Welcome to Gaia! ::

Part One

Death peered gloomily into the lower level of the two-story homestead in rural Susex. Not the personification of Death either, real flesh and blood, Death, the person. While it may seem a bit of an oxymoron, Death was indeed a man. His name wasn’t Death, of course. Death was more of a job title, like Doctor, Sergeant, or sub-Assistant to the Assistant of the Assistant Mayor. Just in this case, the title was Death.
To most people, Death was something to be shunned at all costs, the bearer of bad news as he was. But few people realize how tough the job actually is. Going around to people’s houses, collecting the souls of the deceased, it was all very stressful. The current Death had actually been hospitalized twice for clinical depression. He was okay now, of course, but it just goes to show you how much pressure it was to be Death.
So, Death* stretched and sighed forlornly, and glided to the front door.
“Blast.” he muttered as he jiggled the handle. “Locked.”
The **Grim Reaper looked up to the roof and sighed. St. Nick had had the right idea. It was a proven fact that the chimney was the easiest way into a house, providing a fire wasn’t lit***.The Grim Reaper sighed again, and wafted gently up to the roof of the house. He checked one last time to make sure that this was indeed the correct house**** and glided towards the chimney, completely missing the glint of moonlight of on a pair of glasses.

*the Grim Reaper to be proper. And if you were paying any attention at all, you could see why he would be so Grim.

**perpetually

***Ironically enough, the person who had the most trouble getting down the ‘ol smokestack was the big man in red himself.

****Which it was, belonging to a Mr. A. Jenkins, who by a stroke of coincidence was to have his soul collected tonight.

Ben quickly dressed himself, and headed for the dorm’s lobby, where Stitches said the man was waiting. Leaning against a wall, out of direct sight of the front door, Drake stared into to space. He came back to reality when Ben walked over to him.
“Ah, awake again I see.” Drake said.
“How come I just woke up?” Ben asked.
“I skipped a few hours in time so you would just wake up again.”
“You can do that?”
“No!” Drake shook his head. “Humans, most gullible species, I swear....” Drake sighed. “No, I suppose you just got drunk again to try and forget me, but you just ended up forgetting the rest of your day.”
“So, you’re defiantly not a hallucination then?” Ben asked.
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“So all that stuff you said about me being on trial....”
“Yes.”
“For killing Death....”
“Yes.”
“That’s all true?”
“Well, I couldn’t say whether or not you actually killed Death. As for that bit about the trial, yeah, that’s true.”
“So, what do we do?” Ben asked.
“Well, do you know how a court of law operates?”
“Ye- no. I don’t.”
“Well, at least we know where to start.” Drake said. “Let’s go to my office.”
“Where is your office?” Ben asked.
“Don’t worry about it, we’ll just take the elevator.”
Drake snapped his fingers, and an elevator car rose out of the lobby floor. The dorm’s greeter screamed rather loudly, and an unfortunate paper boy had the misfortune of being stuck on top of it. The other dorm members went about their normal business.*
Drake strode forward purposefully. Ben followed a few paces behind. He noticed that there was now a distinct hint of brimstone in the air.
“Isn’t that a bit overkill?” Drake asked the operator of the elevator. **
“The smell, or the uniform?” the operator asked him.
Drake thought it over. “Both.” he said finally.
“Well, we’ve been getting complaints down below about the elevators smelling too much like human, so they put these air fresheners in the cars. As for the uniform....” the ghoul winced slightly. “Well, people saying that the old uniforms were more of a burgundy than a real red, so this is just a retaliation.”
“That’s a shame.” Drake said. “I rather liked the burgundy. Rather fancied me a suit of that color.” he turned to Ben. “Well, come on then!”
Ben hurried into the carriage, and the doors shut behind him.
“Going down.” the ghoul said.
With a small ping that sounded like priceless china being dropped, the elevator began to sink. The lobby was left in the same state it had been. ***
Ben listened to the elevator music with vague interest. Something about defiling a pig, and using the innards in a ritual to summon the unholy beast. Quite catchy actually. Ben wondered who it was singing though. Sounded like a mix between Elvis and the Beatles, with a little bit of the Village People thrown in.
The elevator pinged again, and the doors open. Drake stepped out, and Ben followed him. The doors to the elevator closed, and it winked out of existence. Ben looked around.
“It looks like we’re in London.” he said.
“They stole our design, trust me.” Drake said.
As they walked along, Ben saw little demon children playing jump rope and skin the squirrel. He saw horned things riding bicycles on the sidewalks, and a small girl with tentacles crying because she had just dropped her bleeding heart ^ ice cream cone. Drake noticed his staring.
“Most of the things you see here are home grown, so to speak. Except the squirrels, we have those imported.”
“Why do you need to import squirrels?” Ben asked.
“That’s like asking why mayonnaise is called mayonnaise.” Drake said.
“Well, why is....?”
“We’re here.” Drake said.
They were in front of a two-story brimstone building. In bold letters on the front door was the following:



“Well, follow me.” Drake said, holding the door open for Ben.
The noise level increased dramatically as Ben set foot inside the offices of 666 Hell’s Bells Av. It could be described as something less than a roar, but more than a din. Messenger ghoul raced back and forth, sticking to the ceiling. A group of shadows huddled around the soul cooler on break. Drake waded through the mob to the back of the building. They walked up the stairs onto the second floor. As they were walking down the row of cubicles, a short man with thick framed glasses tripped and fell. Papers went flying.
“Keep it together Phil!” Drake called over his shoulder.
“Who was that?” Ben asked, jogging to keep up with Drake.
“That was Phil. He’s the Big Guy’s representative here at the firm. He has to channel all of our paper work to the official records. It’s a job that’s boring as well, it’s very tedious, but someone has to do it. Ah, here we are!”
Drake produced a skeleton key, and unlocked the door with his name on it. He ushered Ben inside, closed the door behind them. The noise instantly dropped.
“So,” Drake said, sitting down at his desk. “Let’s work on your case, shall we?” Drake produced a manilla envelope. “Now, would you sign to the statement that you are innocent of murdering Death?” he asked.
“I suppose so.” Ben said. “But I always thought that Death was more of a, a personified subject.”
“Mmmm...” Drake said. “Nope, defiantly a person. Or he was, at least.” Drake pulled some papers out, and arranged them on his desk. “Okay, I want you to tell me everything to remember about that night.”

* * * * *

“Okay, and what did this figure say?” Drake asked.
“He said,... he said, ‘Bastards killed me.’ And then he just went up and disappeared.”
Drake scribbled furiously on his notepad. “Now, when you say disappeared....”
“Well, there were some things left behind.” Ben said.
“A toad, some bats, a puff of smoke, and a roll of postage stamps?” Drake asked.
Ben racked his brain. “Yeah,” he said finally. “That sounds about right.”
Drake gave a low whistle through he teeth. “It was Death alright.” Drake stretched and opened another can of V8, it had been his seventeenth in the past three hours. “Okay, well, this is a lot of information.” he said. “You can go now. Just try and get some sleep, and I’ll work on your case here. You’ll be summoned when it’s time for the trial.”
Drake rubbed his eyes as Ben stood up. “One more thing.” Drake said. “The other person who was with you....” he checked his papers. “Stitches?”
“Yeah, what about him?”
“Is there any chance that he could testify to your innocence?”
“I could ask him.”
“You do that. See at the trial.”
Drake snapped his fingers, and Ben was back in the dorm lobby. He tripped over an odd lump in the carpet as he went back to his room.




* They were college students after all, they could ignore anything if they set their minds to it.

** A short ghoul hovering about two feet above the floor, suspended by green, leathery wings. He was wearing a bright red bellhop uniform, custom of the servants of Hell. It clashed very rudely with his complexion.

*** Save for the fact that the carpet resealed itself too quickly, and now there was a paper boy-shaped lump, writhing underneath the carpet where the elevator had been.

^ not the flower

so you posted it here too i see