Eight Legs Too Many || ONC 2021 and 2022

Chapter 9: Yoko sells her soul to get her phone back

Being a prisoner in Death's tower wasn't all bad.

For one thing, it had a bar. A bar with unlimited quantities of alcohol, to be precise. You'd think with how much Death drank he would've run out quite quickly, but he seemed to have no qualms about using his magic to conjure up more. Yoko wasn't sure where it all came from. When she'd drummed up the courage to ask, Death had muttered vaguely about supporting small businesses before grabbing another bottle and downing it in several gulps.

The penthouse also featured plush sofas, a wall-sized TV, and a five star view of the city, with electrochromic windows that Yoko had spent far too many minutes amusing herself with when they first arrived. On the other side of the apartment, in the kitchen behind the bar, was a futuristic stovetop, a freezer with mountains of ice cream, and a fancy gadget Yoko could only assume was a waffle maker.

Yoko believed in seeing the bright side of things. There was always a silver lining if you looked hard enough. Their parents' death had brought her closer to Shiori. The pandemics had given her more time to paint. Being dragged to Mexico yesterday had given her the chance to practice her salsa—not to mention all the chic selfies she'd managed to post. And—if Devland was telling the truth—there might soon be an end to the plagues!

Nevertheless, it was getting progressively harder for Yoko to stay chipper as the hours ticked by, Death continued to drink, and—most intolerably of all—there was no sign of her cell phone anywhere.

She was, she reflected, dangerously close to madness.

She had never known suffering like this until now.

Every sound, every vibration, had her craning her neck desperately. It was never her phone, of course—always the refrigerator, or the TV, or the toilet, or the overactive air purification system. Several times she reached for her pocket out of habit, only to suffer a moment of panic when her hand came up empty.

Her Nstagram must be crawling with unread messages. To be fair, they were sure to be boring interactions like "WAAAOOOWWW MEXICOOO so jealous" or "dang, girrrl!" or "WHAT KIND OF MARTINI IS THAT!?!?" But, goddammit, she needed to know how many people had liked the last photo she posted. She needed to reply to the messages with cute little statements, with hearts and with kissy faces, to show her adoring fans she cared. Every moment offline was a moment when one of her 8,674* fans might unfollow her. It was an itch in her soul, one that could only be scratched by

GETTING

HER

GODDAMN

CELLPHONE

BACK.

Yoko sucked in the deepest breath she could, massaged her temples, and blew the air out through her mouth, the way that her girlfriend Ellie, who was a yoga instructor, had taught her. Then she took a spoonful of ice cream and stuffed it in her mouth.

"Eurgh," she said. She'd already eaten through the barely-tolerable cherry ice cream, and all that was left was tequila. What right-minded flavored their ice cream with tequila, anyway? Couldn't Death, with all his power, have managed to buy ice cream that wasn't terrible?

If she'd only had her phone, she could easily have ordered a better flavor...

Nstagram issues and ice cream aside, there was a more important reason Yoko needed her phone back. Shiori must be panicking. Knowing her sister, Shiori had probably been trying to message her every hour, on the hour, in hopes of a reply. And, dammit, Yoko wanted to know how Shiori's trip was going! Had she started her journey to the underworld yet? Was she surviving without her precious sister? Was Devland treating her okay? The guy had seemed decently trustworthy, but then—as Shiori loved to remind her—so had that woman who'd called them about their car's extended warranty.