As Long As I Have You

~ Chapter Thirty Nine ~

The blackness was everywhere, but she wasn't alone. She could hear the hot whispers of her nemesis in her ear, but when she turned to confront Death it was gone. It brushed up behind her, whisked in front of her, the folds of its cloak grazing her bare feet and sending shivers up her spine.

"Come back here!" she screamed, suddenly furious with the apparition for its cowardice and even more furious at her own lack of courage.

"Come back here and finish it, you sonofabitch!"

Heeding her call, the cloaked figure rose from the shadows until it towered above her and swallowed the tiny bit of strength she had dug so deeply for. She opened her mouth to speak but Death put its hand to her mouth, and she felt the bile of her fear and anger surge against the stench of its rotting flesh.

"Please," she begged, "please make it stop."

Death nodded solemnly and opened heavy arms to her, inviting her into a final embrace. She stepped forward, swallowed by the putrid folds of its cloak, comforted by blackness and asphyxiation. She couldn't breathe, couldn't see, but neither could she feel...