Breath (13 page)

Now there was no struggle for him to remember, no need to piece together the past. Everything on this side of the door was so clear that it was blinding.

“The sound thundered across the skies as the door slammed shut. And I realized that I was alone. My soulmate hadn’t come through. Whether by accident or by intent, I had been abandoned.”

The boy said nothing, but his face spoke volumes.

“And as I realized this, I felt your world pull at me like undertow, dragging me down. I felt its hunger. I heard its maw stretch wide. You called me God,” he said quietly, “but there I was, clawing my fingers against the sky, desperately searching for an opening, a seam, a hint of the doorway beyond. Does God get scared, Xander?”

The boy didn’t reply.

“Call me a terrified angel, then, stripped of its wings and cast down low. Discarded. Can you understand that feeling, that sense of abandonment and betrayal? That fear of the unknown reaching for you?”

A burst of static from the baby monitor, which almost sounded like the screech of tires.

“I never found the doorway back. I tried. I looked for days, months. Maybe years. It’s difficult to tell; time moves slower for me than for you. But however long it was, there came a point when I realized that I was stranded. Everything that I was, everything I’d known, was gone.” He remembered a hint of
maybe,
a promise of completion, and he sighed. “My life, my world, everything, out of reach for all time, all because of what I willingly chose.”

“I’m sorry,” the boy said hoarsely.

“For what? You didn’t do this to me. It was me, and only me. I chose.”

“But you didn’t make your choice alone. The circumstances changed around you.”

“So?”

“You’re making it sound like it’s your fault,” the boy said. “It’s not.”

“Of course it is. I made a choice. I crossed a line from which there would be no return. I could have chosen otherwise, but I didn’t. My destiny
is
my own fault.”

“But it’s
not,
” the boy insisted. “You didn’t know it was going to turn out like that.”

He repeated, “So?”

The boy shouted, “You weren’t supposed to be alone!”

The words hung in the air, suspended by fury and denial, and then the wind carried them away.

“The history of the world is not defined by intent but by action. I chose. And I had to reap the consequences of that choice.” He laughed softly. “I suppose I’m a reaper after all.”

The boy glowered, obviously angry and willfully blind. He demanded, “What consequences?”

He remembered hurling himself at the sky in one last effort to open the door, and then he’d plummeted to the ground like a shooting star. He lay there, exhausted, devastated, unable to move as he felt the grass and ground beneath him shift, felt the creatures in the air and sea and earth around him latch onto his presence. He felt all those things and so much more, felt as they moved toward him, some slowly, some quickly, drawn to him by some unstoppable force.

That had been his moment, he knew now; he could have refused. He could have said
no.

But he had said nothing, and in doing so, he had sealed his fate.

All manner of creatures, large and small and everything in between, reached out to him, leeched on to him, attached themselves to him and bore their way into him, into the spark that was life itself. He felt them drain him dry, felt himself slowly disappear.

He remembered crushing pain as he felt himself be reborn.

“My presence here was like a beacon,” he said, half drowning in memory. “My kind was responsible for the spark of life here, and all living things sensed that. They were drawn to me. They anchored themselves to me. Bonded to me. What was true then remains true now: All living things are part of me, connected to me. Through me, all living things maintain that spark of life.”

A pause as the boy considered the words. “You’re talking about souls.”

“In a way,” he replied. “Your soul is your own while you have it, but it comes to life through me. We’re connected, you and I, as I’m connected to the people scurrying along the street so far below, to the trees placed as decorations along the block, to the pigeons pecking at crumbs. I’m connected to everything.”

“Connected how?”

“I sense you, even though I’m separate from you. And part of you always senses me. We’re like a Möbius strip,” he said, pressing his palms together and twisting his hands, “forever entwined, yet on separate surfaces. Together for eternity, yet apart.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “Like Escher’s ants.”

In the boy’s mind, he saw a framed poster that depicted ants crawling along each side of a Möbius strip twisted into a figure eight.

“Exactly like that,” he said with a smile. “While you’re alive, we’re on opposite sides. When you die, we meet along the edge.”

The boy chewed his lip. “You said our souls come through you. What does that mean? Come through you how? Do they literally pass through you?”

He smiled thinly. “Back to twenty questions.”

“I just want to understand the story you’re telling me,” the boy said.

“Next time, you should word your boon more carefully.”

His face naked, the boy said, “Please?”

Well, it wasn’t like there would actually be a next time.

“Souls come through me,” he said again. “Before you’re born into your body, I send you off. And when you die, I meet your soul before it moves on.”

“What happens then?”

“That, you find out when you die. Which, to be fair, won’t be long now.”

The boy stared at him. “What? But . . . this is about
you.
”

“It’s never been only about me.” He glanced at his watch. “Twenty-seven minutes, Xander. And counting.”

Understanding lit the boy’s eyes. “We’re on the other side of the Möbius strip. What happens to you, happens to us. To all of us. If you commit suicide, all life dies with you.”

“Well,” he said cheerfully, “that’s one way to look at it.”

Xander felt the blood drain from his face. He was still processing the notion of Death being God, or at least godlike, let alone some stranded entity that life had leeched itself on to. Religion by way of science fiction. Fantastical philosophy.

Lunacy.

Part of him was shouting that this was not only impossible but insane, and part of him was saying it felt right, but all of him was freaking out over the fact that in twenty-seven minutes, Death was going to kill everything. Xander fought a crazy urge to laugh. And here he’d thought that running late for a math test, naked, was the worst of all nightmares. Silly him.

His head spun, and for a dizzying moment, it felt like he was falling off the balcony. But no, he was still standing next to Death, who was still sitting cross-legged on the railing, looking almost pleased.

(today’s the day the world ends)

A fragment of his nightmare sliced through his mind, and Xander winced as he vividly remembered a man who was not a man standing tall as death spread across the world. This was his nightmare coming true, right here, right now. He didn’t understand how part of him had known this was coming. Maybe it had to do with the Möbius strip—when something happened on one side, the other would still feel it, like echoes, or maybe déjà vu. Maybe it was something else entirely. But it didn’t matter, not now—not with Death being suicidal and ready to take the world with him. And soon.

(time)

He had to do something.

But what? It wasn’t like Xander could stop him—he was just a high school senior, and Death was, well, Death.

Xander’s jaw clenched. Someone else should be standing here, figuring out how to prevent the end of everything. Someone more qualified. Someone older. Someone closer to Death or, at least, to dying. Not him. He didn’t choose this. The weight of the world shouldn’t be on his shoulders.

It shouldn’t be him.

He thought he heard a voice in his head say to him,
So?

And really: So what that it shouldn’t be him? No, he hadn’t chosen this.

It had chosen him.

Enough. There would be time for self-pity later, but only if there
was
a later. First things first: Figure out how to get Death to not kill himself, let alone the world.

He took a deep breath.
Okay,
he told himself.
Think, think, think.

He thought they were all going to die.

No, don’t think that.

He raked his fingers through his hair as he tried to figure out what he could possibly do to convince Death not to end everything. Xander clung to the railing with his left hand, even though the terror of falling to the street wasn’t quite so overwhelming anymore. Old habits die hard.

Again with the dying.

He quashed that thought, smothered it.

Killed it.

He checked himself from rolling his eyes. Fine, he could take a hint. Death was in his thoughts. Then again, how could it
not
be in his thoughts? He had twenty-seven minutes to save the world.

(time moves slower)

Another thought occurred to him, and his eyes widened as he remembered what Death had told him about time. In his story, Death had been looking for the door back to his world, and he didn’t know how much time had passed during that search because . . .

Time moves slower for me than for you.

Maybe “twenty-seven minutes” was like the biblical catchall of forty days being shorthand for “a really long time.” It was still twenty-seven minutes—and counting—but those minutes didn’t have to correspond to real time. Maybe. He hoped.

But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there? Death had insisted on giving Xander a boon before ending it all. What had he called it?

Unfinished business.

Xander grabbed on to that thought, refused to let it go. It swelled from thought to idea to plan in the space between heartbeats: As long as Death was talking, he wasn’t killing himself, let alone everyone else.

Therefore, Xander had to keep him talking. And maybe, just maybe, an answer would present itself.

That hint of
maybe
was a lifeline, and he held on tight.

“All right,” he said. “So you wound up here alone. You accidentally became the anchor for life. What happened next?”

“Next?” Death propped his chin in his hands. “Why, I became Death.”

“The mayflies were first,” he said. “Then the gastrotrichs. The
Arabidopsis thaliana.
The ants and bees and dragonflies. The brine shrimp and mosquitofish. Opossums. Chameleons. Mice. Rabbits. Other living things.” He smiled at the boy. “Humans. They died, and then they came to me.”

“Did you make them die?” the boy asked.

He clucked his tongue. “It’s not like I waved my hands and bellowed, ‘I smite thee!’ Not that there’s anything wrong with that,” he added. “Every once in a while, smiting really shakes things up.”

The boy stared. “You’re joking again.”

“Of course I am,” he lied. “And no, I didn’t make them die. I
could
have. But I didn’t. Why would I? Whether it’s immediate or eventual, life inevitably leads to death. Life burns itself out, and then I sweep up the ashes.”

“By choice?” the boy asked.

Instead of answering the question, he returned to his tale. “Death happened quickest with the mayflies, but soon others died as well. And when their bodies died, their essences returned to me.”

“You . . . what, absorbed their souls?” The boy paused. “Mayflies have souls?”

“All living things have an essence, a presence, that’s unique to life. And no, I didn’t absorb their souls. I reclaimed what was mine.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

He shrugged. “You’re only human.”

The boy frowned at him, as if he couldn’t decide whether he’d just been insulted.

“Here,” Death said, “a metaphor: I provide the clay, but living things shape it into whatever they wish. The clay is the spark of life, and the final shape of the clay is the soul. Life comes through me, but souls are your own.”

“Okay,” the boy said slowly, “let me see if I’ve got this right. You and your kind made us, popped batteries in us, and then you kicked back and watched the show as we banged our toy cymbals.” He arched an eyebrow as he looked pointedly at Death’s face. “Here we are now—entertain us.”

“Heh. Yes.”

“Time passed, and the charge in the batteries began to fade. The toy cymbals slowed, and were going to stop banging altogether. The others of your kind decided not to replace the batteries, but you wanted to put in new ones to keep the toy cymbals playing. So you came here, which was on purpose, and you were alone, which was by accident. And what happened instead of you changing the batteries is you became a battery charger. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said with a smile. “Close enough.”

“Okay,” the boy said. “So you charge the batteries before they go into the toys, and you collect the dead batteries when they’re done. Right?”

“Rightish.”

“So what happens to the dead batteries? What happens when things die?”

“Their bodies rot.”

“Their
souls,
” the boy said. “What happens to their souls? You said they return to you. What does that mean?”

“You already asked me that. And I already told you that you’ll find out when you die.”

The boy closed his eyes, sighed loudly, then opened his eyes again. He was clearly frustrated, but he attempted to keep it in check. Kudos to him. “Okay. So you’re the battery charger and dead-battery collector.” The boy paused. “What’s it like, being Death?”

What was it like? None had ever asked him that before.

He remembered those first moments when the dead paraded themselves before him—the mayflies dancing in the air, the gastrotrichs swimming, the
Arabidopsis thaliana
flowering. He remembered the buzz of the dead bees and dragonflies, the sound of the dead ants as they rubbed segments of their abdomens. They all appeared before him, one by one, communicating in their own ways as they acknowledged him and returned their piece of the spark to him before they moved on.

He remembered that initial touch of the dead to Death, soothing him like balm. He remembered the fleeting sense of gratification, of understanding his purpose here in this small world where none was like him and none would ever be like him.