You guys are getting two chapters tonight because I'm feeling in a giving mood. Also, this one is a bit short, so consider it a compensation. Enjoy!
The sun was kissing the horizon when the strange duo finally emerged from the darkness of the tunnels, Rod piece in hand.
"Ugh, thank God!" the girl moaned as they the stepped into the sunlight. "We were down there forever!"
"Don't be so dramatic," Death told her, "We got what we came for, didn't we?" The girl had already recovered from both her near-strangulation and apparently from her humility too. She'd returned all too quickly to complaining with what little remained of her vocal range.
"Whatever," she scoffed, "I've gotta take a breather after all of that. I've got a stash that's hidden not too far from here if you don't mind."
"Actually, I do mind, but I take it that you don't care what I think."
"Don't be such a sourpuss," she taunted, slinging her gun over her shoulders, giving her back a languid stretch. "It'll only take a few minutes, and it'll give me a chance to get our bearings."
Death sighed. "Very well. But don't be long, little one, there's still the final piece of the Rod to recover."
"You got it Big Guy, I'll be quick."
The Horseman paused. "Why do you call me that? I have a name you know."
"Call you what? 'Big Guy'?" he nodded and she shrugged in reply. "It's called a nickname. Besides, calling you 'Death' just kind of feels weird. No offense, but you have to admit it's pretty ominous. Besides, you call me 'Little One', don't you?"
"I call you 'Little One' because you've given me nothing else to call you! Or would you rather I give you a different name. I can think of plenty that would apply." She grimaced at the unspoken threat.
"No no, it's fine. Tell you what," she offered instead, "If you actually manage to get me out of this mess alive, then maybe I'll tell you my name, okay?"
"You don't sound all too certain that I'll keep my end of the bargain," he said, hands on his hips.
"Hey, anything can happen, right?"
Death didn't have an answer for that. Even he wasn't sure they would make it out of this shattered world alive. All of Creation was against them in this.
The girl had gone on without him, squeezing through a narrow gap between two uprooted slabs of asphalt blocking the entrance to an alley. "Wait right there!" she called through the opening, "I'll get the door for you."
She had led him to a block of small warehouses, openings barred by metal shutters. Within the alleyway, Death watched the girl scrabble up the wall and slide through the remnants of a small shattered window. Moments later the shutter sprang open and the girl beckoned him inside.
"We should be pretty safe here for a time," she said, having to jump to catch the handle of the shutter and pull it closed before seating herself on a crate. In fact, the whole of the small space was filled with crates; Death himself barely fit inside. Even Dust danced uncomfortably on his shoulder at the confinement.
"Quite the collection you've here," he commented.
She shrugged, rooting around in the mess behind her. "I've been squirreling away supplies all over the city for a while now. Helps when I need to keep moving."
"What about you?" she asked, busying herself with opening a can of preserved peaches with a knife, "you said you're here for your brother. What's he like? You gotta be pretty close if you're going through all this shit for him."
The Horseman snorted, taking a seat opposite her. He studied her with a tilt of his head as she swiftly devoured the can of fruit. "You remind me a little of him, actually," he said at last. The girl looked up in surprise, pausing as she sucked the peachy syrup from her finger.
"Really?"
"Yes… Impulsive, pig-headed, resistant to just about every kind of authority- shall I go on?" He smirked at the sneer that spread across the girl's dirty face.
"I'm going to try real hard to take that as a compliment," she replied through gritted teeth. "I can only imagine what the two of you are like around each other. I'd like to see that."
"Oh absolutely not!" he exclaimed, "I fairly certain that the two of you would try to tear out each others throats the moment one of you opened your mouth. No. War may be my brother, but there have been plenty of times when we haven't seen eye to eye. Still, he is family and I would ride to edges of Creation if that would mean saving him."
"Hmm," she hummed quietly.
"I miss my family," she said it so quietly that Death nearly missed it, "the apocalypse is lonely."
"If I've anything to say about it, you won't be alone for much longer," he stood and offered her a hand, one that she took with only a little hesitation. "Now come, the sooner we finish this here, the sooner I can fulfill my promise."
She gave him a small smile, as genuine as ever he'd seen it. "You're a good guy, you know that?" she told him as she opened the shutter to the street. "You try to act like you're not, but you are."
Death's eyes narrowed. "Speak of what happens here to no one girl," he replied sharply, "And are you sure you don't want a hand with that? Wouldn't want you to wear yourself out."
The girl, who had been struggling to reach high enough to pull down the shutter, gave him a blue glare. "Alright, forget everything I just said. You're still an asshole."
"So, I've been thinking," she said after a time, "If you're Death, you're brother's War, are your other siblings Famine and Pestilence?"
"Fury and Strife actually. Where your people came up with such epithets, I'll never know."
"Wait, are you telling me that you're actually a Horseman of the Apocalypse?"
"Yes," he replied, raising a brow beneath his mask, "I thought that was obvious at this point."
"That wasn't exactly the first thing that crossed my mind, you know," she huffed, "I've kind of had other things to worry about recently if you haven't noticed." Then, without as much heat, "So why did only your brother come here? Isn't the apocalypse something all of you are supposed to do?"
The Horseman was silent for so long that the girl was sure that she'd offended him.
"The Seal was not broken…" at last he spoke, so quietly that she just barely heard.
"What was that?"
"The Seventh Seal was not broken," he said louder, voice tinged with bitterness, "Seven Seals were made to be broken in the End War, opening the way for the armies of Heaven, Hell and the Third Kingdom to do battle. The seventh summons the Horseman. That Seventh Seal was not broken, but still my brother rode to Earth. He was framed, of that I am sure."
"Damn," she breathed, "I didn't know the Apocalypse was so… political."
Death snorted. "It's not something I would expect a child to understand."
"Wow, excuse you," the girl interjected, bounding forward so that she could fix him with a glare, "If I've got my time of year right, I'm twenty years old this past month."
She stopped as though struck by a sudden thought. "Man, if everything were normal, in one more year I would've been able to buy alcohol. That's a depressing thought."
"'Twenty years'?" Death taunted with a grim chuckle. "Girl, I've quite literally lived through millennia. No matter how long you live, you will always be a child to me."
She grumbled. "In that case, you don't have an opinion in this. If I get through this, I'll only live another eighty years, tops. I can't help but think about everything I've already missed; everything went down before I graduated high school and I hadn't even decided where I wanted to go to college. What will happen if you bring everyone back? Will they even remember?"
Death shook his head. "I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you, little one," he said, "even I'm not sure what will happen. But I will not allow my brother to suffer alone. If I perish in the attempt, so be it."
"You don't seem very optimistic," the girl droned.
"Hope is fragile and fleeting girl," he told her, "Its not something I take too much stock in."
Strangely, the little human's face stretched into an ironic grin. "Hope," she said, dragging the word out, "is a lot stronger than I think you're giving it credit for. You might want to give it a chance sometime, cus it might just pay off. It has for me so far."
Death stopped, once again baffled by his situation. The company he kept was never a positive crowd; true optimism was not something he was accustomed to. Her whirlwind of mood was difficult for him to keep up with.
"I don't understand you," he admitted, striding to match pace with her again. "You're alone here; the last human in this city if not this entire realm. What have you to hope for?"
She shrugged. "I've known since all of this started that I didn't have much of a chance. But if I just sat there, or wandered the city looking for people I would never find, I would've gone insane. I had to keep going, had to hold on to some belief that I'd live."
She came to a stop and faced him. "But now you're here, and so far I'm still alive in spite of the fact that I nearly died twice today. That's gotta count for something, right?"
Death couldn't help himself. He chuckled deeply, reaching out a large hand and ruffling the girl's already disheveled hair. She squawked in surprise, sounding hilariously like Dust, and ducked out of his reach. Her cheeks flushed pink as she started on another angry tirade that Death barely heard. He turned over the girl's words in his head. If this one human girl, this one young woman, without even an iota of the power the rider possessed, could hold out hope for so long, than perhaps so could he.
But any thought of hope was put to the back of his mind as once more the quiet shattered like so much glass. The air split with a monstrous scream and the thunder of feet joined the chorus.
"Oh, come ON!" the girl shouted, throwing out her arms in exasperation. "Are you serious right now?!"
"And you say I'm the one who's killing the mood," Death said blandly. The first of the undead horde poured around the corner and once more they were forced to run.