The moment they appeared on the last plane of their trip Jane whipped her head around to face where Death had last stood on her shoulder, only to immediately huff.
“Disappointed?” Death asked.
“You’re back to normal,” Jane said unhappily. The Reaper stood off to the side in their standard garb without any hint of deviation. She’d come to enjoy their changing look.
“Of course, though I shan’t rob you of the chance to guess why.”
Jane crossed her arms and tapped her finger against her bicep. Searching for clues, she allowed her gaze to wander. She and Death hovered meters above a vast, endless sea with gentle, rolling waves stretched out in all directions. The sky was blue, cloudless, and bright as midday, and the air was missing its characteristic scent of salt. There was no sign of land anywhere, but in the far distance she could see what appeared to be a mountain so tall that its summit faded into the sky.
A rumble filled the air as she looked, followed swiftly by a dramatic shift in the sky from cloudless to turbulent. Storm clouds bellowed out their roars as a torrential downpour swept over them in seconds, and the waves rose to match this shift in mood, cresting and crashing without build up.
Jane irritably wiped her sodden hair away from her drenched face, smearing her makeup. “Really? A sea of possibility?”
Death chuckled. “You are the one who enjoys puns. Do you not find it humorous?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
The rain stopped.
Jane blinked and stared up at the sky. Within seconds, it had gone back to cloudless and sunny. She looked back at Death. They stood neutrally, untouched by the rain, regarding her patiently.
Nodding to herself, Jane focused and willed her hair and makeup to fix themselves, then straightened the cuffs of her sleeves before speaking. “There are no possibilities for you. You’re inevitable.”
Death shifted, straightening their shoulders almost imperceptibly in what Jane recognized as delight. “Very good, Jane. Among all possibilities, no matter how long a soul may live, I will always be there at the end. Days. Centuries. Millenia. It makes no difference to me—I will never change.”
Jane held her arms behind her back and stared into the distance. Neither of them spoke. “How does it feel?” she asked at last. “To be as powerful as you but to be stuck as what you are?”
Death tilted their skull down. A faint, hazy blue dot appeared in each of their eye sockets, fixing on her. “Why do you suppose I’m looking to take a vacation?”
She nodded slowly. “It must be hard.”
The lights in Death’s eyes faded. “Sometimes. I’m sure you can empathize.”
Jane froze. “What do you mean by that?”
“I know you, Jane, and the events that led you to me. I know you have some idea of what stagnation is like. How long—"
“Death.”
“—did you work for Cultivision without—”
“Death.”
“—moving on to the next—”
“DEATH!”
Death stopped.
Jane took a deep breath. “Please. That’s not something I like reliving.”
“It is over though, Jane. It no longer matters.”
She shook her head and looked away. “Yes, it does.”
“Why? You’re dead. It can no longer sway you.””
“Maybe I’m more like you than you think.” She leveled a flat stare at the Reaper. “Unchanging.”
They appraised each other for several long seconds. Death drummed their fingerbones against their scythe. “Time may not hold power over me, Jane Rousseau, but even a dead soul can grow. It is my hope that you learn this before our work is done.”
Death continued staring at her until she looked away, uncomfortable. “Speaking of, we should get back to it.”
“I suppose so.” Death waved their scythe and the ocean below them seemed to drain of all color, opening a window to its depths. Figures of all shapes and sizes floated about, oblivious to the change in their environment and each other. Pockets of energy flickered between them, flashing like darting fish before disappearing. “Like the Realm of Hope, most souls never manifest here,” Death said, launching into explanation without further preamble. “It takes time for a being of possibility to take shape, and they only do so when they are near to being certain. Unlike the Realm of Beginning which presides over potential energy, this plane governs the kinetic energy of souls that already exist, effectively birthing versions of who people may become.”
They pointed at two people who drifted along next to each other. A hazy golden energy seemed to spark between them. “Those two souls are currently in a state of entanglement, affecting one another through proximity. Each is affected by the other in some way, and in so being shall create new versions of themselves.”
Jane nodded. “Souls of Possibility are born when they’re close to being certain. Got it. Will there be any angels here to tell us when they’re ready to die?”
“No, these are reaped like a soul from any other plane.”
“If a soul here needs to be close to being certain in order to manifest, then what does it take for a possibility to die?”
“It could be the death of the soul they’re tied to in the Maker Plane, it could be a sudden life-changing event in their Maker’s life, or it could even be a conflict between two possibilities. Look there.”
Death pointed to another set of souls, each identical to the other. One of them slowly began to move only to shoot off at blinding speed all at once, tearing through the water on a path to the far-off mountain. The one left behind began to float to the water’s surface.
Death nodded to the floater, who’d seem to come alive, pulling themselves out of the water and standing on it as surely as any rock. “That one will need to be reaped.”
“What happened to the other one?”
Death hummed. “We can come back for them. Grab my sleeve.”
Jane did, and the world blurred as they streaked across the ocean. The distant mountain rapidly rose up to greet them, but to Jane’s astonishment, was not actually a mountain at all, but a gargantuan waterfall—waterrise—that spilled upwards into the sky with a bone-shaking roar.
“There,” Death said, nodding to the water while steadying Jane’s motion-sick frame with their hand. Jane looked just in time to see a figure flying by beneath them on a course to the waterrise. “This is the great Gate of Conclusion, where the possible become certain. Only they may pass through.”
“What?” Jane yelled.
“I said—” Death paused, then huffed. “You do not have ears; you can hear me just fine.”
Jane kept the charade up for a moment more, then grinned. “You got me.”
“Very funny.”
“I thought so, too.”
Death shook their head. “I—" Whatever they were about to say was cut off as Death’s skull rattled on their neck like a vibrating phone. Their eye-lights appeared at once. “Ah. Interesting. I am being summoned.”
Jane blinked. “That’s what that was?”
“Indeed… Did you give Kay my hourglass?”
Jane nodded. “In case he needed to get in touch with us.”
“Jane, that hourglass forcibly summons me.”
“What?”
“Why do you think I was so annoyed at you for having interrupted the Centennial?”
“Mother… Death, do you remember what we talked about? About communicating these things to me?”
“I did tell you!”
“You only told me that it would summon you!”
“Exactly! It summons me!”
“That’s—”
Before she could say anything else, Death flickered like a strobe light before disappearing entirely. Jane threw up her arms. “Great! Yes! Good! Leave me in fucking Waterworld!”
Jane kicked her foot at nothing, and immediately paid for it by dropping several feet in the air towards the water. She stumbled, staring wide eyed at the sea. “Oh, you gotta be kidding me.”
Death had left, and had taken their magic with them.
She fell the rest of the way, landing on the water’s surface with a splash. She fell back completely, staring up at the blue sky, allowing the gentle waves to rock against her without a fight. “Save me, Costner,” she grumbled. “Take me to dry land.”
Closing her eyes for a long while, she allowed all thought leave her for a few moments. She knew what it meant for Kay to have used the hourglass, and what would undoubtedly be waiting for her when she returned: more shit to deal with. She chose to see this temporary peace as a blessing—an opportunity to reset herself. She pretended that she was at a beach somewhere, listening to the sound of a waterfall nearby, drifting in the shallows without a care in the world, and not in another realm with floating figures zipping by beneath her on their way to a giant reverse waterfall.
Jane propped herself up on her hands, craning her neck to see the uppermost portion of the torrent. “Old faithful has nothing on you,” she muttered, running her gaze back down to the sea around it.
She stilled, catching sight of something, and squinted. A figure stood at its base with its back to her, regarding the fast-moving current. Another dead soul. Shrugging, Jane stood and dusted herself off. Maybe she could at least have some company in Limbo while she was there. They’d need to reap this soul too, anyway.
She began the walk towards the waterrise, not willing to attempt the sort of fast-travel Death could manage for fear of appearing within the stream of water. Also she still hated the feeling it gave her. She got halfway to the base when something made her pause. The figure—a woman—seemed… odd, somehow. It was something in the way she stood. Opening her mouth, Jane called out, “Hey!”
The woman turned, but as she did a black cloak appeared in front of Jane to block her view, along with a skull and a scythe. “Jane, we need to leave. Now,” Death said.
Jane poked her head around Death, trying to catch a glimpse of the woman, but she had disappeared. She refocused on Death, dismissing it as outer-realm shenanigans. “What is it? What about the soul we were going to pick up?”
“We shall send one of the Reaper Corps guardians. Members of the Council have arrived in the Underworld and are waiting in our offices. Let us go, quickly.”
Nodding sharply, Jane took Death by the sleeve and hastily disappeared with them back to the Underworld.
ns 18.68.41.148da2
