The first light of dawn spilled across the desert, painting the sand in soft gold. The air was cool, the kind that only lasted for a short breath before the sun claimed the sky. Henry pushed open the tent flap and stepped outside, stretching his arms.
Behind him, Jeff followed, rubbing his eyes and stifling a yawn.
The campfire from the night before had burned down to gray embers, a faint curl of smoke twisting upward before vanishing.
Jeff kicked at the sand, hands tucked into his pockets. "Guess this is it, huh?" he said, looking toward the long stretch of dunes that led back toward the station.
Henry nodded, glancing in the opposite direction—toward the endless horizon where his own path lay. "Yeah. I've still got… things to find." He didn't explain further.
Jeff gave a crooked grin. "You and your secrets."
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Henry replied, smirking.
"Probably not." Jeff laughed quietly, then fell silent. The desert felt heavier in the quiet, the soft wind carrying grains of sand that whispered at their boots.
Henry adjusted the strap of his bag. "You'll get back safe?"
"Of course," Jeff said, his voice casual, though his eyes lingered on Henry longer than usual. "And you… you'll figure out whatever weird thing you're chasing."
Henry chuckled. "You make it sound like I'm hunting ghosts."
Jeff shrugged. "Maybe you are."
They stood there for a moment, neither making the first move to leave. The pale sun crept higher, and shadows began to shrink. Henry felt something strange in his chest, a tug, like he should say something more. But he didn't know what.
Jeff looked toward the station's direction again. "I should get going before the heat kicks in."
Henry gave a small nod. "Yeah. Travel light."
Jeff started walking, his boots crunching in the sand. After a few steps, he turned around, walking backward for a moment. "Don't do anything too stupid, alright?"
Henry smirked. "You know me."
"That's exactly why I said it, you better take care of yourself, loser." Jeff shot back with a grin.
Henry laughed. "Go on, before I make you carry my bags."
Jeff waved lazily and turned away again. Henry watched him until his figure grew small against the dunes, the sunlight slowly swallowing him.
He didn't know why, but as Jeff disappeared from view, the desert suddenly felt too big, too empty. He didn't knew what it is, but it was giving him a bad feeling.
Henry tilted his head back, squinting at the pale morning sun. It hung low but climbing, spilling light across the dunes in long golden strokes. He traced its angle with his eyes, trying to guess. "Maybe… eight? Nine?" he murmured.
The desert was quiet except for the faint murmurs of wind over sand. Heat was coming, but for now the air was cool, the kind that makes you want to stay still.
He rubbed his neck, feeling the pull of days without proper rest. The Rituals could wait a little. He glanced at the tent, then decided against going inside, lowering himself onto the warm sand instead.
The ground cradled him, steady and soft. Above, the endless sky seemed to press down in a slow, gentle way.
"Just a few minutes," he muttered, closing his eyes, letting the desert hum lull him toward sleep.
....
Henry's eyes snapped open. Not in the sand and tent he expected, but to an endless white sky stretching in every direction.
He was falling.
Air rushed past his ears, tugging at the rough sack-like shirt and trousers clinging to his body. His bare feet met a splash before his mind could catch up. The fall ended with a soft slap into knee-deep water, flat and stretching forever, shimmering like a mirror.
He staggered, breath uneven. "...Not again," he muttered, scanning the horizon. There was no horizon but just the white above and the glassy water below. His reflection blinked back at him, calm where he wasn't.
The sound came next which was a slow, rhythmic crunch of paws meeting water, as if the surface was solid for whoever approached. Henry turned, and his chest tightened.
It was a bear.
Huge, dark, its fur so black it seemed to drink the surrounding light. Eyes like molten gold fixed on him. It stopped a few paces away, water untouched around its paws.
"You...." Henry breathed. He didn't know how he knew, but he did. "You're Death, now stop acting scary."
The bear's head tilted slightly. When it spoke, the voice wasn't from its mouth—it came from everywhere, low and deep, rolling through the still air.
" I was just having a tea and you suddenly popped up. You're early, Henry."
Henry swallowed hard, though he tried to keep his voice steady. "Then I can leave?"
"That depends." The bear's golden gaze narrowed. "Why are you here?"
"I don't know," Henry admitted. "I was… resting. Then I woke up here. Again."
The bear's massive shoulders rose and fell in something like a sigh. "The Hole of Origin doesn't make mistakes. It calls when the thread thins."
Henry frowned. "Thread?"
"Your thread," Death said, stepping closer, the water still undisturbed under its weight. "The one tying you to the world you cling to."
He felt the pull in his chest, a strange ache not pain, but the memory of it. "You mean my life."
The bear's eyes softened. "You have more than one thread now. That is why you have not been cut."
Henry's brows knit. "More than one?"
"Luck. Power. Will. Each could bind you. Each could fail you." The voice seemed to echo deeper now, inside his skull. "You run fast, Henry. Faster than you know. But every runner stops one day."
For a moment, neither spoke. The white expanse swallowed time itself.
Finally, Henry took a breath. "Then I'll keep running. Until you catch me."
A slow rumble passed through the bear half growl, half… laugh? "We'll see. Let's have a chess match."
The water was still beneath Henry's feet, like a perfect mirror reflecting an endless white nothing. He sat cross-legged on it, a crude wooden chessboard shaped by the Holy Water, between him and the black-furred bear.
Death's paw too large for the tiny pieces hovered above the board, yet when it moved a rook, it did so with a precision that made Henry's own fingers feel clumsy.
"You're terrible at this," Henry muttered after losing his queen.
"You're terrible at staying alive," Death replied, golden eyes glinting.
Henry smirked despite himself. "Fair point."
They played in silence for a few moves. Then Death's voice, heavy and slow, broke the quiet. "I can help you."
Henry looked up. "Help me how? Giving me a better chess strategy?"
The bear didn't blink. "By giving you one Dead Spirit."
Henry leaned back, squinting. "And those are… if I recognise those are The 3rd Ritual for Route –3 of Mystic Path. What are those exactly?"
Death's gaze turned inward, as if remembering something far older than the white domain itself. "They are fragments. Born when a soul is destroyed but refuses to vanish. Not ghosts or memories but horrors. Pieces of existence that saw beyond life's curtain and came back warped. The first Dead Spirit was formed when the oldest mortal tried to speak to the void itself. The void answered. It twisted him into something neither living nor gone."
Henry felt a chill run down his spine despite the warmthless air. "And these… things… are influenced by something? Like you?"
"No," Death said, voice lower now. "Something beyond me. Beyond space and time. A presence older than matter. It whispers into dying minds, offering them a way to avoid my touch… but at a cost. Its influence is cosmic—far, far above the boundaries of this universe."
Henry stared at the chessboard, suddenly less interested in his next move. "So… if you give me one, I'll have that kind of horror inside me?"
"Yes," Death said simply. "It will lend you power. But it will also want to use you, corrupt you, take control over you...."
Henry drummed his fingers on the water's surface, sending ripples that didn't spread far. "Take note of my answer for later. I'm not saying yes now."
"That is wise," the bear rumbled.
Henry glanced at him. "Why only one? Can you give me two? I could use all the help I can get."
Death's eyes darkened. "Because I have no right to give more. The act of binding a Dead Spirit to a living being is a Divine Act. It bends the law that holds life and death apart. Even I cannot perform it without risk… and only once for any mortal. The Dead Spiris here are not mine to decide it should stay here or not."
Henry raised a brow. "So you've got bosses? That's… weird to imagine."
"No," Death said. "No one commands me. But there are laws. Laws written by the first light that created everything, when time itself began."
For a while, they just stared at the board again. Henry moved a pawn, though he barely cared about winning anymore. "What about you, then? You keep talking like you're above everything here."
The bear's voice seemed to swell, deeper and heavier, as though it came from every direction at once. "My cosmology is outerversal, perhaps higher. I am not bound to one world, one sky, or one chain of creation. My reach spreads wherever life stirs, wherever death can arrive. I exist in the cracks between all realities, and my knowledge seeps into every place where a being draws breath. There is no force, no barrier, no dream I cannot enter."
Henry stared for a moment. "You're saying you're basically… everywhere?"
"Yes. Everywhere a living thing exists, I am close enough to touch and know about it."
"That's… comforting," Henry said dryly, moving his knight. "You're like the world's worst insurance salesman."
The bear's golden eyes flared faintly. "And you, Henry, are my most amusing customer."
Here's your 380-word scene with a mix of humor, fear, and that "wait… how did I do that?" vibe.
---
Henry blinked, watching Death's bear form ripple like ink in water. The shape twisted, stretched—then suddenly, standing before him was… a woman.
Not just any woman. A terrifyingly beautiful woman. Her long, inky hair floated as if underwater, skin pale as moonlight, eyes glowing like two dying suns. She smiled not the warm kind—more the "I will flay your soul and hang it in my closet" kind.
Henry's brain short-circuited.
"Oh no… you're… you're one of those," he stammered, taking a step back.
She tilted her head, voice dripping like cold honey. "Afraid, Henry? Come, let me give you some service."
"Uh—well—"
She lunged.
Pure instinct kicked in. Beneath Henry's feet, the shallow white-water rippled, glowing faintly. His hands moved before his mind caught up, shaping the water into something solid—cold steel, chamber, barrel. A revolver, silver and gleaming, as if born from light itself.
"Holy—" Henry didn't finish the word before—
BANG!
The sound cracked across the endless white plane. Death staggered, her glowing eyes widening as a neat, smoking hole opened in the middle of her forehead. Black smoke hissed out.
Henry froze.
"…Oh… crap."
The woman form flickered. Death stood there, staring at him with a strange expression not in rage, not pain… almost amusement.
"I—uh—sorry?" Henry said, lowering the revolver slightly. "That was… not… personal?"
Death's voice was calm, too calm. "You hurt me, Henry. Do you have any idea what that means? That's alright. It wasn't your fault."
Death's grizzly bear head healed so swiftly Henry couldn't even notice when it healed.
Henry's stomach sank. "No? Should I?"
"Everyone will touch me one day. Fewer still can wound me, for a limited time. Fewest may defeat me. None can kill or erase me except my creator. You don't have to worry, it's fine to be scared."
Henry swallowed. "Right, so… is this a good time to point out that I have no idea what I'm doing?"
Death smirked. The bullet hole closed in seconds, smooth pale skin knitting like nothing had happened. "You drew from the holy water beneath your feet without thinking. Instincts. That is rare… unknowingly dangerous for me."
Henry looked at the revolver in his hand. It was warm, almost alive. The fact that it came from him made his pulse quicken.
"How… did I even do that?" he muttered.
Death didn't answer directly just gave him a long, knowing stare.
....
Henry sat up, rubbing his temples. The tent's fabric shifted faintly in the wind, but his mind was far from here. The memory of the white water, the endless horizon, and that bear-shaped figure clung to him like a shadow.
"The Hole of Origin…" he muttered under his breath. That place was supposed to be a myth, a whisper in forbidden books. Yet, he had stood there. He had met Death.
The image of Death's face was calm, ancient, and terrifying—rose uninvited.
"Why me?" he thought. "Why does Death even… know me?"
Henry shook his head. "This is too much. I'm just a normal human, not… whatever this is." But the thought rang hollow. He wasn't just a guy came from University. I am just a twenty-four years old guy. Don't even know how Divinations work accurately."
He could still feel the faint sting of the revolver's recoil, the impossible moment when his bullet tore into Death's forehead.
"How did I even hurt a being like that…?"
No answer came. Just the quiet throb of confusion.
He pulled on his coat, fastening the belt loosely. His hand hovered near the holster at his side for comfort than defense.
"If there's anyone who might know," Henry thought, "it's The Father." The man was half legend, half lunatic, but his mind was a library of cosmic truths, even though, that library is still not even an atom comparing to the wisdom hidden in the cosmos.
Henry whispered to himself, "Prada again, huh? Feels like I keep circling back there."
There was no excitement in his tone. Just a steady, resigned resolve. Meeting Vain wasn't for comfort. It was for answers.
And maybe, just maybe, to understand why Death had looked at him not like a stranger… but like someone expected, familiar for it.
Henry stood, brushing dust from his knees. "Alright," he said softly. "Let's go find out what I'm really tangled in."
Then he stepped out, leaving the campfire behind.