The richest man in the world has Death kidnapped by the Yakuza (Japanese organized crime with a long tradition). It is impossible, and in their attempt, members of this mafia keep dying in strange circumstances. THE MAN does not give up and hires a Ninja, so extremely silent that Death cannot hear him when he attacks her treacherously and kidnaps her.

People stop dying. This may seem wonderful... But, people attacked with great violence, when they expect death... shattered... bloodless... with everything broken inside and out, not understanding anything and already bored and looking almost with charity at their assassin who can't take it anymore and also cannot die of exhaustion... both murmur embarrassed, "I just... I have things to do..." "Yeah, maybe we can try again another day..." "Sure, sure, say hello to your wife," "What a nice guy! Good morning!"

People in horrible accidents, twisted and exploded among the shreds of iron that were their cars, scream, "Heeeelp?!" And the firefighters who don't know how to get them out alive because they should be dead! "You cut, they'll sew it up at the hospital... a few staples and good as new..."

And worst of all, the victims of war... after the 80,000-power shell... they are left as suspended lumps in the air, with full consciousness, watching as they are placed into plastic bags and delivered to their mothers, fathers, or children, who cry brokenly for them, while the deceased promises them that they will always be together in the Great Beyond.

Death is behind glass, like a shop window in a dark grotto, with the only illumination focusing on her. She looks through the blinding light and the thick darkness at her captor. She sees him perfectly; she has a mental file with every human being alive or dead, and she has a thick folder on him.

"You've been trying to avoid me for a long time... I know you very well; it was predictable you would do something like this," she says, pointing with a long cigarette in her hand at the room. She lights the cigarette and takes an interminable drag. "I don't know why you don't want to die... your disease is one of the most painful."

THE MAN, from his darkness, emboldens himself with the Lady with the Scythe.

"But I can take the best medication!! I am THE MASTER of a large part of the world's pharmaceutical industry!!"

"I know, I collect many of your victims daily."

"It's only a very short time before we find the definitive cure!! It will only be a few days..."

"But by the time you achieve it... you will have worse diseases advancing through your body! I have you in my exit file; you won't escape!"

THE MAN jumps up and down like a child having a tantrum while screaming: "WELL, I WILL DEFEAT ALL THE DISEASES!!"

"Sir... do you know what hell of unnecessary suffering you have brought upon HUMANITY?!"

"But also the unexpected LUCK of LIVING!"

"And what will happen to all those condemned to death? They cannot be condemned to death twice... they will be set free!!"

With a big smile on his face and leaving the GRIM REAPER behind. "BUT THEY ALSO WON'T BE ABLE TO KILL AGAIN,"

Death gives up. "I tried..." she mutters.

THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD'S DAUGHTER suffers a horrific accident while riding in a helicopter and ends up mixed and mangled with the rest of the crew. They are a jumble of voices, screams, and cries coming from a formless mass of flesh, blood, fragments of the engine and propellers, and frosted glass.

THE FATHER has her hospitalized; the doctors prepare him for THE WORST. "Your daughter, to all intents and purposes... SHOULD BE DEAD!"

"So, it won't get any worse!"

"Sir... after 20 hours of surgery, we still don't know which pieces belong to your daughter!!"

"Well, separate all the metallic parts, glass, nuts, propellers, and especially the male or overly hairy parts, and I'd say that's it. Put her in a coma with lots of tranquilizers, for her mother, and we'll take her home."

The doctors, oversaturated with work since the disappearance of DEATH, are eager to get rid of one more patient.

The world has become a silent place; it seems that only DEATH brings LIFE. Millions of people are in their homes, living dead. Occasionally, a tearful scream is heard soaring through the air and filling everything; this happens when the sedatives stop working, and all the non-dead writhe in their condemnation of pain.

THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD'S WIFE, fed up and broken from seeing her daughter suffer so much and watching her husband's businesses sink one after another... People no longer need anything to stay alive, for the simple reason that they no longer die—no vitamins, no tonics... The only thing they sell are tranquilizers, but the raw materials for their manufacture are beginning to run out. THE WIFE decides to free DEATH, and the first thing she does upon leaving her confinement is to lovingly approach her liberator and kiss her softly. The woman collapses into the icy arms of the DEVOURER OF SOULS. Death gently places her on the floor and says, looking at a surveillance video camera:

"This is the cursed price. I will never give you your NIGHT OF REST, and you will remain in ETERNAL DARKNESS alone, without your MOON or your STAR."

Next, everyone in the house and in THE MAN's businesses dies, except for him.

She moves with incredible speed, repairing what human greed has spoiled: the balance between LIFE and DEATH. She takes the "life" of all that decadent social mass that should have died and who have been forced to suffer an unspeakable pain for too long.

HE despairs. His best scientists are DEAD, his wife is DEAD, his daughter is the same. His businesses are in total MISERY, and his PAIN, the pain of his disease that he can never resolve or alleviate, is INTERMINABLE.

Only one solution occurs to him: he sells everything he has left and has himself CRYONIZED. It is the only thing he can do, hoping that some other POTENTATE will find an end to his pain and his deadly disease, even though DEATH'S CURSE won't let him die.

The economic crisis resulting from the time when DEATH disappeared shook the entire WORLD, with subsequent revolutions, wars, and social changes. All these changes lead the CRYOGENICS company to ruin and the abandonment of its facilities. When the tanks are turned off, all the cryogenized bodies rot in their own juices, a mixture of artificial and natural liquids. Our PROTAGONIST wakes up and sees himself locked in an enormous technological vat. There are no doors, only smooth walls up to a sealed ceiling. He cannot rot because he is alive, but even so, the chemical liquids they used keep him perpetually wet, and the vapors of his own disease make the unventilated enclosure stink. He has no food or drink other than that concoction that wets him, and in which he also performs his most basic necessities.

He cries when he sees his fate. The first few days, he couldn't stop weeping and hitting the walls in the darkness of the place, but he eventually became convinced that something very bad had happened and that no one could save him from there. After months and years, when there was no longer any of the juice that fed him and he no longer had to eliminate waste from his body, he understood that DEATH had truly deprived him of his end. And all he could do was watch as the metallic surface of the walls of the tank where he was forever imprisoned slowly corroded.

Until the END OF TIME, when DEATH, on her ride across the finite world, pays him a cordial visit just to laugh at him.

THE END