*Author's Note*

While this chapter deals with a difficult decision the main character needs to make, I wonder what most people would do if in her shoes. Comment your opinion! I'm really curious to hear the debate on whether playing the executor of fate is right or wrong. Meanwhile, please enjoy. :) Any comments/critique are appreciated!

Death

I couldn't believe my eyes, but there it was, clear as day.

"Katherine Park, age 46, of Fish Camp, California passed away Thursday evening."

Beyond read the newspaper clipping out loud as I compared the 26 disposable camera photos he had printed, with the death date of February 7th, 2002 printed in neat letters on the back of each photograph.

"How did she die?" I whispered, wanting to make sure it wasn't Beyond who had snuck into her home and taken her life to prove a point.

"She drowned during a fishing trip at Bass Lake."

He passed the paper to me and I verified his claim, rereading the obituary over and over again until the words became blurry. I felt sick to my stomach. If I had any reason to doubt Beyond, it was gone now, my only hope of surviving past August 22nd lost to the wind. I clutched my knees to my chest and began to cry, loud heaving sobs that echoed across the cabin. Beyond only stood and watched me, until I had nothing left in me to give.

"How did you get this power?" I asked, finally, my words shaking.

"It was given to me."

"By who? Who in the world has the ability to provide… death dates?"

"Something supernatural, I assume." He paused. "There was a debt."

I didn't think to ask anymore, because it didn't matter. What mattered most was what happened next.

"And you want me to kill someone. Someone who is doomed to die. To prove to you that I… that I won't turn on you."

His eyes glanced upward in thought. "Yes, I guess you could put it that way…"

So this was it. Kill for the possibility of life, or stay moral and choose a life that may as well be death. I couldn't even imagine it again. Starving, handcuffed, pushed around. God knows what Beyond would do to hold me until my death date would come. I imagined a cell the size of a broom closet, with little bits of bread pushed through an opening every 3-5 days. Certainly, I wouldn't have to pretend anymore. I could call him names, curse him openly, fight him if I wanted, because he would probably try to hurt me, anyway. I wouldn't have to kiss him. But kissing Beyond and being free was far better than not kissing Beyond and being restricted.

Worst of all, there would be no opportunity for escape. No opportunity to bring Beyond to the justice he so sorely deserved. No chance of living a normal life until I met my demise. The whole idea of my death had felt like an abstract concept up until this point, more like a clock counting down to nothing than a real bomb that was bound to explode. But now, I couldn't waste any time. I needed him gone, and there was no way I stood a chance of getting rid of him if I was too busy being tied up and gagged and carted around Los Angeles like a limp doll.

Was playing executor for one person's life worth saving my own? Was it worth it if it meant I got to bring down the master executor himself?

No… I couldn't do it…

I jumped from my spot, clutching at Beyond's legs in the form of complete supplication.

"Beyond, please." I yelled, my voice raising with every word. "Don't make me do this, I can't do this! It doesn't matter to me if they die anyway, I can't murder another person. I just can't."

He kicked me off, turning his back on me and walking away. "I thought higher of you. If I can't trust you to work with me, I have to assume you're working against me."

"I'm not working against you, I swear it!"

"Oh?" He turned back around, eyes narrowed. "Oh, and if you had the chance to escape, to go back to the life you had before, you wouldn't even think of doing so?"

"NO! I wouldn't!" My pleas were growing more desperate by the moment. "I'm faithful to you, I'm completely loyal! I… I…"

"Yes?" he whispered. "You what?"

"I love you."

The entire room went still, me collapsed on the ground, face streamed with tears and snot running down my nose, Beyond standing above me, the light from the windows silhouetting his figure so he was nothing more than a black phantom, frowning in disappointment.

"If you love me, you'll kill for me. You have until the end of tonight to make a choice. There are no suitable candidates that I've seen in Bass Lake, but when we travel southward to Fresno there should be plenty to choose from."

"Please," I begged, reaching out. "Please trust me."

Beyond walked past me to the front door, shaking his head as he went. "You disgust me," he said, closing the door on my pathetic, bowed figure.

I couldn't think straight. Beyond had left me, sitting in a heap, sobbing, contemplating, but I couldn't stand being in that cabin for one more second. I slipped on jeans and a new pair of tennis shoes I had bought at the mall, opening the front door and sprinting for the woods. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't even know if I was trying to run away. I just knew I needed air.

And air most definitely felt good. I was never a great runner, and my recent loss of weight and muscle left me slow and tired, but I breezed through the pine trees, savoring the sharp scratches they left on my bare arms. It was freezing and I had no coat, but I didn't care. I simply ran. And ran.

When it became apparent to me I wasn't being followed, I slowed down to a walk. The sun was setting over the lake—from where I was, I could still see the house in the distance, and no sign of Beyond. I didn't underestimate his abilities; if he came back and I wasn't there, he would find me, there as no doubt about it. Worse, he would probably hurt my parents, just to make a point. I had almost forgotten about them. I intended to return; this wasn't an escape attempt in the least. But I wanted to breath free air, the last time as the person I was, the person I wanted to be…

But who was the person I wanted to be?

Even thinking that to kill another human being was the right thing to do make me nauseous. When I was in school, our government class had a poll to see who believed in the death penalty and who did not. Before revealing our opinions, we were to craft a thorough research report on the pros and cons of killing criminals in our society. Oddly, I had been in the middle at the start of my report. The idea of euthanizing a murderer did not seem like a good idea to me—I was optimistic, I did not believe in an eye for an eye.

The way I saw it, someone who had killed, whether it be by accident or whether it was premeditated, could have the potential to reform, and therefore continue to be a productive member of society as long as they were watched closely by the hand of the law. But, at the same time, those who chose to take away the lives of others and harm not only the person they killed, but the families of those they killed, needed to answer to justice, and was releasing them back into society justice? If they were not released back into society, they would simply rot away in a prison for the rest of their lives. How was that putting balance back into the world they had abused? From that point of view, the death penalty made sense. It was, in fact, not only a righteous way of killing but mercy. Who wanted to live in captivity for the rest of their lives?

Even this was debatable. If I was given the option to survive my death date, but with the tradeoff of having to stay in the cold grasp of Beyond for the rest of my life, I wasn't sure if I would choose to simply die or to remain living a significantly hindered lifestyle. At the end, I guess it came down to the person. But most criminals in prison who wanted to die rather than remain in prison often chose suicide. So what was even the point of the death penalty in the first place?

I had done my research, gathering the facts of the death penalty, learning that yes it cost more to execute a man than to let them live their life out in prison, but no, most families did not consider justice fully served for their loved ones' deaths unless the criminal was capitally punished. In the end, I showed up to my government class with a wishy-washy report not leaning towards one side or the other, simply a debate between two separate point of views, two sides of me I could not decide between. The teacher had us line up—the group on the left being against the death penalty, the group on the right being for it. In a class split in half, I was dead center.

My point of this being, even if I met a cruel man or woman, who killed nondiscriminately and who cause the suffering of various people, I wasn't sure I could be the one to swing the axe at the end of the day. Even if Beyond put in front of me a denigrated criminal, someone who had done more horrific things than I could ever imagine, I would never be able to make up my mind about killing him, death date or not.

But what about Beyond? I had decided to kill Beyond. That was something I knew in my heart I needed to do. I was unwavering, I was certain. It was different though, with Beyond. He had tortured me. He had taken me away from my life and brought me down to my lowest. He felt no remorse. While with a stranger, I could never be sure if they were deserving, with Beyond it was different. Perhaps I did believe in an eye for an eye. Perhaps in my ideal world, the one who swings the axe is the one who has good reason to in the first place.

This thought process was all with the existence of death dates and fate aside. Beyond could see the fate of others. Whoever I killed, if I killed anyone, was meant to die. It was cosmic, it was divine, it was beyond my own control. If I played along, I could possibly save myself.

My head was beginning to hurt, a splitting migraine that made me stop in my tracks. It was too much to handle.

Luckily, or unluckily, I didn't have to consider it much longer. The snapping of a twig caught my attention, and I turned sharply to see a middle-aged man standing not ten feet away. He held an orange in one hand and a pocketknife in the other, his eyes wide in surprise at the ragged, bruised girl who stood in front of him. My eyes glazed over. I could keep running, leave this man behind, but I made a split second decision and took a step forward.

"Please," I said, in barely a whisper. "Help me."

The man put the orange in his pocket, and reached up to scratch his balding head. All around us, a dusky haze was begin to set in as the sun dipped lower and lower below the horizon.

"Help you?"

I stuck out my arms, bruises from the game I had played with Beyond displayed prominently across my pale white skin.

"I've been kidnapped, from Indiana. A man is holding me hostage. He wants to kill me." No tears came to my eyes; I had cried myself dry already.

The man seemed more stunned than horrified. He didn't say anything for a moment, but then quickly turned around, ushering me onto a path just beyond the trees.

"Come back to camp. I have an emergency cell phone…"

I followed him with delicate steps, ducking under branches and through the bramble until we reached a small campsite, with a tent pitched by a roaring fire. He sat down in a folding chair and brought out a chunky phone, something that had to have been from the nineties and was quite different from the flip phones I was used to seeing.

I studied this man, wondering what kind of person he was. Judging from the fact that he wasn't taking advantage of the situation and was trying to get me help, he was a good person.

"Damn," he said, pressing a few buttons, the antenna on the ancient thing raised. "No signal. And it's about to die. We'll just have to go into town… I'm hiked just a few miles from the road. Don't worry, I'll get you home."

I knew I couldn't actually go with him. Even if I did manage to put myself into police protection, my parents would be at risk until Beyond was found. It didn't matter if they weren't meant to die anytime soon; from what I knew to be true, Beyond could do a lot worse.

"Wait," I said, putting out a hand. He looked up and blinked in surprise. "I… I'm starving. Do you have anything to eat?"

"Sure, missy, we can eat while we walk," the man said gruffly, passing me the orange from his pocket.

"Do we need to go now? I'm so tired…"

He looked hesitant, but I must have seemed pathetic enough to garner his pity. I sat down on the ground, holding the orange in my hand, not making a move to unpeel it. He set down the phone and the pocketknife onto a tree stump and stared hard at me, with curious eyes.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Leigh," I replied, setting the orange down next to me. "Leigh Ryuzaki."

"That's an… interesting name. You Japanese or something?"

"Do I look Japanese?"

He began to laugh, but my face held no amount of humor, and he quickly died down.

"No, I guess not."

"Please… tell me about yourself."

He looked confused, but not at all suspicious, wringing his hands. "I guess… we shouldn't be doing this, we should get going, but I guess I can tell you my na—"

His sentence was stopped short by a blade straight through the front of his neck. I held the handle, my wrist shaking as blood began to drip from the wound and down onto my fingers. The crackling of the fire and rustle of the trees and every other thing in the world went completely still. The man's eyes widened, then just as quickly went slack, his body dropping to the ground in front of the tent. I crouched above him and removed the knife, stabbing it one, two, three more times into his body.

I leaned into him, pressing my head against his bloodied chest to listen for a heart beat. If this man wasn't meant to die, he would still be alive. But I had made a well-calculated choice. This man was doomed to die. His heart beat no longer.

…

I stared straight out the window of the cabin, chin held high, fingers twisting the knife that hadn't left my hands since killing the man in the woods. When I had returned to the cabin, the lights were still off, and I saw my reflection in the glass of the windows: covered in blood, hair soaked red, my body the canvas of an abstract painting. I did not shower. I did not change clothes. Instead, I sat in the same chair I had been in that morning, when Beyond had given me the ultimatum. Waiting.

I heard footsteps outside the door; my hands stopped moving around the knife and I held it completely still. The door cracked open, and Beyond stepped into the pitch-black room, his eyes squinting as they adjusted to the lighting. Then he stopped short. He looked straight at me, face unchanged by my condition, but eyes giving away his wonder and confusion.

I dropped the knife to the floor.

"Your someone is dead."

He took a few tentative steps forward, circling around the coffee table to get to me. He bent down and picked up the knife, examining it.

"I didn't see anyone in town who was meant to die anytime soon."

I cocked my head, mimicking his unique movements, a perfect mirror of Beyond Birthday. "The man wasn't in town. He was in the woods. Camping."

He nodded absent-mindedly, stepping even closer. I wasn't certain, but I could almost see true fear in his eyes. Or maybe it was admiration.

"How did you do it? How do I know he isn't still alive."

"I stabbed him once in the throat, three times in the chest. You can find him if you want. He's maybe a mile and a half north of here, dead, in front of his tent."

Beyond lowered his head and for a moment I thought he was crying. His body heaved, head snapped upward, and his mouth opened wide before he let out a hideous cackle. His mouth was contorted into a vile grin, cheeks stretched out, and he could have been a true God of Death in that moment.

"You are far greater than I ever could imagine." His hand stuck forward, and I grasped it, the congealing blood making my hand stick to his grip. "I think it's time we made our final trip to Los Angeles."

"Yes," I replied, my voice flat. "Let's go."