Chapter 1
He speaks with a voice soft like frozen breath across a lake. His eyes are an onyx abyss that bear deep into my soul, as if he’s known me forever. I’ve seen him only in dreams, his silhouette dancing across horizons, in my room, in my school. His bony hands reached out to grab me, but never far enough to touch. Always just out of his reach. He wears a black hood and watches me in a way that makes me sick. Tonight is just no different, eyes surveying me from his spot across the cafeteria. The kids are watching me, spreading rumors and giggling. I pay them no head. The walls are slightly swirly and the details are just subtly off so I realize that I’m dreaming. I’m sitting alone, the crowded room getting dark and darker until it’s hard for me to decipher where I am. Then I am suddenly in a room where I have never been. The crimson red walls are slightly murky at the edges, and there are rows upon rows of desks that seem to continue on forever. I’m completely by myself in this new space, unusual except for the fact that the figure is in the corner still. He calls himself død, Norwegian for dead. I’m not sure how I know that, but the information seems second hand by now. The room is freezing now, my breath appearing in a cloud of white before my eyes, but I don’t even shiver. An air of annoyance leers into the atmosphere, like the crisp presentiment of electricity that hangs heavy in the air in the fleeting moments before lightning strikes. The walls are starting to melt, despite the zero degree temperatures, and fire starts to seep in through gaping holes in the brick red paint. The figure does not move, and I am frozen in my seat. I’m not able to stand if I tried, but as I’m sitting, Death approaches me and stands before my desk. I glance up into his impossibly gaunt features, and am unable to look away. The skin looks so tightly wrapped around his bones he looks like nothing more than a skeleton. He just stares at me as I stare directly back. He opens his mouth, impossibly wide as if to speak. His teeth are half out of his head, missing and cracked and disgusting all over, and it’s a grotesque scene. I manage to regain control of my limbs once more, and I make use of them by jumping up and running towards the doors as fast as I possibly can. I hadn't even seen the doors, but I had just known they were there. Just like how I knew the figure's name was Death. I sprint as fast as I ever have, but feel further from the exit than I had earlier. I spare a look over my shoulder to see Death chasing me once more. This is how the dreams ended, being followed within inches of bony hands too thin to be human and growls of voices too low to exist at all. This time was different. This time, I stopped, just before the doors I stood directly before. His mouth opens once more, and he speaks. It was the first time I'd ever heard his voice. It sounds like a disgusting harmony of too many out of tune people speaking in unison. It was hauntingly ethereal.
“Come and join meeee Pelle” Its voice growls. “Sooner than you think”
“Much sooner than you think”