Matthew Praetus's Story - ToR

     The man’s overalls were in a sorry state, but this didn’t seem to bother him. He kept flicking pages upon pages, backwards and forth until he found what he was looking for. His haste barely disguised his paranoia, his hands were trembling and he found it hard to mix the solutions.
     “Please, please, this has to be it, it surely cannot be another mixture!” His exasperated voice muttered. His glove was filled with sweat, and he took loud, deep breaths that could barely sustain him. “I will cure everyone, I will make it right again! D’ya hear me? I will solve my mess if it kills me!” He was feverish now. He had to get it right.
     The concoction was yellow, of a florescent nature, and it had the consistency stale milk. “Come on, it must be right!” he cried as he thrashed his pestle furiously around the mortar. It became a smooth liquid in a few seconds; a pleasing result for a desperate man. “Any moment now, the deathmen, they could turn up any second!” he swung around to look for a test subject. “Damnit!”. He was out of infected rats.
     He took a look at his arm. As always, the flesh was pulsing, squirming, tentacles leeching out if it from many directions. It was horrific, and it could send a man mad. And he only had minor effects. He looked at the mortar, and it was decided. “Here it goes,” he gasps. The anxiety was overcoming him now.
     He gulped down the mixture.
     At first, he felt better. He could feel it trickling down him and for the first time in a number of years, he could feel a hand reappear. This could be it! He has just cured – Then it deteriorated. A pain ran through his nervous system. He felt all his skin stretching, as if it was thinning. All that filled his mind was anguish and fear incarnate. He could not shake the pain away. Blood poured from his nose and mouth. “NO! It’s failed! And I have lost myself to my failure! This is my end!” He screamed.
     And he was right.

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     “Well, that went tail up, didn’t it?”
     “I...I’m still...a-alive?”
     “Ur...no. It’s a little...unorthodox. Care for me to explain?” The voice was calm and soft, yet it rang with an authority that scared the hell out of Praetus. He tried to open his eyes. He could see. He tried to feel with his hand. He felt the cold floor. He sniffed, and his lungs were full of the smell of candlewicks burning their graves. He pushed himself up with his arm and tentacles, and looked up to what looked like a man in a hooded jacket and jeans. He couldn’t see his face. Praetus looked at his body, completely unharmed, excluding the growth he was trying to cure instead of one of his arms and hands.
     “You must be... ah, I remember! Dr. Matthew Praetus. Born July 19th 2476, you were raised with a sister by your mother, and you were a scientist.” The scientist, still shocked by the revelation he was living again, was inclined to believe that the man was talking to him.
     “W-w-w-who are you, may I-I Ask?” he said picking up what there was left of his courage.
     “You know, I am so glad somebody had to finally ask! No-one asks these days, they only assume. I, my misguided friend, am Death.”
     Praetus shook in fear for a few moments, with so many things running through his head. Death stopped his powerful poseafter a few seconds.
     “For crying out loud, do you honestly think I wear the ‘Black Cloak of doom’ all the time? I like to get out of my work clothes too, you know...” he seemed disgruntled now, but he remained calm and collected. “So, you are here because of something very special that is happening.” He took a sudden pause and leaned towards Praetus. “You thought you would make everyone better, didn’t you? Your wonder-drug for enhanced bodies. You had a kind spirit that wanted to make everybody happy. But...something went wrong, didn’t it?” Praetus looked down to the ground. A single tear dripped down.
     “I...I was gonna put it right. I was... going to solve it all but –“
     “But the government saw it as a plot, and started killing all those people after it changed them. They saw them as monsters.” He seemed sympathetic, but purposely chose some very unsympathetic things to say. “I thought that they were beautiful. BUT, what would you say if I told you that it is possible to put it all right?” Praetus looked up. His eyes were shimmering with the tears he tried so hard to hide.
     “I-I could...solve it? PLEASE, TELL ME HOW, I WILL PUT IT RIGHT, I SWEAR!”
     “Calm down kid, there are one or two things I should mention before you get joyous.”
     “...But you look younger than me, how can you call me kid?”
     “Ever since death started, I’ve had a job. Trust me, I’ve seen a lot more than you. Now listen, you’re late already. And I don’t do late,” Death was trying not to get frustrated at Praetus. “Follow me” he said.
     They soon arrived at a roomful of people. “Wait in there, I need to go get my robes on and get a few more people.” And with that he disappeared. Praetus attracted everyone’s attention at some point with his arm within the few minutes they had to wait. Clearly no-one else was from the year 2502. If his dirty overalls didn’t put people off him, his arm certainly did. He shuffled forwards slowly, and he dared not look anyone in the eye.
     After a few, tedious minutes Death, in his robes that had made him infamous, rose above everyone. “You have all been chosen to compete for a second chance at life. Make your way to the top, and you will return to the living planes, unharmed as if you were never killed. I know you all want this, you all have a desire to live, for some, to right a wrong, for others, to keep what was taken from you so suddenly. I’m afraid I can only give one of you this prize. Now, how will I decide who? Well, whoever makes it to the top of this tower, gets to join the living once more. But there is one way to get to the top.” He stopped, clearly for a dramatic pause. “And that is, to BATTLE.”
     Even without the face, his smile from this could be felt across the room.