.
What Peter couldn't see was that death was glaring at something behind him.
Behind Peter, his shadow grew dark and shot up, taking form as a pale hand wrapped in bandages held death's outstretched hand in a tight grip, keeping it from reaching Peter's cheek. Another three pairs of similar arms wrapped themselves around his torso, coming out from under his arms and hugging him from behind, two on the side and one on the other, while yet another two came up, one caressing his right cheek while the other hugged his neck protectively.
Attached to the end of the six limbs was a pale female figure warped in bandages from the neck down, and some covered parts of her face, while others floated around her form free from gravity. Her hair, silky and long, hid parts of her body and was as dark as the shadows that hugged her form, to the point where one could hardly tell where the shadows ended and her hair began.
Her face leaned into Peter's own, resting her chin on his shoulders, nuzzling into the nape of his neck.
Her eyes stood out to death the most, a haunting, brilliant yellow that matched Death's own eyes, glaring at her as if to tell her that now was not the time and that she—Death—should keep her hands off Peter.
"So, this is what you stole from me," Death muttered to herself, she sighed in resignation before she turned her gaze back to Peter's confused face.
Death chuckled lightly as she caught sight of him.
She leaned in slowly until she came inches away from Peter's face, enough so that if she could breathe, Peter would have felt it.
Calm down. Peter! Calm, my mind is calm. So, so calm right now, like watEERR. Sweet Mary Jan—Jesus—mother of Jesus, that's too close, way too close, she death, Pete, okay—she's hot—cot can it!
Unconcerned with the teen's inner turmoil, Death's gaze drifted back to the entity now bound to Peter, or rather the entity behind him.
It was a piece of her that much she knew.
This one piece, this fragment, was bound to Peter's soul for the sole purpose of bringing Peter back to life, for now at least. Even she wasn't sure what this thing was capable of given time. It was her, yet it wasn't, not yet, Peter had to die to complete the bond and by being near him, she forced this fragment out of its dormant state and in doing so Death grasp some truths behind the nature of the entity.
This piece of hers that belonged to Peter.
This was Peter's death.
A conceptual entity, the very concept of the death of Peter Parker of Earth-65B manifested itself into a separate, self-aware, and conscious conceptual entity.
"How peculiar," Death noted under her breath.
It was her, just as she was Death, and yet it wasn't her—they were the same being, and yet so intrinsically different.
While she was the Death of all there was, is, and will be in this universe, this entity, similarly, was the Death of Peter Parker of Earth-65B.
Death turned to Peter and leaned forward, her eyes roamed the flustered teens face. It fascinated her that this bumbling child had effectively usurped her right, unmade her sole purpose for existing; he had stolen the very idea of her and turned it against her.
The edges of her lips curled up, that amused knowing grin slipped back on naturally, and she attempted to move closer to the teen, but she couldn't. The entity held her back harder. Two more hands burst forth, one held her by the neck, while multiple bandages wrapped themselves around Death's body and arms, staining to hold her back.
"Uh… Lady Death? You're… You know…A…. A little too close, not-not to be disrespectful and all, but there is this thing called personal space we humans abide by, so you-uh… You know." Peter's heart was beating a mile a minute, and despite constantly reminding himself that this was the LITERAL GRIM REAPER, he had little control over his physical reaction to the image of his crush suddenly so close, her glowing eyes just gave an out-of-this-world appeal.
"How peculiar indeed, I think you may be the most interesting thing I've come across in a very, very, long time." She held his gaze. "You are a thief after all, Peter Parker, and I'm slowly beginning to realize why I chose you. Your soul is MINE and MINE alone, mine to collect, mine to own, nothing in the universe can stop that now. I will come to visit you after your next passing. Until then, take care, little thief."
She was gone in a blink as if she was never there to begin with, and color returned to the world. The entity that made itself known also instantly vanished with Death's disappearance.
Peter stared at the empty chair. At the spot where Death had been.
Where the literal Grim Reaper had just—
His vision went dark.
Chapter End