A/N: So I'm writing this at *checks clock* 3:19 in the morning on a Saturday because I just finished watching Guilty Crown, a.k.a, 'The Anime That Confuses Me But I Still Like to Watch'. I mean, I skipped like, 10 episodes because it was getting boring, right up to the ending. It's like shounen, mixed with shoujo and ecchi and mecha and sci-fi stuff, and I truly could not keep up without wanting to go to sleep at some point, or imagine really bad doujinshi somewhere (because, really, boobs don't work that way). And I had no idea what was going on, but OH MY GOD, it was so fucking sad. I have no idea what to feel right now. I'm sobbing over something I don't understand, but the ending was so beautiful, and – *dies of feels*
Maybe I'll finish this tomorrow (or is that 'later'?). Got the inspiration from The Book Thief and Guilty Crown, and some from other zombie novels I've read. This has got to be the longest one-shot I have written so far (13 pages on Word!).
I've decided to also make this my response to the Prompt Exchange Challenge: "Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places."—Unknown Source (given by TheEpicness239). The response is there. Somewhere.
But anyway, enjoy!
Summary: "I need you." (Futuristic Ichiruki, zombie AU) A zombie oneshot, in Death's perspective.
.
.
He contracted the virus on the twentieth hour of the fifteenth day of March.
His heart died along with a woman one week later. I watched him, all the same.
Come. I'll tell you his story.
~The Beginning~
"Don't just – no, don't shoot, you idiot!"
"Oi, it's not my fault you're in the way!"
She ran up to him and kicked his shins, to which resulted in an outcry of pain. "I'm not in the way! Learn how to follow orders!"
He glared at her, and she glared right back. "Maybe I will, when they start making sense! Besides, who gave you the right to –?!"
She pointed the gun at him, and he wondered if she really was crazy and everything up until that point was the result of pure luck. He sputters out something unintelligible. She scowls at him and pulls the trigger.
The sound of the gun going off rang in his ears. He didn't realise that he closed his eyes until the muscles around his face began to ache from the tightness at which he shut his eyelids at. He almost sighs in relief as he stands and opens his closed lids to a scowling Rukia.
And a dead zombie hanging on his shoulder.
Well, at least he's alive.
"You fucktard!" Rukia scolded again.
Scratch that thought.
"You didn't think I'd shoot you, did you?!" she practically shrieked. He grunted and pulled a hand over her mouth just to shut her up. He used his other hand to pick at his ears. Did she even realise how that could have made him deaf for life, shooting a bullet so close to his head? And what if she missed? He'd never voice these thoughts out to her, though; she'd probably actually shoot him where it really counts, just to prove that she can aim. Her yells have been muffled, at least, by his hand.
He looked around, just to see if the area was clear, and leaned in close to her. He didn't even mind the small distance; it's not like he was going to kiss her or anything any time soon. That would be absurd. "I'm going to take my hand off and you're not going to kill me, okay?"
She screamed unintelligible words at him, but he just shrugged, and pushed her so that her back was against the wall. "Shut up!" he told her.
Obviously, that didn't go well.
Her knee made particular, nicely-aimed contact at his groin.
Sharp pain became all he knew for the next few minutes, plus a few choice curse words coming from his lips. She just laughed at him and told him to suck it up, before kicking him in the same spot yet again. He cursed her to the highest heaven and lowest hell, but she just stuck her nose up. Snotty brat; it would be her fault if he didn't get to sire any children.
Not that he'd want to raise any children in a world like this, anyway.
I don't think he knew that he'd ever want to.
~Silent Night~
Imagine this: a man with bright orange hair, kneeling, pouring his heart out in fat drops of tears to the silent moon, surrounded by the carnage of the dead undead.
That is how I found him, a year after everything started.
But for now, I'll tell you about her.
She was – no, is – the only woman that he will ever wait for. She sacrificed everything. She was strong and kind and unbelievably resilient, right until the very end, where all that mattered were a few choice words that, for once, did not contain any insults at all. Or maybe those words had been insults, for all he cared; he did not want to hear them, especially not from her. He would not hear them, until much, much later.
She was a very petite lady. It made seeing the both of them in one place very odd, because the two of them are opposites, and yet, they are quite similar. She had dark hair and he has a bright head, she thought everything through and he rushed into the fray. But neither of them was very good with words, and neither of them was very good with much of anything resembling close to good social graces. She might have had them, once, but I don't think he had them, even before it all started.
What is 'all'?
I'll give you a clue: I was at many places at the same time, and I could never leave, at least not as quickly as I would have wanted. Their souls were trapped in their bodies, and I had to take each one out, one by one. It takes a long time, you see, because some of their bodies refuse to let them go. Something held their souls there, and they cried out to me, begging me to take them, just without the words. Their blank stares and rotting limbs made it impossible for me to go near them, and the chains that held them to the living made taking souls such a horrible task. It would be a while until I could collect all of them, but until then, I had to listen to each plea and pretend I didn't hear.
The Virus, they called it.
Quite a simple name for such a complex issue.
Who am I to know such things?
I am the last dying breath, the hurried, gasping last words. I am that final squeeze, the final throb. I am the conclusive goodbye. I am the lingering lost look. I am the hopelessness and the belief.
I am no one, and I am everyone. I am a phenomenon. I am the result. And I'm not the only one.
~The First~
Let's go backward a little, to when these two met, and to when I met them.
It was a red summer in Tokyo.
I do not mean that it was so hot that everything turned bright red. I mean that everything was covered in the red that flows in your veins, giving you life. That red is spilled everywhere, misplaced from where it's supposed to be. It used to be so easy for me: when the red spills, I come, and take the pain away when it slowly trickles out.
That had not been the case, that particular summer.
The Virus was well and truly underway. The spillage of all that red used to signify that humans were ready for me to take them, but right then, it meant nothing, nothing at all. I was confused, though I easily kept up. I kept trying to take their souls, but they wouldn't budge. They would ask me to make them stop hurting the ones they love, make them stop being so bestial and rotten.
Literally rotten.
So it was during one of my struggles with a particular soul that I saw their meeting.
I count myself lucky to have seen it.
I was chasing after a body that was lugging a young girl's soul in it through what humans would call a soccer field. She had dark hair, and begged me to stop her body, because she had already hurt her twin sister and she didn't want to hurt her big brother, too. Her big brother, who had constantly taken care of them, who kept blaming himself for their mother's death even though they all knew to blame the drug addict who shot her, who sang them songs to sleep and chased away their nightmares when their father was away. But her soul is muddled by the Virus, and I could not see the face of this brother, the face of such a kind, coarse soul.
I was curious, of course. I felt sorry for the girl, and I was glad when she came barrelling out of nowhere, running past the person that my current target was chasing.
She ended the existence of the girl's body, and I carried her in my arms. She was warm, and smelled of springtime.
I know I should not have dawdled, but I did.
And I saw it – their very first shouting match. It was quite an interesting sight, really. A small girl holding a wooden baseball bat with nails at its tip, and a large, rough boy at the cusp of manhood lugging around a big sword; both of them were shouting at each other, like there were no other fake bodies and chained souls around them. Their argument continued on as they killed and hacked and slashed and hit.
"You idiot!" the orange-haired boy exclaims. I frowned, I think, because I have a feeling that this is the big brother that the girl in my arms had in her memories. This doesn't fit. He's supposed to be gentle, and have a nice smile that could have rivalled anyone else's. This boy had a permanent scowl and rough hands. He swings his sword upward, and slices a body's neck in half. The soul is freed. I carry it on my shoulder. "Look behind you!"
The girl, who ducked as the boy swung the sword above her head, scowled at him and poked him in the chest. "Well why don't you stop being in the way?!"
Oh, how amusing it was!
"Goddamn it!" she exclaims, swinging her bat around and, in the process, taking out two bodies. I carried them all, kept them warm, whispered sweet nothings in their ears. "You idiot – tell me your name, so I can curse you!"
"Kurosaki Ichigo!"
"Well, I'm Kuchiki Rukia! You better remember it, punk!"
Well, that, and it was amazing how they managed to secure a relatively safe place for the night without killing each other.
~The World Ends (part 1)~
A fact: humans are far more efficient than I would have normally expected them to be, even without their technology. The act that they seem to be most efficient in is the act of ending a life.
There are many ways at which you can decapitate someone. During their brief time as the most feared undead hunters in human history, Kurosaki Ichigo and Kuchiki Rukia seem to have discovered them all. I'm surprised that they haven't written a book about it yet.
But that's what they were – the inseparable team, tenacious and utterly menacing. Their teamwork was unrivalled, their results stellar and guaranteed. As such, I followed them very closely. They gave me the most souls to carry. My comrades were scattered all over the globe in our hurry to carry them all in our arms.
By then, the humans have gathered themselves into a semblance of a working society. A man named Sosuke Aizen led them. There were stake-outs and rescues for groups of survivors and hunts for supplies, and all seemed to be working well, however fragile everything was.
They were rescuing people outside the borders of 'New Tokyo' when the world began to end.
"Move, please," Rukia urged the little girl that had fallen in the mini scramble towards the safe confines of New Tokyo; at least, as safe as a gated, barred community can be. A mass of people gathered at one place during such times was unnecessary for survival but necessary for the sanity of most, when humans seek others for comfort. The little girl wearily nodded and did as she was told.
Rukia turned to Ichigo.
"How are things holding up?" she said through gritted teeth as she shot a zombie behind him. He grunted and ran up to her. They pressed their backs against each other. The sudden uneasiness in his heart disappeared as soon as he felt her warmth behind him. His shoulder was numb with all the shooting, but that was fine, because Rukia was fine. He didn't doubt her capabilities – they aren't partners for nothing – but he can't help but feel a little overprotective of her.
"Can't complain," he replied with a smirk as they began backing away towards the gate, still shooting.
His heart thudded in his ears, just as it always tended to do. He ran calculations in his head – he's not as stupid as Rukia might continuously say, and she knew it, too – and surmised that they wouldn't be able to make it in time, if the zombies kept coming like that. There were too many closing in on them, shambling and running and crawling. Their stench filled his nostrils.
He had to get her somewhere safe.
Which was natural, wasn't it? They're friends, after all. Of course he'd look out for her. She had survived with him until the formation of New Tokyo and, even then, stuck by him all the way. He loves her. As a friend.
Nothing more.
But that wasn't the time or the place to think about such things.
The gate – tall and imposing at 30 feet – loomed over them. The zombies kept on coming.
I kept carrying their souls, handing them into the Afterlife as gently as I could. I tried not to let those poor, trapped souls feel that this was rush hour for me, and I had other places I needed to be.
They kept coming, begging for me to take them already. I have learned to ignore those that I had to, although with Ichigo and Rukia around, I didn't have to do that for long.
There was that one girl who got away.
Her hair fell on the ground in light, chestnut strands. Her scalp was damaged. She was, of course, covered in the stink of decay. She screamed at me to stop her as she ambled forward towards Ichigo, who had his back turned. He thought that they'd gotten rid of everything, and he was talking animatedly with Rukia, unaware of the danger.
I should have, if only I could.
He saw it too late, and only had enough time to shoot.
The girl had already scratched Rukia.
There was a guttural scream, and the black tar that came out of the girl's blackened lips. I took her in my arms, and she sobbed at me, blamed me for not taking her before she could hurt her dear brother.
I remembered the first time I saw the pair as they screamed at each other, and this…was probably the twin sister of the girl whose soul had first informed me of Kurosaki Ichigo's existence. I held her out to the Afterlife, who greedily accepted her, before I turned back towards the two of them.
"Rukia!" he yelled, taking her wounded arm. She hissed at the contact. Emotions I could have never known flitted across his face. He was lost. He didn't know what to do, how to feel.
What should you feel if you are on the brink of losing the person whose warmth seemed to be the only constant in a life of uncertainty?
"Rukia, damn it, keep your eyes open!"
"It's painful." The statement was barely a whisper, but the shock must have been on my face, just as it was on Ichigo's. For all the moments that I have stuck by them, I have never heard her utter a word of complaint about pain. She met Ichigo's gaze and smiled at him. "I'm going to die, right?"
"You're not," he said, taking her in his arms just as I would have. But her soul wasn't ready yet. It clung to her body desperately that I didn't have the heart to pull it away. She held hope because of Ichigo's firm resolve. That was what she heard, but his eyes and the moisture beading at the corners told another story of desperation. "We're going to cure you, Rukia, you'll see. I won't let you die, you hear?"
They headed towards the gate.
I sometimes wish they hadn't.
~I'll Be Here~
I had decided to follow them, finally, into the confines of New Tokyo. There was nothing for me to do there, but my friend had taken over my shift for the day. I could tell that they sensed my growing interest in these two humans, and they allowed me that, for now. I took the opportunity, and led myself to where they were.
Some kind of medical facility.
So, so white.
"What?!" Ichigo burst out. There was a man standing before him, his silvery hair a contrast to his youthful face. "What the hell do you mean?!"
"She has developed the antibodies," the man replied, not even looking up. They both glance at Rukia lying on the bed. "We need her DNA, so we'll have to keep her here for a few days. She'll be fine, but she won't be able to go with you for a while. You may wait for her until she's fine for you to accept a mission. President Aizen understands."
Ichigo's face turned different shades of red that I wondered if he would have an aneurysm right there, but Rukia's groan turned him back to normal. The doctor chuckles. "I'll leave you two alone."
Rukia asked Ichigo what was going on, why wasn't she a zombie, why – damn it, why – was she the exception. Ichigo could not answer for a while.
And then he told her.
She was the hope of the entire world.
This took some getting used to, of course. You can't just tell a person that the key to humanity's survival is their own body, but Rukia was a strong-willed woman. She would not let Ichigo carry the burden of having to see her tortured thoughts so close to the surface. She knew that he needed something to help him up; knowing him, he probably felt despicable for allowing her to get hurt, that idiot. He had a tendency to be overprotective, especially towards her. She tried to ignore the vain beating of her heart. Of course he'd look after her. Without her, he'd probably be dead, or be paired with someone who he was not compatible with. He wanted her around because they were friends. There would be nothing more than that, not to him, and she was fine with that (this is what she tells herself every night, at least).
"Well?" she prompted, unable to stand that look of helplessness on his face. "Why are you wearing such an expression, Ichigo?"
"I…didn't protect you well enough," he told her. Out of pure instinct – or need, to know that she would not leave, that she was warm and alive – he took her hand in his. He couldn't bring himself to look him in the eye. "I was too weak…and I let you get hurt, and now…now they're going to take your blood every day for their wacko experiments…"
She frowned at the statement. "A few pints of blood isn't going to hurt me." She attempted – and succeeded – at a faux smirk. She wouldn't let him see just how troubled she was. "What, are you going to miss me?"
He scoffed, but he never let go of her hand. "Never."
~I'm Always Waiting~
The world is a dark place, or so Rukia has told me. A human can never simply 'exist', she said, because a human has to 'live'. I did not know the difference until she explained to me how existing would be too simple, too easy.
I am very attached to Rukia.
I have followed her for so long that taking her soul in my arms had been such a foreign thought. She evaded me for so long that I never thought I'd be able to hold her. I thought, before she met Ichigo, that she'd come to me with her heart in pieces; that wasn't the case, although my theory had a strong basis.
The memories of the lost haunted her during the times when Ichigo wasn't there in her room, holding her hand.
I took her sister first. I noticed, then, that there was a small child in her arms. Alive and wailing in the rain; I touched the child with the impossibly purple eyes – a touch of colour in a grey world. Her dead sister had the same eyes, but not the same…life. I laid the bundle under the shade and left feeling…dissatisfied, and wrong. Like touching her was so wrong, like I didn't deserve to.
I came back to stand next to her when her friends from the orphanage died, that red-headed friend of hers begging me to let him go back so he can stop the tears of the young girl whom he's not even aware he loved.
I held the soul of the man in my arms one rainy night, and she held the empty husk of the body in hers, her heart cracking right in front of me.
This is how I see Rukia, each time: in the rain, broken in a way that no one can fix.
In that hospital room, I have come quite close to touching her and taking her with me. I stood there and watched as her resolve to live strengthened with each of Ichigo's visits, and I thought I wouldn't be taking her. Come back next year.
Once, I was an audience to a slumbering Rukia and Ichigo. He would not let go of her hand. He had made it his, and I think – I'll have to take it from you someday.
"Rukia," he uttered. He was restless, going mad from the 'lack of action', but he was constantly reminded of the fact that this lack of action is because of his incompetence. He vowed that he will never let this happen again. He hated the feeling of emptiness beside him, the feeling of Rukia not being there. She does, indeed, make a lasting impression.
"Rukia, forgive me." His face was the very portrait of a desperate man. His eyes had aged ten years. "I know this is for the best for everyone, but…I don't want you to be weak. Stand up and yell at me, kick me – anything would be better than…seeing you like this. This isn't you."
He paused, contemplating on the words that he wanted to say. I wanted to point out that she would not hear them anyway, and that he could say anything he wanted to, but I was…entranced by this display of human emotion. I have seen many, of course, but none as true as this, especially not from men such as Ichigo. "You know, I wasn't supposed to be there on that soccer field. Dad was called on an emergency at the hospital – I guess that was the start of the end of the world, right? Someone had to be there to look after Yuzu and Karin. Karin trained so hard…Yuzu baked those cookies so well."
Oh, how the past loved to catch up to Ichigo. It hung upon his shoulders heavily, and he knew he should tell her, or he'd burst from keeping those memories in. "Karin was the one that you…ended when we met. I'm thankful that you did that. I wouldn't have been able to. And Yuzu…she scratched you, didn't she? I hope you forgive her for that…" He was lost in thought for a few moments, before snapping himself out of his reverie. "Anyway, I wanted to say…well…I'm glad that I ditched my homework for my sister's soccer game that day. I was a model student, back then, and I still remember freaking out over the upcoming deadline. Heh, 'deadline'. Get it?"
I almost chuckled. He didn't know how close I was to Rukia. I wondered what he would do if he had known. Maybe he would have attempted to fight me off, take Rukia from me again. "I think I thought of it as the wrong choice at the time, but then I met you, and…everything was suddenly easier. I can't live without you, idiot, so you better get well soon."
He stood up and kissed her forehead. I turned and left, feeling like I intruded on something that I was not supposed to see.
She wasn't ready. She still hadn't heard those words from him, and I refuse to let her hear it through me.
~Half-Asleep Promise~
They were looming over her when she woke up. Her breath quickened in panic at the foreign voices, but she realised that it was that creepy doctor…and…was that President Aizen?
"You're sure you have extracted it all from her?" the President asked to her left. She tried not to scream. She evened out her breathing, trying to seem as calm as possible despite the raging storm in her mind.
"Yes, sir. She's ready, sir."
"Ah. I see. Send her out. Make sure she doesn't live. I don't want this cure getting out."
"And the boy, sir?"
"An unfortunate casualty, but only if needed."
~The World Ends (part 2)~
She was released, and just like I had expected, she practically forced Ichigo to take her out to hunt zombies. I followed them, as per usual. Like Ichigo, I was captivated at how she sprang up one day, so full of energy, and grabbed a gun with the intent to shoot the undead right through the skull. Unlike him, however, I was already counting down the seconds.
She stopped the van at the designated point. She rested her head on the steering wheel.
"I'm sorry," she apologized. In the background, the drone of the walking dead filled the air around them. She reached towards the back of the van, and his eyes followed her, wondering which weapon she was going to pick this time. He opened his mouth to ask, but she cut him off cleanly by holding a stolen cell bomb in her hand. It was already ticking down. His eyes widened.
"You're using a cell bomb?"
What did I tell you about efficient killers? These humans, they have found a way to attack each and every cell of an organism, literally obliterating one's own existence from society. But the chemical released for it is only supposed to target cells infected with the virus.
I looked between the two of them, confused. Had I missed something?
"I have the genome for it, don't I? I have the antibodies for it, so that must mean that…the genome is in me, somehow…right?" she asked him. "You'll be safe."
"Rukia, these are only a few zombies –!"
"They're going to kill me once we got back!" That ended the two-second argument. I wondered if there was anything wrong. I may be too inhuman to realize it, but I do know the value that humans put on lives. Lives, that, no matter how much they try to preserve, will still end.
I will still be there to greet them, no matter what precautions they take.
And Rukia knew this. She knew that even if they didn't go back, they would still die. There was no life that they knew of past the city borders. Food and drink would be an issue, and they won't be able to keep driving the van forever.
"I refuse to die like that," she gritted out, clenching the cell bomb in her hand. She cannot meet his eyes. "So…I'm sorry."
"What…?"
"Don't you understand, Ichigo? There will never be a cure for everyone!" she screamed at him. The groans grew louder.
Hurry.
"They're keeping it all to themselves," she said. She took his hand in hers. Almost on instinct, he flipped their hands so that his hands were encasing hers. She bit her lip to stop herself from whimpering out loud. No, she can't display weakness, not now, not in front of him. "I won't be able to do anything – they'll shoot me on sight. But you…can do something. You can keep your head down, pretend that I knocked you out –,"
"No, I'll protect you!" he yelled. His hold on her hand tightened. He leaned closer, trying to memorise her face. The way her eyelashes would fan her cheeks, how she would look at him with those eyes that would never maintain just one colour, how that stray strand of hair will never just stay back. And even beyond that, past the high-necked sweaters and the chokers that hid the scars on her neck. Past the boyish shirts that hid the scars on her back, and the jeans that hid the ones on her legs. "I'll protect you…"
There are tears in her eyes – the colour of a bruised twilight reflected on the deepest part of the sea.
"Don't leave me…" he begged.
The distance between them closed in a lasting kiss. I had to avert my eyes; I had to give them this one last thing.
Their foreheads touched. Already, I could hear her soul crying out to me to make it quick.
Please, make it quick.
I'll try, Rukia.
"I need you."
A quick exhale of breath. "And I need you." Another stolen kiss, this one desperate. They were deluding themselves in thinking that the more they do it, the longer that feeling will stay with them, even though they don't really need it for the feeling to remain. That feeling of sadness, loneliness…and timelessness. "Promise me that you won't follow me outside."
She slipped something into his worn jacket pocket before giving him one last look. They memorised each other by then, but nothing will ever sate their hearts more than that.
The three words that broke his heart.
The three words that were left behind the door of a rusty old van, along with the tears and the broken heart of a broken man.
Three words, repeated over and over when the bomb had finally dissipated. Mounds of the undead that had climbed over each other formed mountains. Their souls followed me, but I headed straight for her. He held her in his arms, staying silent well into the night, only crying when the moonlight hit her pale face.
She looks at him, at his shaking shoulders. She would not go until he left. He uttered the words of their past. The promises, both broken and kept.
You said that you'll stay with me forever.
Let's go together.
Please.
But I couldn't take him, not yet, no matter how much he pleaded. He kept saying the names of a god that he didn't believe in. His cries were lost in the impatient begging of the tortured souls that have stayed trapped in their rotting bodies for too long, but Rukia would not budge.
Not until he carried her body and kissed her dead, pale lips. Clumsy and tired.
Love in death, huh?
He carried her to the van and laid her comfortably on the passenger seat beside him. He even buckled her in. Finally, she turned to me.
Hello, Rukia. Ready to go?
~A Small Reunion~
One year later, Ichigo finally meets me. This time, we talk.
He became the next President, after getting rid of Aizen. I heard that he's finally making some headway in the vaccination against the Virus. He was hopeful.
But he was tired, so tired. He got weak without Rukia by his side, and it was only a matter of time until I became the reason that his smart, youthful right-hand man, Hitsugaya Toushiro had to take on his responsibilities.
He told me how every day, he would climb to the highest point in Tokyo and stare at the stars.
They're always there, even if we aren't…
Yes. Rukia told me that, too.
He refused to be carried. Instead, he walked with me, just like Rukia did. In the gates of the Afterlife, she was waiting.
I had to stay behind.
~A Conclusion~
There are days when I am not reminded of that awful day when the virus was released. That day, when the genome mutated into itself and brought itself back to life…that day when that first reanimated corpse – the first victim – made copies of its own.
Then, there are the days when I'm grateful that it was released, because then I wouldn't have met Ichigo and Rukia, and I wouldn't have stayed a little longer than I should have, and I would still be questioning humans and how pitiful they are. How low. How totally barbaric in their ways.
How incapable of any thought past their own.
But I met those two humans who showed me otherwise.
I don't see them, not anymore.
I hope they are happy.
Their final words:
The wrong choices brought me to where I needed to be.
.
.
A/N: I got the inspiration for writing in Death's perspective after I read The Book Thief for the millionth time. This is also kinda like a practice thing for me for the upcoming essay for English (ahahah, yeah). Anyway, I don't like the whole book itself, not really (I mean "the colour of Jews". Unrelated story: My friend asks me "what the fuck is 'the colour of Jews'?" and I'm just like: "Depends on what flavour." YES. LAUGH. IT'S SO FUNNY); I just like how it's sort-of written, and that part where Rudy dies (SPOILER!), which is my favourite scene. And then I thought: if zombies ever came into existence, what would that make Death? Redundant or not?
And then I came up with the idea of having "multiple" Deaths (which I only just touched on, because exploration of such things did not relate to this story). And: what if the zombies were the victims?
So. Yes. I hope you enjoyed this little thing. :D