Flee(Dread Solomon) Down the long, empty corridor, the man ran, past doors that only registered as darker blurs set against the shadows, things swilling inside an inner turmoil in place of reason and order as those legs strained, as they had since God knows when, strained to flee as far away as possible from whoever, whatever had been on the man's tail since.

Death walked calmly, seemingly out of nowhere, behind the man running frantically further down the corridor, apparently driven insane from those wild empty eyes; a vessel in which breathed only instinct. The last vestiges of sanity left once upon a time throughout the course of this exercise, which began to irritate him somewhat. Five years this manhunt had taken, Death wondered, five years the man had eluded capture, slipped out of Death's grasp like an eel, at the cost of his sanity, which gradually eroded as time dragged on, giving way to an overwhelming fear of Death himself. He never had a problem with anyone before, at least those who not so much protested as embrace the fact of passing on. Those who proffered resistance eventually relented one way or the other, and the longest Death had with them was at least a day. It all ended the same way. He simply could not afford this man being the standing exception to said rule, to be on the run for so long, fueled only by an extraordinary degree of fear itself, and one might think he would stop any time soon, tire himself out, on the verge of leaking, something to distract him even for the measliest of moments. Still, he ran, body beyond anything resembling remotely life, a finger or two missing alongside conspicuous patches of skin.

Five years it had been, the countless number of deaths the figure strolling down the corridor in a smart black suit, a smart black pair of shoes and a smart black fedora had denied throughout said course those fatally injured, severely aged, suffering from incurable ailments, those seeking desperately the solace of the services he offered, resulting in an overpopulated living hell; masses shepherded like sheep to the slaughter, in a futile attempt to resolve this ongoing bout of madness; cases of suicide cluttering up newspapers almost every day, so much that they decided it best to sum it all up into a list of those who had chosen to plunge down from the roof of a fifteen-story building or drown themselves in a local swimming pool. Oh the wonderful gamut of ways to kill yourself and everyone else. Everyone breathed on still, despite a bullet through the brain or even resorting to beheading oneself. Death let out a soft chuckle at the thought of the decapitated ones, how they would carry their wits around wherever they went. It was the smell, the accompanying stench of fenow and hopelessness Death relished upon the most with every life he claimed. At this point, everything now reeked of it to such fantastical proportions that he had become somewhat blase to it and wished the man would miraculously drop to the ground before him out of exhaustion. Death sighed.

One would think he had gone inutterably mad as the man ran, a white tattered shirt fluttering unbuttoned around him, pants loosened around the waist, threatening to fall off and, Death prayed, trip him over. Then again, sanity probably never was there in the first place, as he would have been able to judge it was, always had been, pointless to run from Death, as what exactly would be the point of being alive, barely in the man's case, and maybe lost a few pounds, in the process of which losing everything else? At this point, it would not be much of a surprise to find he had forgotten who he was. Death tried to remember the man's name. Starts with a D, he thought. Heh, when all you've done for the past five years had been trying to claim the soul of one madman, it wouldn't be a surprise to find a lot of things you'd forgotten. Chances are, I was probably Al Capone once, what with the mobster boss getup.

Hell, to grant life to all of humankind from the start had been pretty much a punchline to a bad joke. Death had raised this point up once, insinuated the notion of the apocalypse, ending all life as humanity knew it, and employing the leftover space for sofas, which for reasons yet unknown, the netherworld had been filled to the brim with. They're all gonna off each other one way or the other, he'd said. It's inane. Yet, almost everyone was not at all appealed to the idea of ending this seemingly eternal cycle between life and death, death and life. The whole world had been a stage, the people on it bumbling actors who had forgotten their scripts, confused, awkward before a supernatural audience. As in the case of a poorly scripted drama television show. Poorly scripted, yet entertaining was its mindlessness. Nevertheless, he had come to love the job, and had decided it best not to complain.

As if by a miracle, the man whose name started with a D (or was it an E?) finally stumbled over, falling flat on the ground. Death grinned a grin that spread devilishly across approximately the lower half of Death's entire face. Alas, by the grace of God, whom Death suspected had a hand in the overpopulation of sofas in the netherworld, the quarry had fallen! So too had his pants. Still, Death retained his languid gait, sensing the man would obediently remain where he was, and sure enough, observed as he closed in that it would be impossible to even stand up for the man, lost completely too much of his mind it couldn't possibly process the humiliation of exposing those bright blue pair of underpants, whose legs had come off completely unhinged from their knees, the white ends of their bones gleaming eerily in the gloom. Death stooped and for good measure dragged the dislocated legs a few inches away from the man, who tried to crawl away in a pathetic attempt to flee from Death's clutches yet again. Death waded forward, overtaking him easily and cautiously turned over his quarry onto his back, whose face was now disfigured beyond recognition, beyond whatever degree of humanity it had once manifested five years before. There was nothing human about the air the man radiated as well. Decaying flesh and who knew what else lurked beneath the man's underwear. He stared down at those bloodshot eyes, wildly bulging on the brink of popping out, before grimacing in disgust. Whimpering, the man tried to push him back, nevertheless to no avail, what with Death pinning down on his elbows. Death placed a bone thin finger on his lips, hushing him up, though failing at all to soothe the maddening agony in the man's look. Death grinned even more. 'Be a good boy now, Uncle D's gonna put all your worries to rest...'

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