Mors Feriarum: Vermis

Chapter 1

AKA Death Vacations: Worm
AKA Taylor is losing her mind
AKA Death's just avoiding paperwork
AKA Boredom begets conflict

Death glared at the dark cloaked being of indeterminate gender.

The dark cloaked being of indeterminate gender stared back.

They both turned to look at the notice from the three Fates, which read

'Impending Apocalypse Event: Planet Earth, Reality 2E798. Time: ~2 Years. Cause: Rogue Deity'

They glanced further down the page to see a death toll so long it went well over thirty zeroes.

"Shit." Death said.

Taylor Hebert's day was rather unusual, to say the least. She had gone to school, ignored her bullies like usual, and then found herself in her locker. In most other timelines, this would be a normal moment in her life. Now, this would be a bad thing if her locker had remained the way it was, filled with used feminine hygiene products and the such. This was not the case. Somehow, when she was shoved in, the space inside was much larger than a locker should be, and completely empty. Rather than the cramped locker filled with disgusting substances, the moment the door closed behind her she was somewhere else. A dark-cloaked being of unknown gender sat at a desk typing on multiple typewriters at once. They wrote so fast Taylor couldn't see its hands, and was only feeling the air around her move from the speed.

"Hello? Where am I?"

They glanced up silently and gestured with one hand to the wide oak doors, which were adorned with a peculiar triangular symbol with a line down the middle. Doing what any other confused mortal would do, Taylor opened the doors.

She gazed around in confusion and fear at the towering stacks of paperwork, foreboding in their simple appearance. A strangely comfortable looking chair could be seen over the tops of the surrounding parchment, so she decided the sensible thing to do would be to make her way over there and find the one who worked here.

The only logical reasoning behind this could be cape intervention. A room within her locker? Absurd! Some kind of power was in use here. If she recognized the cape's powers she would have been giddy with excitement, but now she was rather worried. Who on Earth Bet would even care about, let alone help her? Especially with someone to make such quick portals and had a base like this? She focused on her destination as the sound of shouting reached her ears.

Another dark-cloaked figure of unknown gender was standing at attention next to the strangely comfortable looking chair, a load of manila folders in its grasp like a shield. The figure in the chair was roaring furiously at a nearby minion that was remarkably similar in appearance to the dark-cloaked being of indeterminate gender. A large mirror in a gilded black and silver frame that hung in the center of the wall opposite his desk, taking up nearly the entire upper half. The mirror displayed an image of golden light ravaging what appeared to be a city in the distance, strangely familiar yet completely unfamiliar. In an instant the screen flickered to a dozen other scenes, including a whale like being spinning through space with- she blinked as the image vanished, the very memory of it feeling unnatural.

"What in the Nine Circles of Hell do you mean we can't directly interfere? This bloody... being? Entity? Inter-dimensional space whale? Whatever he is, he's going to cause mass genocide across multiple realities! It's my job to deal with this!" There was a pause as the dark-cloaked being of unknown gender seemed to whisper something. "Off of ou- what in Thanatos' scythe does that mean? Locked the dimensional barrier? That's only something Great Red or ! That's a load of-" The man in the chair began cursing in multiple languages, some of which were not meant for human vocal cords.

After listening for a few moments in fear, Taylor pushed past her antisocial urges and spoke up. "Um, e-excuse me? Sir?" she said softly.

The man cut off. "Oh? Who's here now? Life? Is that you, you bloody asshole?" he growled, spinning the chair around.

Taylor blinked in surprise when she found herself staring at a teen, slightly older than herself. He wore rather flowing black robes adorned with silver trim and a peculiar symbol on the front that she couldn't quite make out. He held a wide purple cup (mug?) in his hand, an unknown liquid in it. His skin was covered in curling silver whorls of color, the tattoos seeming to vanish when the light wasn't reflecting off of them. His piercing green eyes stared at her like there was nothing it didn't already know. "Um, no, I'm not Life, whoever that is. I'm Taylor, Taylor Hebert. Where am I?"

The man stared at her for a brief second, then snapped his fingers to the side. A form was passed to him and he quickly skimmed through it. "Hmm, let's see, Hebert, Hebert, where is it... aha!" He seemed to have found the document he was looking for. "Here we are, Taylor Hebert, born June 13th, 1995. Is fifteen years old and has... oh dear, there is an issue."

Taylor stared at the man in confusion. "What?"

"It seems, Mrs. Hebert, that you are here much too early! You are in the right location for when you die, but much too early! You aren't supposed to be dead for at least year or so."

Taylor stared more. "Dead?! What are you talking about?! Who are you? Why am I here and not my locker?" she asked.

"Ah, well, in order of appearance then. I am Death. Nice to meet you. This is one of my... employees. You are here because of an accident. The deity in charge of your timeline and dimensional sectors has been planning to cause inter-dimensional genocide for years now, just to add to his little power collection. I've been trying to get to that sector to stop him, but it seems someone" he glances at the minion. "didn't pay for the lease that allows me to do so." He took a sip from his cup.

"Um..."

"Thankfully it seems you were about to be interacted with by this being, so I was able to hijack the connection and open a door to your world. This let me bypass that bullshit barrier he's imposed on those clusters of his. I suppose I'll follow you back over and help solve the impending apocalypse over there, yeah?"

Taylor held up a hand firmly. "STOP!" They froze. "What?! Apocalypse? If you're Death why can't you just pop on over and fix it?"

Death nodded amiably. "I might be able to, but there are three things stopping me. One, I'm having trouble getting over there, like having trouble starting an old engine on a car. Two: The entity is actively preventing me from going over there. He's not stopping me, but the usual methods of travel are unreliable. Three: Well, it would be too boring to just fix all the problems in the multiverse with a snap of my fingers, now wouldn't it?" he drawled, sipping from his cup. "I want to have some fun one last time. You know, before resigning myself to work forever."

Taylor held her head. "So let me get this straight. There's an apocalypse."

"Yup."

"You, the All Powerful Death, can't stop it with a thought, and you're also super bored."

"Mhm."

"So you used me, someone who was going to have formerly mentioned deity mess with me soon? Somehow? I'm not too clear on that part." she finished.

Death waved her off. "Don't worry about it. It gets wibbly wobbly and timey wimey the more you try to understand it, so just go with the flow."

She nodded, despite still not understanding what the hell she was doing.

"Let's go then!" Death said, (reluctantly, with a final glance at his comfortable chair) standing up and marching her towards the door. "Plenty of places to be, people to see, and paperwork to ignore! I hope you don't mind me killing whomever I need to to fix this situation while hijacking your power a bit."

"Wait, what?!"