“Whoa are you?” Asked the little girl.

  “I am Death,” said the figure, its dark wings spread. In an instant it was before the girl, wrapping her inside its wings, and then an eerie quiet befell the city.

  “What do you mean tomorrow?! Today is her birthday, asshole!” A woman screamed into her phone.

  “Mommy, look,” a little girl holding the woman’s hand said while pointing high up towards a skyscraper.

  “Quit it Belle,” the woman demanded, “no, it was your loving daughter, who you don’t give a shit about, by the way. Don’t tell me what to say! You’re not even here!!”

  “Look, up there, an angel mommy,” the woman finally looked up to see what her daughter was pointing at. But she didn’t see the angel, instead, she could see a thousand bombs raining down on the city, something she confused for flying birds. Her moment of realization would come too late, as the bombs were to detonate some distance above the ground.

  “Do you not fear death, little girl?” The figure asked, its voice seemingly stopping all the bombs as they were set to explode.

  “Death?” The girl asked curiously. “Mommy said something about it, but I haven’t seen it.”

  “Is that so,” the figure said intrigued. “Do you want to see it?”

  “I dunno, is it bad?”

  “Depends,” the figure started walking down through the air, “some people choose to fear death, some choose to venerate it, others do not mind it nor consider it.”

  “What about you?”

  “I say it’s neither that nor the other, it’s everything and nothing. After all, just how you are made of the material that cannot have thought or feelings, so am I made of the immaterial that cannot feel any such things.”

  “Who are you?” Asked the little girl.

  “I am Death,” said the figure as it wrapped the little girl with its dark wings, the sound of a thousand nuclear bombs detonating at the same time deafening anyone and everyone that was unfortunate enough to survive its initial blast. New York had been reduced to nothing, then the rest of the world.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Mommy calls me Belle.”

  “Belle, do you think your mom loved you?”

  “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “You do not answer a question with a question.”

  “My mommy says the same.”

  “Then answer.”

  “I dunno, mommy says she loves dad too, but she always screams at him.”

  “Does she scream at you too?”

  “Sometimes, but I don’t mind.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I love mommy.”

  “I see,” Death held Belle’s hand as they walked between the remnants of America. Cracked roads, collapsed bridges, burnt corpses staring at the windows, stray animals looking for a bite of something. “Do you think whoever made this world loved it?”

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  “I dunno,” Belle jumped and hopped around, not minding the carnage that was before her.

  “Perhaps I should rephrase this. Looking at the world, do you think whoever made it also loves it?”

  “Probably,” Belle wanted to let go of Death’s hand and pick a dirty toy she saw on the ground.

  “Don’t let go Belle, or you will join them.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s how things work.”

  “Can you make them work differently?”

  “I suppose I can, but why should I?”

  “You don’t answer a question with a question, Death,” Belle reprimanded Death.

  “That’s right, apologies.”

  “You are apologized,” Belle giggled, proud of herself.

  “To answer you: it would be meaningless.”

  “Meningless?”

  “Meaningless. It means without purpose or sense. There is no sense to me changing the rules that I created. After all, changing the natural order of things is what led to this.”

  “I don’t mind it being like this, I can finally be a grownup and do things how I like.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather be playing on green fields? Enjoy the afternoon sun while dipping your toes in a river?”

  “Dunno, mommy never took me to a river.”

  “Do you want to see one?”

  “Sure!”

  Belle and Death were walking between the trees of a forest. There were animals, from deers to birds to wolves, walking, eating, sleeping and repeating as it was in their nature. Death let Belle pet some of them then took her to a nearby river that was coursing inside a valley between two mountain ranges.

  “This is a river, Belle,” Death said while pressing its foot inside the water, as if it repelled it. Belle had no trouble dipping her tiny legs and spraying the cold water all over her. “Don’t play too much in it, otherwise you will catch a cold.”

  “I don’t mind colds, mommy loves me more when I’m cold,” Belle said with jubilation. “You don’t like water?”

  “I do, it is the cradle of life, and the reason why I was made.”

  “You were made because of water?”

  “Not exactly, here,” Death waved its hand over Belle’s eyes, its dark cloth swinging with the movement and soon enough Belle could see the first fish to ever emerge from the ancient chemical soups from billions of years past. “They’re tiny, but from these material, unliving compounds, life emerged. And a long time into the future from this point on, you emerged.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you, and every other human being.”

  “Mommy too?”

  “Her too, yes.”

  “Wow, that’s amazing!”

  “Is it not? But now,” Death waved its hand once more and it and Belle were back to the present. The river was no more, what remained of the animals were only their carcasses, the forests nothing more than amber, and the sky was dark with darker snow starting to fall down all over. “Now we’re here, back to where it all starts to end.”

  “Why?”

  “Why indeed. You are yet to grow, but even if you were to be fully grown and have all the mind and reasons humans have, you would still be asking that same question.”

  “Can’t you make it disappear? Like you did with the fishes?”

  “I didn’t make anything disappear. What I am is a state of change, it’s what I bring to anything that lives.”

  “So you change things?”

  “I change life, not things. Things don’t have life, and if they don’t have life, I can’t change them.”

  “So you can’t change mommy?”

  “I cannot. What I can change is you, and whoever and whatever is left alive.”

  “Is that why you don’t want to let go of me?”

  Death stared at the girl, hollow eyes with empty voids of darkness inside of them, its pale skin white as the snow should’ve been. “Perhaps,” it’s all Death said before leaving once more, bringing Belle back into New York.

  “We’re back here.”

  “That we are, do you want to stay?”

  “Only if you stay as well.”

  “I can’t, my duty is not over just yet.”

  “Then I will hang a little more with you, mister Death. If you don’t mind me.”

  “Why would I mind you?”

  “Dunno, you don’t seem happy with me.”

  “I’m not happy with anything or anyone, nor am I sad, angry, annoyed, so on, so forth.”

  “Liar,” Belle said with her tongue out.

  “How can you tell?”

  “You seemed happy at the river, so you’re probably sad that it’s gone.” Death stood silent for a few moments, then gently pulled Belle closer.

  “Come along then, I think I don’t mind you at all.”

  “Thank you!”