Disclaimer: I do not own anything that is at all related towards El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera, however much I wish otherwise.


Her world was full of bright, fiery white-hot pain. Frida's body was a searing underworld of eternal agony and torment. Frida had some experience with pain, having a high threshold for it; it was a necessity when you're El Tigre's girlfriend. But she had never felt anything like this before; her body was ripping itself apart in the sheerness of the pain, and there was nothing she could do about it. If she could have, Frida would have screamed, but she didn't; any attempt to died before it reached her lips, choked out into nothingness by the intense fire that roared through her very soul.

Slowly however, as if it had never been there at all, the pain gradually dissipated, the bright light disappeared and the world returned to Frida. She wondered briefly why this was so, before noticing a presence nearby; someone close, someone who it felt cold, and lonely, full of anguish and woe. She tried to say something, to comfort who ever this was, but all that came was a mouthful of blood.

Perhaps thankfully, Frida heard the words, "Frida! You're alive!" The presence was Manny. Damn, it was Manny. Damn damn damn and other such obscenities. After all, here she was, dying a slow, painful death and what could be worse than the one person that she loved more than life itself being here to watch every excoriating moment of it.

"Y-yes," she said painfully, slightly choking in her own blood. Her mind turned back to the pain, or rather, the lack of it. In fact, where was once pain was now a numbness, a complete lack of feeling, which easily overrode the formerly present pain. In a way, it was somehow worse and lacked the comfort of pain; pain, as horrible as it may be, at least reminds you that you are alive. This numbness… it denied Frida even that comfort. She sarcastically praised her good fortune.

"Frida! You're alive!" said Manny's voice hopefully.

"Yeah, for another, what, 10 seconds?" thought Frida bitterly.

"D-don't worry Fr- We'll call the hospital- Trust- 9-1-1?"said Manny's faltering, death-hindered voice, filled with the tears that were surely flooding his face. By now, the world had started to fade, but unlike the first time, this time it was fading into merciful darkness of death, not the tormenting light of life. She wasn't long for this world, that was certain.

"Manny. Don't," she said, tears of her own in her eyes. It was painful to see him like this, so filled with sadness and grief. How she wished she could wipe those tears away, wash away all of Manny's pain, to see his happy, smiling face once more, to hear his laughter and to perhaps share his joy. She would give anything to do that, to have that, to help Manny in any way possible, but now she was deprived of even that as the darkness swarmed her entire being.

Well, if she couldn't do that, then at the very least, she should be able to minimize the damage.

Struggling, Frida reached up as far as she could and pushed the cell phone from Manny's hands. She summoned her remaining strength and said, "Listen; I have something to tell you." Woo, look at all those pretty colors! She had never known that there were so many of them that she had never seen before!

"What?" said Manny. "What do you have to tell me?" It hurt to talk, it hurt to speak, it hurt to breath but Frida continued. "Take, take, take good care of the cat for me, okay? And…and…" she struggled.

"And? And what!?" cried Manny, for once feeling so useless, so helpless. It hurt Frida to see him like this, especially since it was over her. The words came even harder now, but she had to try. "And re-re-remember that I…that I…" the world of light was now completely gone to Frida. Just the darkness remained. She was almost completely deaf; she couldn't even tell what, if anything, Manny was saying. She never knew it was so hard to speak when you can't even hear the words coming out of your own mouth. Darkness loomed, surged and was all present.

"That….I…lov-" Frida stopped and made a small groan, perhaps in pain, perhaps in fear, who knows? But either way, with a final exhale and more regrets than anyone should carry, the world as she knew it faded into an infinitely black oblivion and Frida Moreno Suarez died.


Now the world was black, a darkness of impenetrable stillness and silence. Frida didn't know why and couldn't even remember how she had gotten here, but it seemed to her that she had fallen into a sea of darkness, an eternal black abyss. Frida didn't know which was worse, the fact that she didn't know how she came to be here or how she was going to get out. She couldn't even tell if her eyes were open or not; when she tried both, she saw nothing but the same infinite void. This frightened her and sent shivers down her entire being.

"I have to find a way out of here. Wherever here is, that is," thought Frida, as she struggled to move her limbs, to find some possible way out of this darkness. However, if they did move, Frida couldn't tell; all feeling throughout her entire body appeared to have disappeared, which frightened Frida even more.

She started to flail her arms and legs around, in hopes of feeling something, but before she could get any further, she noticed a sudden bright light right ahead of her, a light that hadn't been there a second before.

"What? Is that…light!? Yes, its light! I can see something! Wheeee!!!" squealed Frida to herself, her heart light with glee. Light had to mean that it had to be coming from something, that there was something else besides this creepy darkness. Light meant hope.

It shone like a search beam and illuminated Frida's face, making her eyes wince. In fact, it was so dazzling that Frida could even see herself; she could see her arms and legs, and started to touch parts of her body. She pinched her arm and was meet with a sharp but familiar and thus welcome feeling of pain. She could feel again too. Frida's heart leapt in her chest almost as much than when the light shone.

Her hopes reinvigorated, Frida tried to move herself towards the light, hopefully the exit to this dark hellhole but before she could take another step, the light's brightness intensified and started to blind Frida. Frida tried to block out some of the light with her arms, tried to shield her eyes from the unforgiving brilliance but it didn't help any; the light came up to Frida and swept her away with its luminance, engulfed by it as much as she was by the darkness before it. If she felt herself shift from this, Frida couldn't tell; the light made everything all too confusing, too be fumbling.

But soon, Frida started to notice a subtle change to the light; it became to fade, fade away just as the darkness had faded from the light. And all too quickly, Frida could make out other things as well. The light was giving way and with it Frida could tell that she was back into reality, her reality, the one she had always known. She could see the ground below her, the sky above her and the buildings, sidewalk and other details.

She was still on the ground, lying on her chest, just as she was when that darkness suddenly appeared. Frida struggled to remember why she had been in it in the first place, but couldn't. Then she tried to remember what had happened right before that, in case if something had happened that could explain the darkness. She came up with nothing. She just couldn't remember.

Frida sighed but tried not to worry about it; if it was really important, then she would remember it, in time. That or someone would remind her just what it was that she was forgetting. These things usually sorted themselves out anyway.

Frida turned her head left and looked around the street, in search of anyone that she knew, maybe even Manny, who was usually so helpful with stuff like this, but she saw no one. She started to turn it right, when something unexpectedly caught her attention: another strong source of light. Frida closed her eyes again in pain and started to think that it was the light from before, her to take her away again, maybe to that dark place or maybe someplace even worse, if there was such a place. But then Frida realized something: it was merely the sun shining in her eyes.

The sun, which was setting, was giving off its last burst of radiance. The bright orb, which hung there in the sky like a ripe orange, shone off a brilliance of reds, yellows, oranges, pinks, and purples that Frida had never seen before. There was even a hint of green in the sky. It was enrapturing.

"Has the sun always that beautiful?" she asked herself aloud.

"No, not really. The array of colors you're seeing are actually caused by the pollution in the city; on an ordinary day in nature, where industry hasn't reared its ugly head and poured choking toxic fumes into the air, the sun doesn't give off as many colors. But where the sun fails to give off as many colors in nature as it does in the polluted cities, the sheer majesty of the moment in nature makes up for it," said a calm, tenor voice suddenly.

Frida swerved her head right and upwards and saw the faint outline of a person. Their features were a bit blotchy from the effect of the sun's brilliant light but Frida could tell that whoever this person was that he or she was standing just a few feet from her and looked no more older than 18, just a few years older than she was. How she had not noticed them before?

"Oh, um, hello?" said Frida nervously. "Um, if it's not too much trouble, who are you?"

The pale white figure smiled kindly but ignored the question, for now.

"Here, let me give you a hand," he said in friendly tones, holding his hand down to the girl, leaning over Frida slightly.

"Um, sure, why not?" she said, moving to get up. She moved her hands back over in front of her and began to push herself up. She failed to notice that even as her arms and hands pushed her up; that they actually went through the street's pavement before they actually stopped halfway to the elbow and pushed her upward. Getting up to her knees, Frida outstretched her hand and grabbed onto the stranger's pale one. Taking it, she next failed to notice that the hand that gripped the stranger's hand was not the tan one she was always used to but was a faint blue, translucent one. With a short, uncertain wobble and a final push, Frida got to her feet (while failing to notice that part of her right foot briefly vanished into the street as she did so).

"Thanks. For a second there, I wasn't sure that I'd be able to get up," said Frida with a half-hearted chuckle, brushing off her knees with her head turned downwards.

"Hey, what are friends for, right?" the stranger said with a simple shrug, which went by unnoticed by Frida, who finally picked up her head and faced the stranger head-on for the first time.

The stranger was clearly a male in his late teens or early twenties, who had a boyish look about him. He stood several inches taller than Frida and had the palest shade of skin that she had ever seen; it reminded Frida of the face of the moon, or perhaps the whiteness of human bone. His sleek hair, dark as ebony and just as shiny, fell down over part of his face; the rest ran straight across the back of his head and stopped short of his neck. He wore simple clothes, tight black pants and a black shirt, with a white cartoonish skull on its front with Japanese kanji running down alongside it. He had a countance that was like that of an angel, beautiful and perfect, as if it had been carved out of the highest quality of marble. To say that he put off an air of friendly ambiability would be putting it lightly; he exuded affability. His face looked like it was never far away from a smile of the most intense heart-felt warmness.

"Erm," said Frida. She hadn't expected the stranger to look so good and was tempo "You know, you still haven't answered my question from before: what's your name?"

The pale young man said, with hardly a change in expression, "I've been given many names, most of them involuntarily and without my permission. But, for the moment, you may want to call me by my profession."

Frida smiled in bewilderment.

"What?" she said, confused by what that meant.

The teen frowned ever so slightly. It looked as though someone had taken a work of art and gravely tarnished it.

"Have you…noticed anything different about yourself yet, Frida?" asked the teen, as gently as possible.

"No, I haven't. Why should I?" asked Frida, becoming more and more confused by the passing seconds, before something struck her. "How did you know my name was Frida?"

The man chuckled, just a little bit uncomfortably. Frida heard, or thought she heard him whisper to himself, "I always hate it when they don't remember," confusing her. Remember what, she wondered. He gently grabbed Frida by the willing shoulder and directed her a few steps away, then turned her around. He pointed to the giant fútbol, which Frida finally noticed had been right behind her the entire time. How had she missed that?

"Do you remember, at all, why this fútbol is here?" he asked in a serious tone. Really close to him, Frida could swear that he smelled faintly of poppies.

"No, not really," Frida said, puzzled.

The teenager visibly sighed and then said, mournfully. "Then, you may want to look a little more down."

Frida did and was met with a horrible sight.

Right there, just a few feet from them, was her, Frida Suarez, in all of her pain and glory, half of her body underneath the large bronze orb, crushed beyond all recognition. The body was obviously dead and the large pool of blood only made it worse. It was perhaps the most gruesome sight Frida had ever seen and it was only made worse that she knew that it was herself there, dead, slowly cooling and waiting for someone else to discover. But strangely, the face was oddly serene; this was unfortunately lost to Frida, as she looked at her dead body.

With a choked throat and her eyes filled with spectral tears, Frida asked to the pale teen, "So. I'm dead then?"

"Yes. You really can't get any deader than you are now. Sorry," the teen said sympathetically.

"Then…then… that means that you're…?" Frida left the last word unspoken. There was no need to.

"Death. Yes. Them's the breaks, unfortunately," said Death with a sad little smile.

Frida stood there, her arms limp at her sides, still staring at her dead self. She felt numb inside.

"I'm…dead. I'm dead? I'm dead," kept running through her mind, as her gaze kept to the body. Finally, Frida fell down to ghostly knees, which caused her to sink down slightly into the ground before her body was righted again and came back up to surface level.

"Yes, you are," said Death bluntly, before pulling himself together and saying in cheerful tones, "Don't worry, it happens to everyone eventually! Relax; take a few deep breathes and try to calm yourself. You'll get used to the idea of being dead. After all, the worst has finally happened; how much can it get for you, right?"

"…" was Frida's response, as she continued to stare at her body. And then it all suddenly came back, like a dam had finally broken, bearing all of the memories with it: the walk, the box of kittens, the fight between Manny and Black Cuervo, the bouncing fútbol of death, her last moments, everything. It all came roaring back to her and flooded Frida with a surge of feelings and emotions, many of them disorderly and chaotic but they all ended in one thing: shock and a terrible, terrible feeling of sadness.

Death frowned and bending over waved his hand in front of Frida's face. "Yoooo-whooo! Frida! You in there?" He snapped his fingers a few times for good measure. She failed to even blink.

His frown increasing in length, Death pushed up his short sleeves and began to pull Frida off from the ground.

"Come on Frida! Snap out of it!" Death said, shaking Frida. "Wake up!!" he shouted, before starting to slap Frida back and forth. Finally, Frida broke out of whatever world she was in and snapped to.

"What? What's going on?" she said worriedly.

"You were going to shock. You were getting all worked over about being, you know, dead and stuff," said Death, taking a step or two back.

"Dead? I'm dead?" started Frida again. Death groaned and gave Frida another shake.

"Don't go into that again! I hate to see anyone going into shock or being sad… Please?" he begged.

Frida didn't start to go into shock again; in fact, she started to get mad.

"Well, why shouldn't I be sad? I'm dead, remember? I. Just. Died! And you want me to just accept it like that!?" she shouted, snapping her fingers for good emphasis. Death smiled again, a little uncomfortably.

"Well, no, not necessarily. But I would appreciate it if you didn't start taking it out on me, though," he said ruefully.

"Well, why shouldn't I? I'm the victim here! I'm dead! What are you going to do about it!?"

"Nothing. I'm not the one that killed you. That was Zoe Aves, or Black Cuervo. Whatever. The point is, I simply don't want it to ruin your day, okay?"

"Ruin my day!? It's my entire life that has been ruined! Now what am I going to do!? Now I won't be able to do all of the cool stuff I had planned for myself! I won't be able to grow up and become a news reporting/manicurist/superhero/presidente of the whole stinking world! I won't be able to grow up and have kids! I died before I could legally drink! I even died a virgin! A freaking' virgin!!! Can you understand my pain!!?" shouted Frida, waving her hands in front of Death. She noticed that, sometimes, her hands would actually go through Death's body instead of hitting as, as it also did. She also noticed that her arms weren't tan but a light, translucent blue

Death turned his head back to Frida's dead body, then pulled out a small little notebook and read it briefly.

"Well, it says here in the Book of Ages that when you died, that the entire of your lower half was utterly crushed under the fútbol, that every one of your foot and leg bones broke at least once, the most 6 times, that your hip is broken or fractured in 3 places and that some of your organs were torn apart by the impact or punctured by a broken rib bone. And one of those organs included your genitalia."

Putting away the book, Death said, "If I had to guess, the impact that crushed and killed you probably crushed and broke your hymen in the process. So, if you want to think about it, you died while you having sex with the fútbol."

Frida glared at him and whispered, in a tone that could kill, "That's not what I meant and you know it."

"Yes, I do. But you're the one that's getting mad over the whole thing. You're dead, Frida; accept it. There's nothing that you can do to change it, no way to return to the way things were before today. All there's now is acceptance. That's it. And please don't redirect your anger at the "unfairness" of the situation on me; you lived a full life and that's all you are going to get. Just because it was shorter than others doesn't mean that you lived any more or any less than any one else. You got to live a life time, something few beings get to experience in this existence. Be thankful that you were given that," said Death, ever so sadly.

Frida raised a finger, about to make another protest, when she actually thought about what Death had said.

It was true; she was lucky to have gotten what she had been given. Sure, she wanted to experience more of it, but then, that didn't seem to be an option any more. And unless she could do a whole Frankenstein deal, which was unlikely, she doubted that she could change it. And here she had gotten mad at Death, who had never done anything to her.

Understanding this, Frida said, "I-I'm sorry Death. I-I don't know what came over me. It just seems so unfair; I thought that I would have gotten more out of life than just this. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you like that.

Death gave a friendly smile and said, "Oh, I understand. It's that way with most people anyway: always expecting for life to go on forever, until one day they learn that as much as they wanted to believe it, that they aren't as immortal as they thought they were. It's only natural; I'm used to it anyways."

"Still, I'm sorry."

"Yes, well…" said Death, before he felt a sudden something that hadn't been there before, pushing him forward a bit.

"Well then, if that's all settled," he said, putting his hand on Frida's back, "I've got other people today to do, so if you'll just come with me…"

"Oh! Right, sorry. Um, Death, can I ask a question?" as she was lead by Death into the light.

"Yes, what is it?" said Death, conversationally.

"I was wondering: if I'm dead, how as I able to feel the sun in my eyes? I don't have any nerve endings anymore, right? So why did I feel pain? And, if I don't have a body anymore, why haven't I, you know, gone down into the ground then? After all, if all that I am is a soul right now, why would I still be able to touch things?

"It's your corporal memory." said Death. But seeing the confused look on Frida's face, Death explained:

"You see, you've spent an entire life inside a body that couldn't handle looking into the sun and so have become accustomed to not looking at it too closely. You think that you feel pain from looking at it when you really don't; it's the memory of it. Don't worry, it'll go away soon. It always does."

"And the same thing goes with your environment. You've already seen that you're transparent and that you can go through objects. That you're weightless now. But, you've also noticed that you haven't gone through the ground any more than a few feet. That's also corporal memory; just as with pain, you expect things like gravity to still work as they always did when you're alive. It's just that, since you're the recently dead, that you still a bit uncertain of the shape of things on the spectral plane. You're still adjusting. Don't worry, it'll pass too; as long as you don't think too much about it, you won't start falling into the earth. And even if you do, you can always just imagine yourself back on solid earth and then poof! There will you be, right back solid ground. Of course, you can walk through junk and will be invisible to stuff, but besides that, you'll be pretty much set. But you really don't need to worry about it too much; after all, when you get to the other side, all of this won't apply to you anyways," explained Death.

"Oh. Okay. That makes sense then. Um. One last question," said Frida, a bit nervously.

"Hm?" said Death.

"Where's Manny? Why wasn't he by my corpse back there?"

Death suddenly stopped walking alongside her in the light and, for the first time it seemed to Frida, really looked surprised. Troubled even. He had looked anxious when she had started to go into shock, but that wasn't anything compared to how he was acting now.

However, to his credit, Death recovered quickly and lied, "Um, he went to go get help. When you died, he was heart broken, tears and snot everywhere. He tried to get your body out from underneath the fútbol but couldn't since it was too heavy, so he decided to go get help, to get it off of you so he could take care of your body. That is, after beating up Black Cuervo, I mean."

But now Frida could tell something was wrong. What it was, she couldn't tell, but something about Death's story didn't add up and she decided to say so.

"Death, are you lying to me?" she asked bravely, questioning one of the greatest forces in all of existence's honesty.

Death looked offended. "Me? Lie? To you? What makes you say that, Frida? I always tell the truth?"

"Stop it Death," said Frida, giving the personification a slight glare. "Your story doesn't sound right. Why did you add the part about Manny beating up Cuervo at the end, like as an after-thought? And why did you look so nervous before you answered my question, hm? And don't even bullshit me about your honesty; I bet you lie as much as any other human."

"Er…" started Death, before he fell into an uncomfortable silence. Now he really looked uncomfortable; he always hated being the deliverer of bad news. It's one thing to tell someone that, yes, they were in fact dead, because there was a kind of finality in that. In someone's death, at the very least, there was the odd comfort with it that tells the deceased that while their life may not have been the fairest or the most peaceful of lives, that now that it is over, that their agony and strife is over and that they were finally free from the pains of life. But to deliver the bad news of the living, especially to the deceased, not only meant that it effected the living and could cause even more pain to the receiver and that the deceased would be troubled by this and would want to help whoever the bad news applied to but that, since they were deceased and could no longer actively interact with the living, that they could only stand back and watch the living suffer even more.

Death sighed. "Do you really want to truth? Because, if I tell you, there's no going back. You won't be able to forget this, even if you wanted to. And it will only cause you more pain than you have now."

Frida was taken back by this, but never one to back down, she said, "Yes. Tell me the truth."

"Very well then," said Death, his hand combing his hair. "You see, after you died, Manny was in absolute misery. That part is true; the rest, unfortunately, is also true. But after crying over your corpse a little, Black Cuervo mocked Manny about your death, which sent him into a blood frenzy. He would have probably torn her limb from limb, but at the last second, Cuervo zapped with a taser. Last thing I saw of them was Cuervo carrying El Tigre's limb body into the horizon."

"What!?" said Frida panicky. "Where did they go!?"

"Like I said, I didn't see where exactly where they were heading, but if I had to fancy a guess, I'd have to say that Zoe brought Manny back to her home, the Flock of Fury's hideout."

"What!? Black Cuervo is Zoe Aves?!!" exclaimed Frida, who had failed to notice Death's previous attempts to reveal Zoe's secret identity.

"But, wait," she said, when Death's last statement caught up with her. "What would Zoe want with Manny? I can understand why she'd want to ace me, what with our feud and all, but why get Manny involved?"

"It's always been about Manny," said Death wearily.

"Wait, what? It has?" said Frida.

"The feud. The whole thing: the fighting, the years of loathing and contempt for each other, everything; at the heart of it all, it was all caused by Manny."

"Wait! Why would Manny be the source of the fight? Zoe and I have been fighting all these years because she won't stop pulling awful pranks on me; Manny has nothing to do with it."

Death shook his head. "No, no; he's always been the cause of it. Tell me Frida: have you always been friends with Manny?

Frida, puzzled, said, "Well, no. Not really. I mean, we met in kindergarten, in time out. We saw each other and, being kids, were naturally friendly to each other. We would, heh heh, we would actually get in trouble, just so we could hang out together in time out and then, when we got to elementary school and beyond, detention. We've been best buds ever since then."

"Yes, yes, I thought that would have been the case," said Death, nodding sagely.

"What's the case? What are you talking about Death?"

"Frida, do you know who Manny's best friend was before you stole the title?"

"Um, n-ooo?" said Frida innocently enough.

"It was Zoe. Zoe Aves. On that day, when you two became best friends, at the instance you two met, you were destined to be forever bound with each other. And, as a direct result of that, Manny choose you as his new best friend. Oh, yes, as a child, he probably didn't think much of it, but then, most children don't think; they rely on instinct instead. And when he made that decision, he immediately ousted Zoe not only as his best friend but as a friend altogether. And, because she lost her best friend to you, Frida, Zoe Aves decided from that day to hate you. She may no longer remember the event herself but the fact remains that Zoe now hates you, from a subconscious level. Or rather, what with your death and all, hated you, from a subconscious level."

"Well, that still doesn't explain why she kidnapped Manny now," said Frida. "Even if Zoe wanted to be friends with Manny, I doubt that he would want the same, particularly after he saw her kill me with his own two eyes."

"Agreed; it doesn't make much sense, does it? If she wanted Manny for whatever purposes, then killing you was the wrong way to go about it. As long as Manny Rivera is Manny Rivera, he would never forgive Zoe of that and would be thus useless to her," said Death. "But, I doubt that Zoe wants Manny to be "friends."

"Then what does she want Manny to be?" asked Frida.

"Cuervo loves Manny, Frida. Zoe loves Manny. Remember, all those times that she would make it obvious she had a crush on him?" said an exasperated Death.

"Oh yeah! How did I forget that?" said Frida, before it came to her. "But, if Zoe wants Manny because she loves him, then why would she still kill me? If she really loves him, then she would want Manny to love her back. But by killing me, his girlfriend, she just made it impossible for him to love her. Why do it?"

Death shrugged, just as confused as she was.

"Perhaps she believes that she can make Manny love her in turn, in spite of that. I don't know. But what I do know is this: Zoe has brought Manny to her home, against his will, and she is most likely not using her best judgment. This could be bad," said Death.

"Why do you say that Death?" said Frida.

"Well, to Zoe, she had finally defeated her one true enemy: you, Frida. And she now has her spoils, her treasure, Manny. So, if that is the case, then answer me this Frida: What does the homecoming victor do with her spoils?"

Frida shrugged.

"I don't know. What does the victor do with her spoils?"

"She will try to consummate the relationship, just as any true warrior would do. After all, she's only human; she has her desires, her needs. I couldn't honestly even blame her that much for it," said Death, as if such things were commonplace in the world today.

"Consum-what?" said Frida. "What do you mean by that Death?"

"Zoe will probably compromise Manny and find a way to fulfill her love and lust for him," explained Death.

Frida gripped her skull. "Just say what you mean!!"

Death sighed.

"Kids today; they can't just take a hint, can they?" he thought.

"She will, in most probability, try to rape Manny, in some hopes of capturing his heart."

To say that Frida's mouth fell to the floor was an exaggeration would be a lie. She paused, taking this information in carefully, just in case she had somehow misheard Death.

"Three...two…one," thought Death sadly, before the screaming came.

"WHAT!!!???" shrieked Frida so loud that Death had to put his fingers in his ears. "HOW DARE SHE DO THAT!!!!! IF SHE LAYS ONE HAND ON MY MANNY, I'LL KILL HER MYSELF!!!! I'LL TEAR HER LIMB FROM LIMB!!! I'LL MAKE HER REGRET THE DAY I WAS BORN!!! SHE'LL BE BEGGING FOR DEATH BEFORE I'M THROUGH WITH HER!!! THAT LITTLE BITCH!! WHO'S SHE CALLING A WHORE, THAT SHITTY SLUT!!!"

"Frida!" shouted Death, as Frida continued to curse Zoe's very soul.

"IF SHE THINKS SHE'S FELT WRATH YET, SHE'LL PISS HERSELF SILLY WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON HER!!! THAT LITTLE PIECE OF SHIT!! …

And so on. Frida screamed, shouted and cursed out Zoe's name for well over 10 minutes before Death could even get a word in edgewise.

"Frida! Control yourself!" shouted Death, catching Frida by the sides and shaking her vigorously. Eventually, he stopped, when the girl seemed no longer so inclined to scream her head off.

"What?" she asked quietly, her head downcast. She went quiet then and fell into a low lying crouch. She said nothing, she did nothing. Death had almost been expecting a slap or a punch in the gut, but neither came. But instead, all Frida did was close up and shut down. Somehow, this was worse than the screaming

"Frida?" said Death, putting his hand on the girl's shoulder. She coldly shrugged it off without a word.

Things grew quiet then, in the passageway to the light. Neither of the two spoke, Frida in her numb silence and Death in his patient waiting. The words would come, soon enough. They always did. After all, even after receiving news about something like this, people always found something else to say, somehow recovered. It always varied a little of course but humans, given the right motivation, could recover from anything that came across their path, Death knew.

Eventually, Frida began to speak again.

"Death?" she said, her ethereal arms across her spectral knees.

"Yes, Frida?" said Death as tenderly as he could manage.

"Can I stop it from happening?" she said, looking at her translucent hands as she said so. They weren't the strongest, the most flexible, the prettiest, or the best of hands, Frida knew, but they had always served their purpose, had always been there for her when she needed them. They had always gotten the job done and for that, Frida was grateful for them. But now she need to do something with them that would be possibly the most important thing she had ever done with them and she didn't know if they were any longer capable of doing it.

"Can I stop Zoe from raping Manny? After all, look at me; better yet, look through me. I'm dead. I don't have a body anymore. If I could, I would save Manny from Zoe's clutches a thousand times over and a thousand times then. But I can't touch anything; it goes right through me. The only thing I've been able to touch so far has been you and even then I sometimes go through you. How can I possibly save Manny if I can't even touch him? Death, tell me: is it possible for me to save Manny, being the way I am?"

Death gazed down at the little girl before him. He wasn't entirely sure what to say. Should he tell the truth, or lie again. But then, the last lie failed miserably and Frida wound up like this from it. In the end, Death decided to tell the truth.

"Yes, Frida, yes. It is possible for you to save Manny from his probable fate. I can't tell you how unfortunately. That would be against the Rules. But, it is possible for a soul to affect the physical plane, yes. But, I'm sorry to say, that's not going to happen."

"What!? Why not?" demanded Frida, who suddenly turned against Death. Suddenly the light didn't seem so bright, as wonderful, as it first had when she had entered it. Frida began to see details outside of the light: the physical world. Death frowned unhappily.

"Frida," he said, stretching out his hand, "Once a mortal soul goes down the passageway to light, they aren't allowed to go back. The physical world is behind you; please, come with me."

Frida took a step back. A little more of the physical world came into view.

"No. I'm sorry Death, but I can't," Frida said, before she turned tail and ran out of the light's welcoming fingers and back into the real world.

"Frida! Wait!" shouted Death, stumbling out of the light, but Frida just kept on running.

She ran and she ran, down streets and ally ways. She ran past many of the city's notable sights, like Sun's Tomb and the Cenotaph of the Moon, Bull Plaza, the Miracle City Acropolis and Art and History Museum, which threw Frida off track for a while (she had never known that the Museum was full of so much paintings! Or historical artifacts). She ran past the School, El Casa de Macho, her own house (a pang of pain in her heart there, but there was no time to mourn over that now), among other places. Frida ran as far and as fast as she could, as straight as she could, straight to the home of Zoe Aves.

Wind poured in, out and through her body. She ran as if her soul depended on it. Her ghostly lungs burned from the effort and her legs ached. The corporal memory of what happens to when an ill-exercised human runs across a city was taking its effects. Even when she was alive, Frida had never run this far or this hard before. It would be easier to signal for a cab or hitch a ride, but this was proven impossible for two reasons: one, its hard to signal a cab when you're invisible to everyone, including the cab driver; and two, even when Frida did manage to get into a incoming cab for someone else, when it pulled away, it would drive away with her still hanging where she sat down, sitting in mid-air, before corporal memory set in and she fell to the ground with a soft "oomph!" So, in the end, Frida wound up running the entire way.

Eventually, Frida came to a stop at a street corner, leaning partly against, partly through an opposing building. She panted with ragged breath. The Flock of Furies hideout was still halfway across the city and she didn't know how much time she had before Manny forcibly lost his flower.

"As much as I hate to be a pessimist Frida, I have to say, it's pointless to run," came Death's light voice. Frida spun around and saw him there, as calm and collected as ever, leaning against the building.

"After all, it's me chasing you. Remember, Death, the great inevitable? The one thing no man can run from? Am I ringing any bells?"

"H-how did you, how did y-you-?" asked Frida, her words coming out jumbled and uneven.

"How did I catch up to you so quickly, without you ever even hearing me chasing you? Sorry, that's a trade secret, I can't tell you in case if you run into some other lost soul and told them about it. They might use the knowledge to gain an edge over me, which, while still useless over me, would still be a headache for sure," said Death. "Now, if you'll just come with me…" he said, coming closer to Frida.

"No! Stay away!" shouted Frida, who sprinted away again.

After running a few more blocks, Frida began to feel a little better. She didn't hear or see any sound or sight of Death. Perhaps he was gone for good…?

At the next corner, as Frida ran around it, she collided right into Death and fell back ungraciously on her ass. Death didn't even budge.

"Come one Frida! I don't want to make this an unpleasant experience. I'm just doing my job. I know it's a terrible thing that will happen to Manny but that's life! People suffer from it daily! Life is a bitch, Frida; please, don't make me act like one too. I'd rather not use force, but I will, if necessary."

Frida got up, with some trouble, and glared at Death. Her skirt, which had ridden up her hip, was promptly pushed down with some trouble.

"Death, if you really cared about what happening to Manny, then you'd do something about it, not just stand there! If you want to help Manny, then go to the Flock's hideout and save him! You can do it; you keep popping out of nowhere. I'm sure you can get to the hideout and stop Manny from being raped!"

Death sighed.

"Frida, if that was my job, if helping the living was my job, then yes, I would, without hesitation, go save Manny. Problem is, its not. Instead, it's my job to help the dead cross over into the afterlife. That's it. Whether it be for better or for worse, I'm not allowed to aid the living by any means necessary. I just can't. I wish I could, but I can't. I'm sorry. Now, will you come with me?"

Frida took a step back, then another. She continued to glare at Death with the intensity of a thousand suns. It hurt Death for her to look at him like this, but then, what choice did he have?

"No," she whispered. "No. I won't go with you, Death. I have to save Manny." Then she ran in the other direction. Death sighed. This might take a while.

Soon enough, Frida arrived at the front door of the Flock of Furies hideout, which towered over the nearby buildings and was adorned at the top with an artistically hand-carved eagle head. Just outside the front door waiting for her, Frida found unsurprisingly, was Death. Death turned his head upwards towards the top of the avian structure.

"You know, I never have been able to understand why this place is considered a hideout. I mean, if you really wanted to keep yourself secret, you'd make your hideout as normal and discreet as possible. Instead, they have a giant-ass eagle statute as their freaking roof! It couldn't be any more obvious who lives here!" said Death.

"Um, I think that's the point," said Frida, too looking at the "hideout."

"Yes; they probably made it so obvious, just to say out loud to the world that, 'hey, we are the bad guys, we have cool wrist lasers, and there's nothing you can do about it! And even if you did come and arrest us and confiscated all of our stuff, then we'd just break out and rebuild! Baw ha ha ha ha ha.' That sort of thing."

"Yeah," agreed Frida.

The two stood there, eyes gazing at the Flock of Furies hideout, never saying a word. It was pointless to do so now anyways. Still, Death decided to give it one last try.

"I don't suppose I can convince you to come with me, can I?" he said outwardly hopefully, as despair filled his heart.

"Nope. Nothing. I have to go in there and save Manny, with or without your help."

"Sorry. Rules are rules. Can't break up, even if I wanted to, and God! Do I want to."

"I'm sorry to hear that."

"Me too."

"Well then. Better get going in there. Um, Death, before I go in," said Frida.

"Yes?" said Death calmly.

"Do you…do you know if there's… still time?" she asked.

"I'm omnipresent, Frida. I'm everywhere in the universe, every where that an organism, an individual, can die. I'm not just here, standing beside you, begging you to come with me to the afterlife but I'm also on the other side of the world, helping the souls of people dying from famine, pestilence, war, and the like. I'm half-way across the universe, gathering the souls of a planet desolated by a super volcano coupled with a deadly asteroid strike. But I'm not omniscient. I don't know everything in the universe. Anything that has to do with death, I'm aware of, but only in the broadest of ways; I'm able to scrap pieces and bits of information together and get a general idea of the world. I may understand secrets and knowledge of this world, of this universe, that would curl your toes but I couldn't honestly tell you what is happening, detail by detail, right now, in say Brooklyn, or Tokyo or Moscow. I'm can't be whole-heartedly certain. I'm sorry that I can't tell you more than that."

"Well then, can you scrap together what is going on in the Flock's headquarters then?" asked Frida painfully.

"Hm," said Death. "Well, I can tell you that there are at least 2 life forms inside."

"Anything else? Are they doing the nasty, right now?"

"Frida, such language!" said Death kiddingly, giving Frida friendly push on the shoulder.

"Death!" urged Frida.

"All right, all right, I'll check," said Death, putting his hand on his head and tilting it to the left. And after the longest pause, Death said, "No. I do not sense the copulation of new life being created in the hideout. Luckily you got here just in time to…" started Death.

"Then I'm going in!" said Frida, and she charged the front door of the hideout.

There was a sound, a strange one, one that most people will never hear in their life. It's not a common sound by any means, but if it had to be described, it would sound like something small, fast, and blue-haired bouncing off of a hard, gelatinous surface and landing on its cute little ass.

"Oomph!" went Frida, as she landed on her ass.

"…just in time to be repelled by the Flock of Furies' ghost shield," finished Death blandly. He stuck his hand down towards Frida. "Need a hand?"

Frida batted the personification's hand away.

"I don't need your charity," she said, getting up on her own. She stared long and hard at the Flock's doorway and finally went to the door and tried to push her hand against it. Just as her fingers got less than two inches to the doorway however, a pale green force stopped her hand. Frida pushed harder the force wouldn't give. At last, Frida took both hands and putting her heels into it, pushed against the door with all her might. The force field didn't even budge.

Frida took a few steps back in puzzlement and tried to figure out what was happening. She quickly gave up and turned her head to Death.

"What the hell is that?" she asked, pointing to the doorway and the green force field, which disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared.

Death shook his head.

"Do you remember what I said before, about corporal memory? And how, because you expect to feel pain, you actually feel it, when you really shouldn't?" said Death, as Frida nodded. "Well the same kind of thing applies here: someone is expecting a force field to repel you, a soul, away from this home and so, you are."

Puzzlement written on her face, Death elaborated. "You see, in a town like Miracle City, where century-old skeletons can summon skeleton banditos and blue-faced zombies are a minority group, its not strange for people to be superstitious. And by people, I mean Zoe's grandmother, Lady Gobbler, who has placed several occult items. And, like with corporal memory, Lady Gobbler has faith in these items; she believes, with all of her avarice-ridden, shriveled, encrusted heart that these items will keep the bad things away, like vampires, ghouls and ghosts. And, seeing as how you are a soul that is still present on the physical plane, that entails you, Frida; as far as the mystic emblems are concerned, you are a ghost and are forbidden entry through this doorway and this entire house without either the consent of the owner of the occult symbols or a source of really, really, really powerful magic."

Frida, bemused by this, looked at Death curiously, almost like a kitten stares at a small squeaking toy mouse. A smile began to crawl along her face.

"And before you ask, as I can see it on your eyes and your face, no Frida, I can't get you in there," said Death tiredly.

"But why!?" she exclaimed, nudging Death in the side. "You're death itself! You should be able to break through the belief of an 80-some old woman!"

"But that doesn't mean that I'm allowed to! Yes, if I wanted, I could shatter that force field of sheer faith in an instance, but I can't! It's against the Rules! If I went around and started to shatter people's belief in things, then where would humanity be, huh? If I, the personification of death, went and broke apart the living like that, I would become something I'm not! It would totally mess with the order of things! It's Life and the people in it and the circumstances of the universe that shatter people's beliefs! Even the inevitability of death can shatter someone's beliefs. But not me myself, no! It would go against everything that I am, everything I stand for! Please don't ask me to do something that I cannot do Frida; if you do, it would just make it all the more worse!" burst out Death, hands in the air, gripped as if they held some ferocious, vile, despicable demons from the depths of hell.

"Can't, or won't?" said Frida coldly, her gaze penetrating through Death like frozen needles.

"Please Frida," said Death, on his knees. "Don't ask me to do something I'm not, do not."

"Then tell me, Mr. Death, what am I supposed to do, huh?" demanded Frida, her finger thrusting toward the towering building before them. "In this hideout, are both the love of my life and my worst enemy, who is apparently going to take the virginity of my Manny, by force! Not only am I dead and probably couldn't stop her to start with but I can't even reach them to stop it in the first place! What am I supposed to do, just let it happen? Just accept and move on to the other side? Sorry, not this girl, no way! Caring angel of death or not, I won't go until I'm sure that Manny is safe from that slutty bitch!"

Death looked at Frida, for the last time, with tears in his eyes. Even though he looked all to the world little under 20, Frida could see that beneath it all, that underneath, Death was much older than he looked. Much older. In fact, he looked older than anything she had ever seen in her entire life. It didn't matter if he still had tight, youthful if pale skin. It didn't matter if he kept his sight and looked like he was carved from marble; Death looked old in ways that Frida couldn't describe. He was old, underneath all of that flesh, and with that age, was the pain of thousands of lifetimes come and gone.

If she was in a more passive mind right then, Frida would have forgiven Death of all of it, of all of the things he was trying to pull away from and would have gone to the other side with him, just so she didn't have to see that old face again. However, this was not the case and when Death, in all of his internally aged-self and sorrow, took hold of her shoulder in a soft but firm grip, with determination also now crackling in his eyes like fire, Frida could only come up with one response: her phantom lower right limb, her pale blue leg, rose up between Death's legs and connected with the very top of the bridge between the two limbs. There was a muffled sound of ghostly flesh connecting with flesh and a short, tight groan and Death went down like a sack of potatoes. And Frida, turned around, and without looking back once, ran and ran and ran. Where to, neither Death nor she knew, but one thing was for certain: she had to get out of there, to find someway of getting through Lady Gobbler's force field of belief.

Death, on the ground and on his face, gave another groan, his hands on his crotch. Stars flew behind his eyes and he was in his own little hell of masculinity and testosterone. It wasn't often that he felt actual physical pain, since most personifications don't, but whenever he did feel physical pain, Death internally noted, it was in times of the most inconvenience and in supple quantities.

Damn. Damn damn, shit, damn. Crap. How did he let her get away? Why did he let her get away? It wasn't like it was infrequent that souls tried to run from him, as if they could escape their fates. So had this one gotten away? Honestly, Death couldn't answer that question and this annoyed him to no ends.

In the midst of his pain, Death felt the same familiar presence that he did before, when he and Frida had stepped into the passage of light, which gave a none-too-gentle mental push on Death's backside. He tried to ignore it and instead turned towards the process of pain that kept flowing throughout his lower regions. However, as Death knew it would, the presence presisted until he finally decided that he might as well gratify it his attention. Death picked up his face as much as he could will remaining on the ground and turned towards the presence.

It was a small ball of infintitely bright light, hovering just out of his reach. It was a servant, of sorts: it accompanied Death on every reaping and acted as the portal to the hereafter, yet, unlike most servants, the orb didn't serve Death underneath directly; instead, it was a servant of Life, Death's opposite twin, who by Life's orders worked aside Death, transporting the recently deceased into the Afterlife, Life's other realm, a realm that none but the dead have seen and which no mortal can ever know of. The orb, which had no true name, could be considered by some as the Light at the End of the Tunnel and perhaps it was.

The Light hung there in the air, like a distant star in the night sky, faceless in its shapeless brillance, and somehow gave Death the impression that it was frowning disapprovingly at him. It fluttered a little when it spoke to Death in words not meant for the ears of mortals, in words that bypassed the ears entirely and was sent directly to the brain, who turned his head curiously at the ball of light's reappraising tone.

"Excuse me? Oh, the girl. Frida? Yes yes, sorry I couldn't collect her properly. Don't worry, we'll catch her the next time around. Now, forgive my rudeness but,I have something more important onhand, so if you'll excuse me," said Death impatiently, who returned to his own private hellhole of pain.

The orb fluttered again, this time with a doubtful tone.

"What? Of course I was going to bring to the other side! What makes you think I wouldn't have? I've always filled out my quota, ever since the beginning of time itself! Why would I suddenly decide to let this one slip away?"

The orb made an unheard, accusing suggestion.

"Felt sorry for her? Of course I felt sorry for her! She had just died an awful death! And what with Manny's situation…" paused Death, before continuing. "You can't blame me for sympathizing with her, if only a little. and we still shoveled them into the afterworld. Why now, of all times, give one random-joe some slack, huh?

The orb impossibly shrugged and continued its accusations.

"But that doesn't mean I would have let her escape because of that! Not intentionally, anyways. I think," said Death, a little self-doubtingly, before turning back to the orb. "Besides, you don't have a perfect record either."

The orb made the unseen gesture that it was offended by such an allegation.

"Don't tell me you don't remember; you remember everything. With that pretty waitress? The one who accidently died from a improperly

The orb made it clear that it had no idea what Death was talking about.

"Oh, come on! You know, that waitr

The orb .

Death laughed a little. The pain was almost gone now; not only had time dissipated the pain but since Frida was no longer the next client, Death's body was again changing to meet their expectations, which thankfully didn't involve a male's sex organs. Death guessed that, when Frida expected for death personified to be a handsome teenage Goth boy with a fragrant body odor, that she expected the full package and not just a boy's face and muscles but his family jewels as well.

"Either way, you didn't have a chance with her, what with your lack of gender or even a humanoid body and her tastes in the fairer sex; it would never last! So get over it already, alright?" said Death, trying to get on the Light's good side.

Death stood up and looked thoughtfully at the orb. The orb asked what he was going to do with Frida's runaway soul. A small black kitten, the same one that had bolted when Black Cuervo attacked, casually strolled by and rubbed itself affectionately against Death's leg. Without taking his eyes from the orb, Death bent down and picked up the mammal with care and began to rub its stomach with all of the tender warmth and care of a mother. The kitten purred contently, closing its eyes in contentment.

"Oh, let's not worry about it too much, eh?" Death said with a shrug of the shoulders, as he, with the cat, and the Light stepped off into the reality just beyond the eye's edge of sight and the cusp of human hearing. "After all, she will only go so far; she's only putting the inevitable off anyways. Whether she saves Manny's virginity or not doesn't matter, because, at 12:00 midnight tonight, when Manny finally becomes a man at the hands of a lust-driven young woman or Frida somehow pulls off a miracle and saves him at the last minute, then her soul will be ready to come with us. Either way, we can't lose.

The orb asked if he believed if Frida would somehow find a way to save Manny. Death gave another shrug. His finger moved upwards toward the kitten's ears, scratching them absentmindedly.

"Damned if I know," he said with a small smile. "But then again, this is the city of miracles. Maybe Frida will pull a rabbit out of the hat and save the little guy after all. I just hope that she does it the right way."

The orb, curious what Death meant by that. The cat, curious about Death's fingers, began to sniff Death's fore finger, which was becoming increasingly skeletal by ever passing moment.

"You know was well as I do; in this city, this city of miracles, there are both light and dark forces at work. Frida needs some of the most powerful magic in existence to break through Lady Gobbler's iron belief and to do that, she can either make parlay with the forces of good or evil, correct?"

The orb, with a sharp dip, nodded. The kitten, sated with attention, quickly jumped out of Death's arms and at a healthy trot went down the street and around the corner. Death sadily watched it go; he was rather fond of cats.

"Well, if that be the case, let's hope that Frida meets the right people to help her and doesn't wind up making a deal with the devil. That would make things… messy, for us to clean up."

Death's silhouette is the last thing to disappear into the next reality, leaving a tall, dark, grinning shadow of his "true self." It wasn't an unpleasant grin, but then, it wasn't a pleasant grin either. It was the sort of grin that the wearer makes when they don't have any other choice but grin; it was a specter grin, the grin of a skull, the grin of Death. He alone made it work and damn! he looked good in it.


I've spent close to two months thinking and rethinking this chapter over and over in my head. And now that I put it on paper, its even longer than I thought it would be. It shows, doesn't it?

Moreno isn't Frida's real middle name; as far as I know, she doesn't have one. I just thought that Frida Suarez was too short for my purposes and so I just picked a Spanish surname I liked on some website.

I honestly don't know much of Miracle City's locations and I don't have the time or patience to watch enough episodes to get any specific locations (can't seem to find any of them online) , so I decided to write some parodies of famous places in Mexico City instead, which is probably the city Miracle City is based on anyways.

Kindly review