The world started spinning, and I was in the middle of it all. Trees blurred into stubby little lines, cars turned to dots, and Lexie was nowhere to be seen. The bright afternoon sun was blotted out by the impending darkness. All of the city sounds crushed together to form a very loud bang.

It was all gone. The city, the people, and even Lexie couldn’t be seen. The afternoon that was there just a few seconds ago was now an endless void of darkness.

“Lexie! Where are you?” I called out.

I received no answer. I yelled and yelled, but still got no reply. After what seemed to go on for hours, I gave up. I assumed this would be the rest of my existence. I suddenly strained my ears, thinking I’d heard something. My mind told me it was an illusion, but I swear, I heard Lexie’s voice just quiet enough to be heard. There was hope after all!

“Agni? Agni? Can you hear me?” She screamed.

I replied, “Yes! Yes! I can finally hear you! Where are we?”

“I don’t know. All I see is black.” She said.

“I think we’re in some sort of void. There must be a way to get out of here,” I reasoned.

I felt around me, but touched nothing but empty space. Suddenly, I remembered something. I reached into my pocket, and sure enough, I felt cold metal against my hands. I opened the familiar pocket watch with hope that it would give us some sort of clue to use. The glass, and with it, my hope shattered as I opened it. The small clock was broken beyond repair.

“Try opening your pocket watch!” I called out to Lexie, hoping hers was in better condition than mine.

“It’s shattered. I can’t seem to fix it,” She replied.

I tried for what felt like days to fix it, intermittently striking a conversation with Lexie, but even when I thought all the pieces were in the right place, nothing happened. In frustration, I broke the watch even more.

“Uggghh! We’ll never get out of here!” I yelled.

I glared at the watch, hoping that it would somehow fix all of my problems. Whilst looking at the broken watch, I noticed a glowing light inside of the gears. I tore apart the pieces blocking the light, and found a small, glowing button labeled “reset”.

“Find the glowing button! It’s behind the biggest gear!” I told Lexie.

“Should we push it?” She asked.

I answered, “It’s the only option we’ve got. Together, on the count of three. One, two, three!”

I pushed down on the glowing button, hoping Lexie was doing the same. I heard two clicks, and the entire pocket watch shattered in my hands.

Time itself froze. The air instantly got much colder. I heard a crack of thunder and felt a strong gale of wind. The world started spinning again. This time, color was coming back. I saw light for the first time in ages. Finally, I heard music, actual music! The spinning finally stopped and I fell with a hard thump on a metal floor.

I got on my feet and stared around. I turned to my right and saw Lexie. We were finally together again, and nothing could separate us now. We hugged for so long that I almost didn’t notice the bony finger tapping my shoulder. I slowly turned my head around and saw a tall, looming figure ahead of us. His energy made me want to get away as fast as I could, but I stayed where I was and looked him in the eye. He was wearing a long, draping black cloak and where his head should have been was a skull. The only other part of his body that wasn’t covered by the cloak was his fingers. They were made of what seemed to be human bone. His entire presence sent a chill down my spine.

The figure finally spoke, “Sorry to interrupt you two, but I need to tell you something.”

“Yes?” We simultaneously answered

He smiled and with a grandiose flair, he announced, “Welcome to your new lives! You can call me Death, and since you just died, I’ll be showing you around!”

We both stared at him, speechless as he led us through metal corridors and into a main room. It, like the halls, was lined with steel. It was about the size of a hotel room and contained a control panel in the middle which seemed to be connected to a television screen on the wall. The rest of the walls were covered with buttons, wires, and other various electronics. Located at one of the sides were two large tubes, glowing red.

Death spoke again, “Well, normally you’d be reincarnated into a life form of your choosing, but this isn’t the case for you.”

“Why?” We both asked the figure.

“Well, since you’re under 21, you haven’t technically achieved your purpose yet. Now, under these circumstances, you’d normally work for me, cleaning the house, preparing meals, and all of that stuff, but I am bound by the eclipse of the moon that I can’t receive any servants tonight. Instead, you’ll fulfill a new, more important purpose with a different form. And, to decide your form,” He started.

Death moved towards the control panel and pressed a big, red button in the center, turning on the television screen.

“You’ll take a quiz!” He finished, as the screen switched to a website with a big header that read “Find your true spirit animal! (not responsible for mutations gone wrong inducing minor or severe injuries or even second death. For questions relating to how this website works, please contact the author of this page, Natas, through this number: (666) - 666 - 6666.)

Lexie and I looked at each other with uncertainty. What was this place?

Death spoke again, “Agni, you can take the left side. Lexie, you can take the right.”

The screen and control panel physically split in two as I asked, “Wait, how do you know our names? We never told them to you.”

“Oh, I know lots of things about you two. You see, the moongraph held a very peculiar prophecy for you, and it even said that… Wait! I can’t tell you that yet. Your destinies are a secret only I can ever know,” He replied in a singsong voice.

Lexie and I both walked up to our sides of the control panel. We both got a pop up that said “NOTICE: This website uses nightshade cookies. Please click enter to accept.”.

“Just click enter and start the quiz,” Said Death, looking like he’d gone through this routine a million times.

We clicked enter and immediately were greeted with our first question. “What is your favorite season? A. Summer B. Winter C. Fall D. Spring” is what the question read.

“Wait, is this a personality test? Are you using a personality test to decide our form?!” Said Lexie, who was starting to get very agitated.

Death replied, “I have my ways. Don’t question them.”

Lexie finally bursted out, “Ugh! None of this makes sense! Why do we have to be put through this?!”

“Now, now. Calm down, my child. I wouldn’t want your anger to mess up the quiz,” Death said calmly.

Lexie stared at him with the hatred of a thousand suns as she screamed, “The quiz! The quiz! All you ever talk about is the quiz! You don’t even care about us, do you? I can’t take it anymore!”

Lexie fell into a ball on the ground and everything was silent. Not even Death dared to speak. Finally, after a few minutes, she got up and stood near her control panel.

With a determined yet uncertain face, she said, “Come on, Agni. If we’re stuck here, we should at least make the best out of it. Let’s finish the quiz.”

I nodded and stood over my panel. We kept answering questions for about ten minutes until we were interrupted by a loud siren. I covered my ears, and Lexie did too, but the shrieking still penetrated our hands.

A voice coming out of the speakers screamed, “Intruder alert! Intruder alert! Guards have been released.”

Death, looking very worried, urgently said, “Quickly, children! You must finish the quiz before they come!”

We started answering the questions rapidly, and the only sound in the room was the urgent tapping of buttons. We were about half way done when we heard fast footsteps coming towards us.

“There’s not enough time to finish, get in the tubes!” Death yelled at us, pressing a yellow button on the wall, which shattered the screens, sending glass over our heads.

We ran to the tubes, which were now glowing a yellowish green. The tubes sealed off around us, sending a plume of steam into the air. Buttons on the top of the tubes started glowing arbitrarily, and the fan on the top started spinning. A great gale of wind rushed around me. I heard a crack of thunder, the world started spinning, and then everything went black.