Death's Apprentice

“I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It was power beyond anything I’ve seen.”

Lily could hear Arno and Helen talking as she jumped around with Edgar over the seating in the Guardians realm.

“Yes. The person entitled as Death holds a lot of power.”

“That’s what Lily’s going to hold someday isn’t it?”

“It’s a great burden to bear. Especially for one so young.”

Lily could tell that Arno had stolen a glance to look at her, but she pretended not to notice.

“She can handle it. I know she can...”

Without thinking much of it, Lily and her friend scampered off to the Guardian’s supplies which all of the kids had now deemed a playground, where some of the Dreamlanders were sitting around.

“So are you guys brother and sister?” Lily asked Fish and Star as they played with some bouncy balls that had been in their pockets.

“No.” Fish answered as he threw down a bright green ball and watched as it flew up into the air and did loopy de loops. “We grew up in the same orphanage together.”

“Fish would always look out for me.” Star said proudly, reaching up and grabbing the ball zooming around his head. “He would always promise that he wouldn’t get adopted before me. We were best friends.”

“And then we both got sent to the Dream world, and now we’re even better friends!” Fish said with a big toothy grin letting seven balls go down at once and zoom up in the air.

If Lily hadn’t already known that the two of them had just been through something so horrible and scary, she would not have been able to tell, for they were acting like their silly normal selves. It amazed her how resilient the Dream makers seemed to be. Lily smiled as she watched the little balls circle them, and then ran off to play.

“What do you think is going to happen with the dark thingies?” Edgar asked, climbing up on the large box to sit with Lily. The little girl swung her legs back and forth over the edge.

“I don’t know. But Death will fix everything.”

“Is Death even his real name?”

“No. His real name’s Jeremy. He died in a car crash with his wife Sarah.”

“Then why do we call him Death?”

Lily shrugged.

“It’s a secret I guess. I’m not supposed to tell anybody.” It was then that she realized that she had just broken that rule. “So-don’t tell anybody!”

“Ok.”

“If it’s a secret, I don’t think it’s meant to be told…” a voice said quietly behind them. The two children whirled around to see Byron sitting there, on top of some of the crates.

“You don’t tell anybody either!!” Lily whispered obstinately, mad that he was spying on them.

“Don’t worry. I won’t. I’m just saying you need to be careful. You never know who you can really trust.” Lily gave him the meanest glare that she could and scurried off to find Arno.

Things were relatively boring until the Timekeepers came. Lily looked at the people in royal blue robes and glowing blue staffs walk through the crowd towards Death. In the front, a tall spindly man with a black ponytail rested his staff on his shoulder.

“Yo Death! How’s it kickin?!” The man said, taking his hand and trying to do some sort of weird handshake.

“Hello… George. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Yeah man, there’s like, something serious going down. We just had a time orb stolen.”

“What?”

“Yeah! Don’t know how it happened. Whoever did it must have been ninja.”

Lily could see the worry lines appear on Death’s face. That’s when George saw her observing.

“Hey! Is this your apprentice Big D?” he asked, bending down to get a better look at her. “Lily right?”

“That’s right. Lily, this is the leader of the Timekeepers realm. Normally, I would take you with me to show you around, but I think with everything that would be going on, it would be better if you stayed here with Arno.”

“But I want to go!” she said with a slight whine in her voice.

“I’m sorry Lily, but this is serious. Maybe next time…” And without another word, he walked off with the Timekeepers. George turned around to wave goodbye.

“Live long and prosper little Lily!” he called, doing some weird thing with his fingers. She folded her arms in a pout, wishing she could go. She had been able to go to all the realms before-why was this time any different? She started to stalk off as Arno walked up.

“Hey-where are you going? What happened?”

“Death went to the Timekeepers realm and said I couldn’t go.” she said irritatedly. Her Guardian shook his head and sighed.

“Come on. Maybe we can go play a game or something.”

“No. I don’t want to.”

Arno rolled his eyes and scooped the little girl up, who screamed in protest, but then started to laugh as he swung her around and made airplane noises.

“Come on Pilot! There are people to save!” he pretended to buzz on a pretend radio.

“Save the people Arno!! Help me save the people!!”

Arno threw her onto his back and ran down hallways and meandered through the refugees, who were giving odd looks. Lily squealed in delight as she felt the rush of the air hit her face and she told him to go faster and faster. She squeezed his neck to stop from falling off, the laughter coming out of her like bubbles. She could hear Arno laughing too, which made her feel warm again. She loved to hear him laugh. It reminded her of pillows. They stopped when they heard music.

“Music? I haven’t heard music in a long time…” he said almost longingly. They went into the main room to see the Dreamlanders dancing, one of them holding an odd contraption.

“What is that thing?” Arno asked.

“It’s a tape player!” Star exclaimed, spinning around. “We made it while we were in the dream world. It was still in my pocket when we left!” Lily squirmed and dropped from Arno’s back.

“Yeah! It’s my favorite mix.” Fish told them, his huge grin spreading from ear to ear.

“The music sure is… interesting…”

“It’s Beatles!! Classic!”

Arno wasn’t sure what that meant, but decided not to ask.

Lily tugged on his hand.

“Come on Arno! Dance with me!”

“Oh no-I couldn’t-I haven’t-”

“Go on out there ya pansy.” Sgt. Downey laughed, pushing him forward. He stood there awkwardly for a moment as Lily did leaps and twirls around him, pretending to be a ballerina. Then she grabbed onto his hands and made him turn around with her. After a moment, he loosened up and joined her, smiling. Lily laughed as the other refugees and even some of the Guardians started to join in. Some of them obviously couldn’t dance, but they tried anyway.

Lily liked that everyone was smiling for once. Usually they all looked worried or sad or scared, since the dark entities always seemed to be after them. But it was nice to dance for once, and to laugh, and to spin. Lily looked over to see Byron dancing with Daya and twirling her around. The Saver’s long dark brown hair whipped across her shoulders. She stopped for a moment to watch them. There was something about the two of them together that she couldn’t quite put her finger on…

Her attention was diverted when Arno lifted her up and swung her around again. The music changed to something upbeat that she had never heard before, and she looked over in time to see Lev and Agrefena attempted to do some dance moves with their arms. She stood on Arno’s feet as he stepped in time with the music. She couldn’t remember the last time she was so happy or had so much fun.

Arno put her up on his shoulders, and she could see the sea of people in the land of the Inbetween bobbing their heads or dancing. It was from this height that she could see that Death had returned.

“Death’s back!” she yelled, pointing. Death slowly walked up, and Arno let Lily down again.

“Death! You wanna dance with us?”

“N-not… right now Lily…”

Something was wrong.

“Death? Are you ok?”

The powerful being they had all come to know started to sway.

“I don’t… feel... very well...” The surrounding people stopped dancing. Someone cut off the music.

“Death?”

He staggered and fell, but Arno caught him.

“Woah-what’s going on?” Morpheus asked, rushing over with everyone else. George and some of the other timekeepers weren’t far behind. “Give him some space!”

“What’s wrong? Is it the dark entities?” Sgt. Downey demanded.

“No… I-I don’t… know…”

“George-what happened?”

“I don’t know man-he just started to feel sick or something out of nowhere!” he told them, panic in his voice, his face pale.

“What could possibly do something like this to the master of the dead?” Arno asked a bit fearfully, gingerly letting the man down onto the floor.

“Nothing. It’s impossible-I thought…”

“He’s not… dying is he?”

“He’s Death-how does Death even die anyway?”

“But we’re already dead stupid!”

“Then what’s wrong with him?”

Lily held on tightly to her Guardian, suddenly feeling very scared. If something could happen to Death, something could happen to anybody.

“Sarah…Where’s Sarah?” Death mumbled, much to the confusion of everyone.

“Who’s Sarah?”

Suddenly, a reaper appeared in the thick of it all and drew out a whip, cracking it in the air and causing several people to scream. Before Lily even knew what was going on, reaper after reaper had appeared, and they were cracking their whips towards the refugees, causing them to back away from Death.

“What’s going on?!?” Arno yelled over the chaos.

“A revolution.” a familiar voice called. They all looked up to see Helen standing there, her arms folded, a group of reapers standing behind her.

“Helen?” Death asked weakly. “What is this? What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry Jeremy. I had to. We can’t be led by a five year old girl. It’s simply preposterous.”

“But-what-.”

Wordlessly, she pulled out a small glowing orb of green light that fit in the palm of her hand. “I couldn’t take it until I found out who you were. Thanks to Edgar, I found out.”

The little boy slunk behind her, ashamed.

Lily began to feel sick.

“Hey! My time orb!”

“Sorry George. I just had to borrow it for a little bit.”

“Helen-Lily is destined to do this-you can’t just take it away from her!” Arno yelled.

“I’m just doing what’s going to be best for all of us.”

“What did you do?”

Lily gasped as Death slowly started to disappear.

“No! Helen! You can’t!” Death rasped, looking down at his hands as they became transparent. Lily screamed as he started to fade away.

“Death!!!! No!! I’m sorry!! I’m sorry! It’s all my fault! Please-” Lily sobbed, trying to hold onto him.

The master of the dead vanished.

“What happened to him?” Arno asked, appalled.

“Oh he’s fine. He simply never died is all.” Helen told him. “It’s time to start a new age in the Land of the Inbetween. We’ve talked about this. You said yourself that it’s a lot of power. I’ve been here longer. I can help lead everyone against the dark entities. ”

“I didn’t mean power for you.” he seethed. “I don’t understand-you helped us escape the other reapers-you were my friend-you were angry at Zachary…”

“Zachary could have ruined the entire plan by bringing you there. We needed things to happen this way. And as for friends…you really think I would be friends with someone like you? Growing up in Britain my grandmother told me stories about what the Germans did to the city. I was getting close for business sake.”

Lily looked up at Arno, who looked crestfallen.

“Helen-this is getting too far out of hand-” Sgt. Downey reasoned.

“Yes. We’ve all seen Lily in action. There is no doubt that she is meant to take his place.” Morpheus agreed.

“Give me back my time orb!!”

The woman sighed as some of the other reapers grabbed the three of them.

“Hey-what is this? Let me go! I’m a Sergeant darn it!”

“If you don’t cooperate you won’t be for much longer.”

Lily and Arno backed away as more reapers came towards them threateningly.

“This is no time for rebellion!!” Morpheus yelled. “We are having enough problems with the dark entities!!”

Lily screamed as she looked down at her hands to see that she was starting to disappear just like Death. Arno looked down at the little girl in horror and held onto her.

“No! Lily! Helen-stop this-now!!”

“Please Arno. Help me with this. It needs to happen. This can be your restitution for all the things you did as a soldier.”

The Guardian could feel the tears burning his eyes.

“No!”

Helen shook her head, and her face darkened. “Then you leave me no choice. I will have to put you where you can’t interfere. Time won’t change the attachment you’ve grown.”

Arno held onto the sobbing little girl a little tighter.

“Take him straight to the Insanities-where he should have gone in the first place.”

“No! He’s not meant to go there!” Daya piped up. “You can’t just throw someone into the Insanities-it doesn’t work that way!”

“I’m the new Death. I can do whatever I want. It needs to be done.” The reapers grabbed Arno and tore him from Lily, who screamed again and reached for her Guardian in tears.

“ARNO!!”

“LILY!!”

But it was too late.

The little girl disappeared.

Lily awoke with a yelp, causing her mother to rush into the dark bedroom.

“Sweetie-what’s wrong?” she asked, sitting down on her bed and holding her close.

“I had a bad dream.”

“It’s ok. It’s over now. You’re safe.”

Lily wiped the tears from her eyes and held on tightly to her teddy bear.

“Do you want to talk about it? What happened in your dream?”

Lily leaned against her mother, feeling tired.

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“Well Mommy is here now. Everything will be all right.”

Despite her mother’s reassurances, and even though she couldn’t remember the nightmare, Lily Hoagen still felt her heart racing.