Disclaimer: I don't own Kuroshitsuji.

Warning: Gore and swearing in smallish amounts.

I look wildly around the room, everything is drenched in blood. The organs of my brothers are splattered on the wall, in a configuration of death and disgust. Bile chokes my throat, and chilly shivers race up and down my arms. I can feel a sort of coldness, a sort of shock send deep, gasping breaths through me. Tears fall out of my eyes uncontrollably, thick and hot and wet, streaming, blurring everything. The blur hopes to hide reality from me, but it is too late. The images are burned into my mind forevermore. The dying screams erupting from Joseph's mouth, his pleading, clinging gaze. So much pain, there was just so much pain in his eyes. He was ripped apart, pieces of him flew everywhere.
Pieces.
Human.
Flesh.

The words swim around a haze inside me, not quite falling into place. They bash against each other, trying to get some sort of reaction. But still my only defence is disbelief. Everything about reality has always felt disjointed, surreal. But now I can barely keep ahold of my own name. I clutch my head in my hands, my throat is so tight, my stomach is knotted into a thousand shapes. My heart is beating, a weak, shuddering drum.
But I feel nothing.
Nothing beyond physical reaction.

I look up, entrenched in habitually feigned despair. I see it, it's freezing black orbs, staring into my soul like it knows. I hold up my hand in horror, seeing that it is covered in blood. The blood of Joseph, the blood of Timothy. Sweet sweet Timothy. How can you be reduced to this? How can this be? You are a person, a being, so full of light, of life. So vibrant and joyful. There is absolutely no way it is possible for you to only be a complex organism. A thing able to live and die in one breath. There's no way.

I rock back and forth, the beast is still there. It is in the shadows, vaguely amused by my reaction. I lift my hand to wipe away my tears. I push away the terror, not completely. It is a darkness that hangs over me without any chance of stopping. I raise my gaze to match its own.

"Does this make you feel validated?" I ask, with a cracked, tired voice. It cocks its head in surprise. A sly grin spreading across its face. It hadn't expected me to speak. From its throat came a deep, rasping voice.

"Of course." I nodded.

"Are you going to kill me now?"

"Of course."

"Well I won't let you." I said, my voice cold and hard and stronger than it had ever been. He raised a single eyebrow.

"You intend to fight me, human?" I gave him a wan smile, filled with just the right amount of condescension. It was a thin lipped smile, a fake smile. It was with this smile that I took the kitchen knife and pointed it at him. My meaning was absolutely clear. He smirked, his talons shooting out. He was ready to kill me. Then, as strong and as weak as I had ever been...

I whirled the knife around and stabbed it into my chest. I gave a dry laugh, pained and lacking in its mirth. My mind scrabbled around in an attempt to secure some elegant last words. Something to lend grace to my death.
"You know you're an asshole right?" Nailed it. The crow-like beast chuckled, and flew away. Leaving me to die in a pool of my own blood. Will others think I'm too human to die as well?

I will never know.

Asshole.

The world is a fragmented collection of light and colour, bursting out at me from all sides. Everything is stream of concepts and shapes and I fight. I fight to stay different from all of it. But very soon I lose the urge to fight. Maybe I am just a concept, an idea. Maybe I can melt into the river and it will be all okay. Maybe everything will be okay if I just let myself go nowhere.

A sudden, jolting stop. I guess losing myself wasn't a choice. The world feels sort of fuzzy. I suppose I am dead, however, I feel very much alive. Which is to say, my chest hurts like a bitch. My eyes crack open, one after the other because it's just so hard to pull them apart. I look around swiftly as possible, even though my head feels like it is attached to my neck by a rusty screw. I am sitting on white concrete. There are tall, white buildings all around me. They are symmetrical and seem to go on forever. Never before had I seen something quite like this. I remember the unforgiving, dirty alleyways of London and sigh. Everything just feels so alien and I have no idea what in gods name is going on and oh my god they're dead. They're all dead. My chest is healing up at an incredible rate. The tissue seems to be stitching itself together. My head feels heavy and somehow cold. I can't move my body. Very soon a crowd of darkly dressed people develops around me. There is whispering, I can make out some of the words.

"A new recruit at this hour?"

"Is that even a boy?"

"It has to be, stupid."

"Why didn't he show up in the recruiting time-slot?" Then, in a shivering wave of whispers I hear.

"Take him to the principal." I am picked up, and taken away by a strange man in a strange black suit with strange eyes and strange glasses. The time after that is odd, a forward moping almost. Walking through the path surrounded by replicated buildings. The crowds around me begin to lessen as we walk further away, until it is only the one carrying me there. Apparently whatever interesting thing I did was not interesting enough to warrant quite this much walking. Speaking of exercise, I am surprised the man carrying me is not yet puffed. I can feel his muscles as I lie, limp in his arms. I can't seem to move any of my limbs. My neck can turn a little bit, but my jaw is stiff. That's the most disappointing one. Asking questions usually gets you answers. Eventually we come to stop in front of a building. Not a white, rectangular building like the others. In fact, this the only one I can see that is at all different. It is, strangely enough, a rich purple. And it's more of a house than anything. It has a thatched straw roof, so out of place among the strange cleanliness. Despite its peculiar demeanour, I feel more comfortable here than anywhere else. It more closely matches the streets of home. I mean, of course it is still very clean, and of course it is rather different than what I am used to. But compared to the towering white rectangles, it just has a nice feeling of unpredictability. I am brought inside, it smells of musk and flowers, along with the inexplicable scent of burnt toffee. I can hear shouting over in another room of this place. The sharp, resonating consonants shock me out of my, well, shock. Suddenly I am incredibly frightened. What the hell am I doing here, what is going on! Images of my dead family flash behind my now shut tight eyelids. The man carrying me waits patiently. Once the shouting goes on too long, he knocks on the door. The quick, hard rapping on the wood sounds very controlled and strong. I'll have to keep an eye on this one, he seems dangerous. It may seem silly to judge this from how someone knocks on the door, but I have seen more obscure ways to judge someone's strength. That's why I always faked weakness in everything I do. My knocks are always weak and pitiful, my head down, my steps hesitant, if not soft. Then, once I have you fooled, I pounce. The shouting from behind the door stills. The door cracked opened and a man with silver hair pokes out his head.

"Hello!" He exclaims, smiling with psychotic joy. Just then a young boy pushes past him. The silver-haired man, with locks covering his eyes, grabs him, and pulls him back. He shakes his head regretfully.

"Let me go!"

"No no no Stuart. If I am judging the new situation properly, and I am, your assistance will be required." The man turned to him. "Andy, what happened?"

"He just turned up in the middle of the path, an hour late."

"How many people saw?"

"Thirty, maybe thirty-five. I'm sure the news will have spread a great deal by now." My jaw was still very stiff, but I was starting to regain control of it just ever so slightly. I moaned and the man called Andy looked down on me in horror. Stuart raised an eyebrow.

"He isn't supposed to regain the ability to make any sound yet. This is just like last time." The silver-haired man sighed. All kinds of joy and silliness had left him. His mouth was composed into one long, thin line. He seemed to be a different person. I had no idea what was going on, and in an attempt to distract myself from flashing images of death, I observed my surroundings. That may have backfired slightly

The walls were painted with murals, mostly of women. They all had their mouths open in one long, silent scream. Their nails were prominently black, showing up against the redness of everything else. Blood poured down them, sickly sensual. The windows were draped over, blocking the light with thick, knitted curtains. There were coffins all over the place, and the boy from before- Stuart, was sitting on one, impatient, and, I thought, slightly nervous. It was obvious he was trying to hide it, he was draped in bluff as surely as the curtains draped the windows. And just like the curtains, there were little holes in the fabric. And so his anxiety shined through. He needed to learn how to act better, I had been acting my whole life. I can tell these things from even the smallest detail. I noticed that everyone had the same eyes. Apart from the sliver-haired man, well he might. There no way to tell with that fringe. Their eyes were all chartreuse, acidic and vibrant. My jaw loosened slightly, and I was able to move it up and down sort of. Stuart broke the tense silence.

"Well obviously this is a dangerous situation, but what do you need me here for?" The man, I decided to dub him Silver, looked at him and smiled grimly.

"You need to keep her secret." Stuart opened his mouth in horror. His eyes widened just a little bit.

"Her? But that's impossible, she would be dead, this is-this is-"

"A special case?"

"Shit." My tongue was a lump of flesh, but I could sort of move it. I forced out a few, muddled words.

"Whuuts hupuning?" I was groggy and afraid. They all looked at me, terrified.

"He- She's already speaking? That isn't supposed to happen for at least two days!" Andy said in shock and fear. I felt as if I could cut the tension in the room with a knife. The boy spoke up. His voice was cold and emotionless.

"We can't let her live. You know what happened last time." Silver and Andy looked over at me, seeming unsure. I opened my eyes wider. My lips pulled into a pleading grimace. Most of this was natural, but I added extra effect. After all, my own desire to live is not nearly large enough for me to be so pitiful. Andy and Stuart looked to Silver. He pulled up his fringe, and underneath I saw a surprisingly beautiful man. He seemed light, and friendly. His eyes danced. But beneath that there was an undertone of death. A grim, tight feeling. This man would kill me if he needed to. Climbing across his face was an ugly scar, puckered and red. Somehow it seemed to not detract from his beauty, but instead just add character to it. For some reason the scar made him more approachable, more human. Maybe it was just because I was so used to seeing scars, and mutilation. Some of my best friends lacked a limb. However, I must say that when someone is dear to you, their mutilation is so much harder to handle. In fact, you don't handle it at all. It just is. This man was not dear to me. And his scar let me know he wasn't invincible. I think that may be all there is to it. While looking up into the faces of these three strange people, I realised something about myself. Something that I had never even thought of noticing before.

I didn't want to die.

I didn't want to disappear.

This was something that might of been good to consider before I killed myself. I suppose in that situation I would have died anyway, perhaps it was best to do it on my own terms. Or maybe it just didn't make a difference. It hardly mattered now. I was evidently not dead, not in any kind of way I expected. You know, that might be a good question to ask.

"Am I dead?" I was quite happy with my articulation this time. Last time it sounded as if a drunken snail had written slurred, slimy passages for me to read. Stuart burst into a stressed, cutting child.

"Do you feel dead? imbecile." I narrowed my eyes.

"Hey, I just didn't want to knock the afterlife idea, I admit I was pretty sceptical, but it's great to hear that I'm not quite dead. By the way… What the fuck is going on?" Andy coughed, it sounded like he was trying to cover up a laugh. Stuart shot him a look, as if to say that this was not a laughing situation. And it probably wasn't, if anything about the conversation before holds true. "So, yeah. I'm incredibly traumatised, my family is dead. Oh fuck, that. Um, yeah I don't know what the bloody hell is going on. And you guys are confusing the shit out me. Can someone please explain in clear, concise, perhaps even paragraphed sentences?" Stuart rolled his eyes.

"You are an hour late, and you have regained the ability to speak very quickly. This has only happened once before-" I interrupted.

"And that last guy must of been a dick right?"

"I'm explaining! You said you wanted things explained so don't interrupt!" He took a deep breath before continuing. "The last person who did this showed exactly the same things as you. He came an hour late, showing up on a path between the different buildings. He regained his ability to speak and move much more quickly than you are supposed to. He was a nice man, well more a boy at that stage. Everybody really liked him and they thought he was just a weird case. He seemed fairly normal after all." His tone darkened. "And then, it happened." He sighed, running a hand through his black locks. "He developed this hatred of humans, I don't know why, it may relate to his initial suicide. He decided that no humans were worthy of staying alive. Most people didn't notice it at first, but every single one of his cases was marked completed, allowing the human to die each time. It's normal for that to happen, but after a while it was starting to get suspicious. After all, it had been a few years, and in that time, usually you'll find at least one human worth sparing. No one thought anything of it though. Until he took the next step." Stuart locked eyes with me. "He decided that not only did no humans deserve to live but… That they all deserved to die." He looked down, seeming to be remembering. "He started the bubonic plague." Stuart said very softly. "I imagine you will have heard of it." My throat had closed up. It was the plague. That was the plague he was talking about.

This man he was speaking of had started the bubonic plague. I was shocked, I had always assumed it was just people's bad hygiene habits.

"But that was so long ago… Surely you can't think I'm the same?" Stuart smiled dryly.

"Shinigami live for a long time. My father was there, he was good friends with that man."

"But I'm not him! I'm not, oh dear fucking Jesus Christ I want to go home." Then I remembered home. Vomit filled my throat. I swallowed it back down, not wanting to dirty this place. Then I thought, you know what? Screw it. They're planning to kill me, I'll damn well give them a cleaning job. I puked onto the ground. Stuart looked at me with disgust curling his mouth.

"I would never kill a human being." I said resolutely. The silver-haired man chuckled. He seemed to have perked up, which I did not appreciate.

"I'm afraid that doesn't work either, dearie. If you want to become a Shinigami there will be a wee bit of killing. Well, less so killing, more like allowing them to die. But aren't they all one and the same, with labels stuck in to keep faith in your own morality?" Silver looked away, there was sadness in his gaze, masked by a half crazed sort of barrier. Stuart had opened his mouth wide, his jaw was hanging, ready to catch flies.

"Are you suggesting she become a Shinigami!?" Silver smiled wanly,

"What else?"

"But father!" Wait, father? Damn that apple fell far from the tree. Shit, I bet a birdie carried it away.

"I think we should give her a chance. Her eyes are not malicious." Stuart stared daggers at me. And though the words sounded like they were addressing his father, he was glaring right at me. With a cracked voice, he spouted.

"Neither were his." And stormed away. He had obviously been there, no one could deny that. But how? He hardly looked to be hundreds of years old. I could understand if they aged slower but this is just pushing it. Through the circular window on the door, I saw that as he left, another boy joined him. Trailing behind him in a demure manner. Silver rubbed his head and sighed.

"I haven't felt this unamused in a hundred years!" He cocked his head to one side. "But there's always a time for laughter!" I wasn't quite sure about that… His eyes lit up. "Tell me a joke, won't you?" Andy coughed uncomfortably in the background. I didn't know any jokes, in my line of work amusement wasn't important. Intending to be curt and cutting, not to mention humourless, I spoke dryly.

"The economy." Andy snorted, and then attempted to cover it with a cough. Silver seemed rather disappointed. I raised an eyebrow at Andy snorting, and he mistook it for another message, stating.

"The Undertaker is not interested in dry humour." As if I were asking that. It's not as if I were assuming he would laugh, most people wouldn't. I was intentionally trying to be boring. It least I knew what everyone called Silver now. 'The Undertaker' it had a nice ring to it, but I think I preferred Silver. I said, slowly and deliberately.

"Okay, now Stuart did a fairly good job of explaining some history or shit why you guys don't like me, but I really need to also know what is going on. I died, I'm alive, I'm in a weird, white looking place. Pray tell. What the fuck." Andy cleared his throat.

"This is the 'Shinigami Soul Dispatch Society.' Approximately an hour before you appeared was the time when recruits were supposed to stop coming. We have an academy here, where we train new recruits to be Shinigami." I nodded, I understood. I didn't want to understand, but I understood.

"You also mentioned at some point that girls aren't supposed to be here?" A quick intake of breath.

"They aren't."

"Further explanation please?" He nodded.

"Female Shinigami are all born, not made. When a female human commits suicide, she follows the same process as a normal death. This is because if a female ever came here, she would die. For female Shinigami, this place, and also the air in the human world is filled with toxins. These toxins only affect the females and they are made from the releasing of souls. There are some females here, but none of them can be field Shinigami. They have to stay in the buildings that have toxin prevention spaces. Even then, for anyone to interact with them, they have to be sprayed and cleaned a great amount. It's the same for whenever you leave the 'Shinigami Soul Dispatch Society' and go into the normal Shinigami world. You, however, seem to be immune." Silver piped up.

"I couldn't have said it better myself! Also, not all the boys you see here will have once been human. Be sure to watch out for the pure bred Shinigami. They really value themselves above the rest, even though a purebred being here is a mark of their failure. Reaping is a dirty job, intended for the low class converted Shinigami." He smiled. "Not that you are low class, my dear. After all, isn't that all just propaganda?"

"I wouldn't know, Silver." I said, accidentally calling him by the name I had given him in my head. I flinched a little. Ooops. He smiled sort of dazedly.

"Someone else used to call me that." Then he straightened. "Oh yes, and one more thing…" He said, holding up a pair of scissors and a distinctly male looking uniform. I sighed. I should have known.

Author's note: Yay, first chapter. Please review, especially with criticism. (Just so long as the criticism targets something I can fix) Not all chapters will be this long probably. I think I may be quite sporadic with chapter size. I think it's a pretty average chapter, all I know is that if it took this much time to write out two sentences of plan, I have along story ahead of me. Fuck. Also sorry if The Undertaker is OOC. I don't know how he would react in this situation so I made him react in a way convenient to the story. (That's a writing no no, I know.) Sorry bro. Bro. Bro. Ima go watch brotown now.

-Anencephalouswriter