Eurydice. Sweet, beautiful, smart, embracing everything that's good and whole in this world, Eurydice. When he had practically been an infant, 15 years old, he had seen her drive through the street. Her helmet matching her canary yellow scooter. Something had changed drastically in his life that day, he was sure of it.

  Still, it took another 15 years for them to get together. She, a bossy but intelligent loudmouth, he more on the quiet side. He loved her laugh and he loved her wide gestures. He loved how when she saw something she could not comprehend she squinted, making a mental picture of the scene to investigate it further when she came home. He loved how she was tough and independent, but got giddy every time she managed to solve a math problem. 'Look, I did it!', she would say with a grin and show him her wobbly handwriting, smudged from being a left handed person using an ink pen. Almost as if she was a child showing him the crayon drawing she made in kindergarten. He even put a few of her solutions on the fridge. He loved everything about her. He loved her more than anything else he had ever loved or would ever love in this world.

  And just like that, death had taken her away. Psychopomp had taken her away.

  Lost in memories, it took him a while to realize Psychopomp was staring at him, her head cocked to the side. 'Are you imagining how you're going to kill me?', she asked nonchalantly. 'Don't think I'll just kill you.', he spat back. 'That would be too good for you. No, I'll make sure you'll suffer a fate worse than death.'

  Too late, he realized he had made a mistake in saying that. Psychopomp looked at him with a sly smile. 'So you recognize there are fates worse than death?' While she put down his food in front of him, what seemed like a mocking gesture, she continued: 'Then should it not be allowed to free those people from their mental chains?' For a moment he was lost for words. Then he bit back: 'The only ones who suffer fates worse than death are those that deserve them, the others all have a bright future ahead of them. In both cases it's only rightful to keep people from dying.'

  'Only those who deserve them suffer horrible fates. That's a comforting thought to think, isn't it?' The neon light from the wall sign illuminated her back as she strolled around the room, hands clasped behind her back. 'It suggests a righteousness of the universe, a sort of natural order to things. But the universe does not desire order, no, it converges towards chaos. Since our lives as human beings and as organisms in general revolves around creating order, we want to see it around us as well. The alternative, but also the most probable truth, is terrifying. That how much effort we put into our existence, one day we and our labors will be turned to dust.'

  ‘That may well be, but you’re out of your mind if that excuses the damage you have done to this place, the hurt you have caused our people.’ In an afterthought he added: ‘The hurt you've caused me.’ ‘I do not deny that I have caused much pain.’ Her face almost seemed sorry. ‘And I will forever carry repentance for the things I have done. But sometimes we cause pain to steer clear of an even bigger ache.’

  Before he could say another word, she exclaimed: ‘You’ve been out for a while and I’m getting a bit tired of spending my hours in this room. I’d like a change of scenery. How about we move our discourse to another room?’ That seemed to be a rhetorical question, because she moved towards him to loosen his chain from the wall. He was dumbfounded, the nerve to move on like nothing had happened, like he had not tried to strangle her just a moment before this.

  Nothing he could do about it, however. Nothing he could do except play this game with her to the end. He might have lost this round, but there would be another.

  Before she freed him, she took out a small apparatus from her pocket that quickly extended in length. An electric baton. She swung it in the air for a moment without saying anything. The message was clear, do not try to pull any tricks. His bones stiff and his body aching, Dante got up with a groan. Seemingly casually, but with a sharp eye on his movements, Psychopomp led him to the room next door.

  Sometimes the discrepancy between reality and what you imagined in your head is so big that your head struggles to make sense of things. When Dante entered the room, the space he visualized in his head a was something like the prison he had spent the last day or so in. Something like the neon dungeon with its childish and animated spirit. The image still on his mind clashed with what he saw.

  Relics from ancient Earth times were, understandably, rare on this planet. However, many were fascinated with the history of origin planet of their species. When he was still a bit younger he had spent hours, days reading up on the mediaeval times, by far the era he most would have like to have had a glimpse of. He knew a few things about ancient symbols of death. This place was as if one had made a shrine for death, smothered in its emblems and symbols. If anywhere this was what he imagined the residency of la Muerte to look like.

  The room was dark and moody and reminded him a bit of the occult. Dark red curtains draped around the windows, flowing slightly in the wind. The only light came from the Moon shining in through the windows and from countless candles in bronze holders that were lit on dark wooden tables. Skulls, of course, weren't missing from the scene. Crosses were propped up on small tables next to withered roses and golden hourglasses. A black cat was asleep in a red velvet bed that matched the curtains. Two other chairs in the same fabric were positioned next to one of the tables. A collection of moths was displayed on the wall, as were paintings of winged angels and a rider on a pale horse. The rest of the room was filled with dark wooden book cases filled to the brim with what seemed to be real books.

  'What do you think?', Psychopomp asked while she gracefully gestured at the scene. She immediately seemed to change. Like the change of scenery, her image of the bashful and youthful girl, lanky and jumpy, morphed into a gracefully moving, impenetrable, arcane being. Who was she?

  After she had chained him to the biggest table, she motioned for him to take a seat at the table. When he refused to do so, she sighed and dramatically draped herself down on the other red velvet chair. ‘I must admit that our little scuffle made me lose track of what I was saying. I really should have written down what I wanted to say. That way, I could look up whenever I have forgotten which part of the story I was telling.’ She tapped her cheek with her finger, while fidgeting with one of the candles. ‘Ah, how about I tell you a bit about how I got over my anger? The story about how the Reapers were born.’

  The Reapers were Psychopomp’s followers, the cult of Death. Like Psychopomp, they left their mark on the world in a quite crude way. Armies of neon devils racing through the streets, all with her logo on their backs. Graffiti on the once spotless white buildings, exclaiming 'Memento mori' and 'Death is not our enemy.' Some of them used electric scythes to mow down whoever was in their way.

  Only a few of them were actually able of murder. They were soon baptized the BP, the Black Plague clan. Like Psychopomp they were dressed in black, with the Psychopomp skull on the back of their jacket. Few understood why only a few were able to kill others. If Psychopomp's goal was to spread destruction everywhere, why not train as many as possible to do so? But Dante understood clearly. You only tell those you trust the secrets of the trade.

  ‘When you encounter the great reformers of your time, whether they are deemed good or evil, they are presented in terms of their great successes and victories. They seem like these impeccable gods, always faithful, always been convinced of their future greatness. Only when you are in a somewhat similar situation yourself, you realize how much of their time they must have spent thinking about one question: Why me?

  When it's you against the status quo, our brain is programmed to feel uneasy, to persuade you to take the common road. Evolutionarily speaking, being cast out from the crowd means death, so it's no wonder we dislike going against the grain.

  But the problem is that once you see something that shocks you to your core, it's very hard to unsee it. For me it were those people, hopelessly roaming around in a world they did not belong to anymore, unable to move on. And more importantly, it was the moment I let that first woman go, the expression of pure bliss on her face as she finally moved on.

  It took me a long time to be able to realize that. I was angry for so long after it happened, angry that someone or something had put me up to this. Angry that I seemed to have no other choice. And I did not know what to do. I was stuck and only when I realized I was stuck, I could move forward. There was no way back, you see, no way back but forward in my cause. There was no use being angry at what had happened, the only thing I could do now was execute, quite literally, the task at hand.

  My mind reached what felt like a rare moment of pure clarity. When the stakes are high, sometimes emotions, hopes and fears and despair seem to get into the way of actually performing the task in hand. So instead of treating the situation as a life or death situation, again, quite literally, I decided to look at it as if it were a task I was given in my job or at school. If I had gotten a task in that situation, I would not have been concerned about whether or not I wanted to do it and whether or not I would have been able to. I would have started an worked my way from there. That's what I would do. So I thought, what do work professionals do to solve a problem? They brainstorm.

  Giant piece of paper, check. Marker, check. The first step in solving a problem is identifying the problem. The problem: Release people from an eternity they did not sign up for. Now for a solution. I looked blankly at my empty sheet of paper, until I remembered something. See, problems are often too big to oversee. You would spend decades to find a solution to solve it at once. So instead, people divide problems in subproblems and solve those instead.

  Subproblem 1: How do I disconnect people? Well, I had at least found out the solution to that one. Subproblem 2: How do I reach so many people in an overseeable period of time. Unless I cloned myself, I would need other people to help me. Subsubproblem 2.1: How do I convince people to join my cause? I immediately felt like giving up again. Who would ever agree to this? Which sane person would ever look at someone killing people and think: Yes, that's what I want to do? When the stakes are high, sometimes emotions, hopes and fears and despair seem to get into the way of actually executing the task in hand. Calm down. Wasn't that exactly what every war general, every cult leader has done before, convince people of a cause that sounds crazy on paper. How did they do it? Persuasion.

  Let me tell you something about the art of persuasion. It's like painting in the sense that everyone has got their own style. Some are very subtle in their approach, some a little hard-handed. But it's important to choose a certain style as to not work against yourself. I knew my style had to be disruptive, turn heads, be very clear, though also intangible. Just like death itself. As hard as I find to say this, to make the greatest change in the smallest fraction of time, sometimes you have to be a bit provocative, rememberable. So Psychopomp was born.'

  The last sentences she had said, stayed with him. The image of a Psychopomp without the skulls and the neon pink hair was jarring. 'So you're saying this is all made up?' 'Everything we humans develop is made up.' 'But the way you are, the way you talk and dress. That wasn't just some impulse you had on a whim?' She smiled. 'It might be hard to believe, but I'm not someone to act on impulse.' 'And the blatant use of skulls, the pompous motorcycle, all thought through?' 'Everything. I created someone who contrasted against this world. The neon demon, bringer of change in a white, static world.'

  'Who are you?', he asked. She cocked her head to the side. 'I thought we were past the introductions. Psychopomp is the name.' 'No, but who are you? If the neon exterior is all an act, then who are you?' 'Psychopomp is no act, it's just a mere fraction of who I am. Just like this…', she pointed at the room, 'is a fraction of who I am.' 'This is not all?' She chuckled. 'Would that not be extremely boring. I hope that is not all you estimated me to be.' Now that he studied the room some more, it did have the same extravagance, flair and lack of subtlety as her Psychopomp esthetic, as did the persona she was portraying now.

  Somehow, only then he realized fully that Psychopomp was not a villain from a cartoon, with a one-dimensional motivation to destroy humanity that sprung into existence one day. Someone who decided on a day to day basis what evil plan she would play out. This was not a villain he could swoop away in one swipe, this villain was rooted in years of preparation, had rooted herself into society. Killing her would not solve a thing. She would be a martyr and new Psychopomps would spring up all over the place. Locking her up would not solve a thing. Her organization would still be there, the Reapers and the BP would still be there, able to take the lives of so many more victims. Even if you cut down a bunch, others would pop up in another place, spreading just like the actual plague. In a way, Psychopomp had made herself immortal. She would always catch up in one form or the other. It's as if he had played chess while only taking into account, forgetting the other puzzle pieces and most importantly, forgetting what it meant to actually win the game.

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  Maybe if he had not been blind all this time, he could have caught her way earlier. Maybe if he had not been so ignorant, he could saved dozens of people who died at her hand. Maybe he could have saved even Eurydice. His stomach dropped. He shook his head to get the thoughts out of his brain. This was not his fault, this had never been his fault. Psychopomp was the perpetrator, the criminal mastermind who had deceived him. If only she had never noticed this planet. If only she had stayed put in whatever place she came from, then this nightmare had not become reality. Then Eurydice would still be here.

  For an instant, he could imagine her so vividly, so real in his mind. He could hear her chuckle that always reminded him of a cheerful dolphin. He could see her shift her balance from one leg to another as she pushed back her hair as she did so often. He could listen to her reading out loud the new scientific paper she wrote. Like always, he did not understand a word of what she said, but he still loved to listen to her anyway. He loved her, so much.

  Just as quickly as the image had appeared to him, it faded out of existence. As her face disappeared from his mind, Psychopomp came back into view. The happy feelings he had felt extinguished like a deoxygenated flame. He blinked a few times to reorient himself. ‘You were lost in thought for quite a while.’, Psychopomp said. She took a short break, before continuing her story as if she had been uninterrupted:

  'Another thing I learned about the art of persuasion is that you're doing it well, if you manage to find people to join your cause. You're doing it right when people are the ones to find you.

  It took me a year to get there, but I first got an indication that I was on the right track when I got my first follower. You might recognize her. A nurse, who had followed me on the news. When the situation was dire and I was about to be caught, she showed me an escape. To be honest, I don't know whether she had joined my cause if I had not been in immediate danger and it had not been necessary for her to help me. But I was in danger and she helped me and afterwards she asked to join me. Said that in her years and years of working she had never seen the patients on the first floor so hopeful. That she had never been so convinced of something ever in her centuries long lifespan than that what I was doing was in the end the right thing. I think she was more convinced than I was at that point.

  She actually came up with the Reapers. When I told her that if she joined me, there would be no turning back, she laughed at me and said: 'I wouldn't have helped you otherwise.' She then added: 'I guess I am one of your reapers now.'

  It was the beginning of what would be my team of supporters. At first I was hesitant to let her handle the recruitment of others, but I quickly learned that she was invaluable to our cause. The amount of people she recruited in the first months was higher than what I probably would have been able to recruit in a few years. While I had a few psychological tricks up my sleeves, she was the one with the smooth tongue. She was also the one with the gigantic social network on a planet where I knew no one. While I had the tools to convince people, she was able to actually apply them. It was a bit of a coincidence that we got together, at least at that moment, but it paved the way to our victories.

  You might think no one will ever be on your side, that no one will ever see what you see, but you never know when that might change. In an instant, someone could cross your path. But the only way people will ever support your cause, is if you openly display it to the world.

  But how do you find the courage and strength to do so? It can so easily become a vicious circle, hiding what you stand for from the world, because no one will agree with you and in that way making sure no one will ever be able to. It’s even harder if you have no example to guide you, no one who has walked the same path before you. Somehow you must find a form of motivation to carry through when no one else does. I guess then that I was lucky in a sense. The external pressures of my nightmares and being stuck on this planet were plenty motivating.

  But I digress. The nurse, who you know was baptized Persephone, was the force that propelled this Psychopomp movement into visibility. Besides that, she was also my first friend on this planet. At that point, I think I needed that more than anything else, someone to trust. Not to get too sappy about it, but being able to talk to someone in person after ages felt like a first breath after taking a deep dive. But at the same time, I also had to take a new leap.

  Being let down quite a few times over my elongated lifespan, trust does not come naturally to me. I do best on my own, no, I do easiest on my own, but for Psychopomp to work, I had to trust Persephone. And she was not the only one I had to trust. If I was the only one with the capability to lead people to the afterlife, I would have had to play Death for eternity. So I had to teach a few others to do what I did. The only problem being, I had no idea what I did exactly. Maybe they could observe what I did and copy, monkey see, monkey do, but no, I’d never get the opportunity to show them all in the moment. Hospitals were suspicious already and had significantly increased their security measures. And who knows whether they'd be able to repeat what I did.

  So of course I asked the only source of information I had. The fog had become a bit of a second home at this point, my guide like an involuntary roommate. 'How do I teach people what I do?', I asked her. In quick succession I added, knowing my question was probably too vague: 'How do I teach people to kill the inhabitants from this planet that want to die?' Alas, my question was still met with an ambiguous answer: ‘You know.’ What was that supposed to mean? I certainly did not know, otherwise I would not be asking.

  Before I could even think of a remark, she just walked away. She turned around and walked into the distance. If she were not a shell of a soul roaming around in an endless fog, I’d almost suspect she was tired of me. In that place, we seemed to not be wearing any shoes. To my dismay, because I’d liked to have thrown one of those at her head at that point.

  Instead, I watched her in silence for a while before asking: ‘What do I need to do for this place to let me go?’ Of course, no answer. ‘Do I need to kill a hundred people?’ No answer. ‘Or do I need to kill a thousand?’ Nothing. ‘If ten percent of those who want to die are killed and there are enough others to take over my responsibilities, can I leave then?’ Silence.

  I woke up in silence, though my head was filled with noise. The walls of my mind were about to burst again under the pressure of so many thoughts, so many worries, concerns and doubts. While I racked my brain over how to fix yet another problem on my way, I spend the day in a daze. Yet again, I found myself strolling mindlessly. But unconsciously, I neared my place of destiny.

  I walked into one of the compounds where a few of the followers Persephone had enlisted were located. It was nothing much, a place to sleep and to eat and to talk, but not much else. A few had gone out in the night and painted our signs at several places in the capital. They were fast asleep in the corner of the building. Without meaning to, I sat down next to one of the beds and stretched my hand out towards its user. It was a guy who looked around the age of twenty with a full head of brown curly hair. I had met him previously. He seemed confident, authentic with integrity. Charming without being arrogant, convincing without being manipulative, assertive without being domineering. A sharp tongue, but able to make anyone talk. Certainly better suited for leadership than I was. I blinked. Only then did I realize where I was. And only then did I realize that if anyone saw what I was doing, they might be a little apprehensive. Still, I could not help but lay my fingers down onto his head and close my eyes.

  With a shock I awoke in the fog. To my astonishment, I had brought someone with me. The guy I had laid my hand on was here and my fingers were still located on his face. Quickly, I pulled back my arm. He glanced around in bewilderment. ‘What?’ Before I could answer, there in the fog she stood again, that woman. And I swear, I saw the slightest, tiniest smirk around her ghoulish mouth. I turned my back towards her and faced the guy. ‘What is this place? Who are these people? And why is she looking at us?’ He of course pointed at my lovely guide. Strangely relieved, I said: ‘Don’t worry about it.’

  Not to take away any of the glory from Persephone, but this guy became my first initiated BP member. Cerberus you might know him as, though we’d like to call him Beres for short. Beres’ first experience with death was similar to mine. Through some sort of intuition he found himself drawn to one of the hospitals, to one of its many patients waiting for the end. With a bit of our help we managed to get him in and he fulfilled the rest of the task.

  You should have seen his face when we came back to the compound. A mixture of pride and shame, happiness and sadness, but mostly the look of a person who has seen something that shook him to his core and that he can’t unsee. And most remarkable to me was that for the first time, someone understood what I went through. I have to say, it startled me at first. For a moment I felt astonishingly connected to someone for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. Persephone I had trusted for a while then, but she did not understand what it was like, not really. Though that would soon change as she would learn the secrets of the trade as well.

  ‘What exactly did he do?’ ‘Hmmmm?’ ‘What did Beres do to …kill that person?’, Dante asked. Her head slanted to the side, she said with a sly smile: ‘You want to know how a BP member kills a person?’ He shook his shoulders, tried to pass it off as a casual question, but he knew she had seen right through him. ‘Just interested in how someone would manage such a thing.’ ‘Ah, I see.’ Tapping the side of her face, she added: ‘I guess I could tell you, but it might be better to give you a chance to figure out yourself.’ In an instant her face was uncomfortably close to his. ‘How about I show you the fog and you can find out yourself how to kill the immortal.’

  His heart beat in his chest. Was this the trap she had tried to lead him into? For him to join her in this ‘fog’ she had been talking about? To become one of her Reapers? What was she going to do to him? Brainwash him? Poison him?

  Psychopomp chuckled. ‘Someone is looking very grave. You don’t have to accept my offer. If you want to, you can still think about it for a while if you’d like. I get that it’s not every day someone invites you to visit the place between life and death.’ When he remained silent, she continued: ‘I’ll take that as a maybe. No pressure. However, I must tell you this is a one in a life time offer and one I don’t hand over to just anyone.’

  ‘You see, I passed on my powers, my curse, whatever you would like to call it, to a small group of people. I have spoken to all of them, made sure that they were up to the task and more importantly, that they truly believed in the cause. Even though those conversations were about death, I felt more alive than in a long time. I felt so many things I had not experienced in a while.

  But there is more to my Reapers than simple dedication. All of my Reapers are special people, strange people. People who I think see life and death as a little different than anyone else. I think they would have to be strange, mad as others like to call it, to give their all for a cause like this, to place themselves outside their society, outside their homes. In a way I realized I was lucky. I came to that place already an outsider, an alien. They chose to alienate themselves from all they had ever known. To be like me. Or maybe they had always felt that way already, but never had enough incentive to proclaim it to the world. Who really knows?

  This whole story might sound like a giant deus ex machina to you. All these problems were suddenly solved out of nowhere. But I guess that’s the problem about giving a summary about what happened. You only get to hear the short moments of importance to the story and not the long periods of suffering and waiting in between. For you, it seems only logical that all these events were to happen, you expected them. I however, had no idea of whether any of what I did would fall into place. Eventually it did, in its own chaotic way.’

  Psychopomp stood up from her chair and rolled back her shoulders. ‘You sure do get stiff from all this sitting around. How about I cook us up some dinner and you take some more rest?’ Again, she did not really ask him a question as much as she just made a statement.

  Before she left the room, she made her way over to one of her bookcases and took out a few books. Carefully, she placed them onto the table to which he was still chained. ‘Some reading material to keep you company as I get dinner ready.’ With no other word said, she left him with the books. Dante noticed he was still standing and that his legs were about to give in from exhaustion. Reluctantly, he took a seat at the table. He could not keep his curiosity from getting the better of him and looked through the books.

  He was unsure about whether he had ever seen a real book before. He was sure however, that he had never held one in his hands. Where did she get them? Who was she?

  One of the books he browsed through was handwritten in a graceful font. It seemed to be filled with fairytales about knights and fair maidens. As much as he hated to admit it, he would have loved to spend more time reading every page of paper stored in this room if it had not been Psychopomp’s evil den.

  But in no time at all Psychopomp returned, bringing with her large plates of food served on silver platters, literally. Graciously, she placed them on the table. The scent made his stomach growl. Again, Dante had forgotten about his bodily sensations and only now realized how hungry he was. Without realizing it, he stuffed a fork full of food into his mouth. Then he saw Psychopomp glare at him. Did she poison his food? He had already swallowed it. Should he spit it out? When he saw her head slant to the side, he already knew he was about to receive a sarcastic remark. ‘Glad you don’t think I’m so dishonorable as to poison your food.’ ‘I don’t think you have any sense of honor. It just doesn’t seem like your style.’ She grinned. ‘Fair enough.’

  For a moment they were silent as they each ate their dinner. Then she pointed at the books and asked: ‘What do you think?’ He said nothing, afraid he would give away his enthusiasm about the small antiquities. ‘How did you get them?’ Psychopomp leaned back in her chair. ‘Ah, a book lover I see.’ Brushing away a few specks of dust of one of the book covers, she continued: ‘One of the great things about being an immortal travelling through the galaxy is that you come into possession of a lot of beautiful, fascinating items.’ ‘So you stole them?’ Laying her head in her hand she sighed: ‘I acquired them in a very legal manner.’ Sure.

  After dinner she brought him back to the empty, neon front room. ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to spend the night here again.’, she said as she locked him to the wall again. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ She started to walk off, but there was still something on Dante’s mind. He blurted out: ‘Are you going to take me to the fog? Psychopomp turned around swiftly. ‘Only if you want to.’

  He should decline, he should absolutely decline. Curiosity kills the cat. But the thought kept racing through his brain, from a whisper, to a declaration, to an exclamation, to a straight cacophony. ‘Fine.’, he said reluctantly. ‘I’m afraid I’m going to need a bit more convincing consent.’ ‘Yes, I want you to take me.’, he said, biting his tongue. ‘Then that’s what I’ll do.’ And again, she turned her heel and walked away. ‘Where are you going?’ ‘Can’t take you there until you’re asleep. So lay down softly and sleep well.’