Prompt: You made a deal with Death to never die until every human is dead. One day Earth explodes except your not dead.
I endlessly floated in the tapestry of space for an unknown length of time; maybe days, maybe weeks, maybe years — I couldn’t tell and I lost count after a day or two. In that time I thought about the day Death came to me.
I was sitting in my living room, reading a book, when a burning pain exploded over my chest. I gripped my chest, dug my nails into my flesh, as if I could reach into my body and relieve the problem with my own two hands. I couldn’t catch my breath, no matter how much I gulped at the air. Sweat and tears streaked my face as I toppled onto the floor. Then, he appeared, looming like a black monolith.
“I’ve come to take you,” he said with a hollow, deep voice.
“No— please,” I grunted, turning over onto my back, the pain ebbing like waves of fire. “I’ll do— anything— please.”
Death glanced over my apartment, then looked back down to me. “This is a small place to live in and, look, you don’t even have a view.” He glided across the floor towards the french doors, overlooking the small lot in between apartment complexes. Death slid open the door, leaned out. “And it smells, too.” He returned inside and appeared before me again.
If it wasn’t for the pain or for me slowly dying, I would’ve wondered why Death was so strange. “Life,” I gasped.
“What?” He bent forward. “Didn’t hear you, got to speak up.”
“Life!”
He laughed, holding his stomach and leaning back. “Life! Why does everyone want more than what they have? ‘Give me more! I don’t deserve to die yet! Please, please, blah blah blah!‘ Annoying species, you are. You know some animals accept and recognize when their time comes? They make the best of what they have, lie down and let go? Why can’t you be like that? Always want more, stay a little bit longer, even if it’s for naught.
“But luckily for you, you poor soul, I will grant you never-ending life. I’ve been meaning to test this out, so why not now. I will grant you immortality, but once all human life has ended, I will come to you and take your life.” He knelt and poked my forehead. A cold, numbing sensation spread across my face, settling in the back of my head. “That sound good?”
I nodded, feverishly.
“Fine.” He spread his open, skeletal palm over my face, and a Novocain numbness and winter frigidness flooded into me and I immeditially blacked out.
But now I am here, floating in space. The Earth exploded and the Sun died out, blackness gives way to more blackness.
“Looks like you’re in a pickle. Pick, pick, pickle.” He laughed from somewhere in the nothingness surrounding me. “God I loved that show. Too bad I’ll never see a reunion or reboot.”
“Just kill me already.” I said, flatly.
“Oh? Yes, I almost forgot. No, I won’t be killing you, not today at least.”
I strained my eyes to look into the darkness in front of me, seeing nothing, then looked over my shoulder to receive the same results. “What— Why?”
“You’re not the only human who survived.”
“Bullshit.”
“No — you would think that — but no. There’s still a couple hundred floating elsewhere in this Oblivion; some were smart enough to build their own space shuttles before disaster struck and what-not so they could live in space. I think they’re trying to find a sustainable life on other planets.”
“But, but—”
“You accepted the bargain, now you must deal with it.”
“But I’m out here! In the middle of fucking nowhere, literal nothingness!”
Before his voice disappeared, he said, “Like the old saying goes, ‘Don’t ask for what you can’t handle.‘”
Read my previous prompt, “The Watcher.”
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Micah Castle 