Brink of Death

Prologue

"Woe, destruction, ruin and decay; the worst is death and death will have his day."

 -William Shakespeare, Richard II

A message

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. Now the Earth was formless and empty... but was it really? No... it was nearly empty, and we waited alone and in the darkness beneath the firmament. We were asleep, for we were not needed. Then, on the sixth day, we awakened. 

I, on my pale horse, led the party, and behind me came the horses black, red, and white. Near them were the seven cacodaemons, the princes of Hades; Lucifer, the fallen star, Mammon, Asmodeus, the sea-serpent Leviathan, cunning Beelzebub, and Astaroth of the dark trinity. And finally, he who slithers, he who deceives, he who tricks, followed after us. 

Though we had been wakened, we were not used, for the world was full of joy in those early years. I waited, and I was patient, for I knew I would be used, and quite soon. 

I only had to wait a few short days, for my scaly companion had plans of his own. His schemes earned him the place at the bottom of the world, to eat dust and be bruised by the seed of Woman, but it gave us, all four of us, a new job. 

I had reaped but a few men when the world order changed, the paradigm altered. The cruel men who had once inhabited the Earth were no more; a new generation had begun. After that, I was busy, and nearly every day, as were my three companions. 

Millenia passed, and my job became harder and harder, my task, my load almost unbearable. I cannot rest, cannot sleep, cannot eat or drink. I cannot leave my task undone for even a second, for who could take my place if I did? No, I must wait... and I have grown very good at that over nearly four billion years.

End of message

A dark man in a dark robe sat in a dark chair within a dark room. He was staring into a dark screen, where dark letters appeared on a white background. He looked carefully. The words 'Adrian Santos' had been there for quite some time... eighty-nine years, to be precise. Or at least, he thought it was eighty-nine. He forgot the numbers sometimes. It's hard to remember such small numbers when you're used to dealing with those in scales of thousands or ten thousand. 

It was past time he paid 'Adrian Santos' a visit, thought the man. He took up a black raincoat that hung on the peg by the door and exited the dark room. The sky outside was brilliant, the Sun shining brightly enough to blind one if he looked at it wrong. The man did not look at it wrong. He got in his pale, nearly translucent Harley-Davidson motorbike. 

The bike was custom designed for him so that he could see the insides, or the skeletons, of the motorbike as a whole. They didn't make it like that anymore. In fact, they had never made it like that. It had taken the man two years to design the whole thing, then four more to actually make it. 

A few minutes later, the bike bucked to a stop outside an old weather-worn oak door. The man was not sure where exactly the door was, but he knew that it was in front of him and really, that was all he needed to know to complete his task. He didn't need to know where in the globe his Harley had brought him. 

The man lifted his hand and stroked the handle of his bike the way he would stroke the snout of a horse. The Harley purred, and its engine cut out. He looked at his jet-black Rolex wristwatch. Its hands pointed to eight minutes past 10:00 in the morning. It had been pointing at the same numbers five minutes ago, when the man had left his dark room.