**Chapter 2 : The girl with Thanatos 2**
She was standing there—on the edge again.
But this time, she was smiling.
A real, peaceful smile.
"Let's go together," she said softly.
Nafees didn't hesitate.
He took her hand. It felt cold, but strangely gentle—like the last breath before sleep.
They looked into each other's eyes.
And then they counted.
"Three…"
"Two…"
"One—"
And they jumped.
---
The wind roared past him as they fell.
But when Nafees turned to his side—she was gone.
She wasn't falling.
She was above him, sitting calmly on a bridge of shadows stretched across the sky.
Her beautiful flower patter dress was gone. In its place, a flowing black robe shimmered like night itself. Her long hair moved as if underwater. And behind her—
Wings.
Not wings of feathers, but wings made of pure darkness, dusted with starlight. Vast and slow-moving like the universe itself.
She was breathtaking.
And terrifying.
A divine stillness surrounded her.
She looked at him—eyes glowing, calm and endless.
Then her voice echoed in his mind.
**"You thought I had Thanatos. But it was you."**
In that moment, Nafees felt something inside him collapse.
His chest tightened. His breath caught.
She wasn't the one haunted by death.
She *was* Death.
The Grim Reaper.
And he—he was the one born with Thanatos.
"_"
As he plunged toward the river, everything became clear.
She had never been someone he needed to save.
She had always been the one waiting for him.
Not as a girl.
But as the end.
His final companion.
The one who walks with those who've stopped walking alone.
---
The river rushed up to meet him.
The last thing he saw was her—perched above the water like a guardian of the void, wings outstretched, eyes filled with something eternal.
Then—
Silence.
---
The water was cold.
Icy fingers wrapped around his body, pulling him down.
But he didn't struggle.
There was no fear.
No pain.Only stillness.
His body sank.
But his mind floated.
Memories drifted past like pieces of paper in the wind.
The first time he saw her.
The warmth of her hand.
The sound of her laughter, brief as it was.
And that voice again, whispering in the quiet between heartbeats—
**"You thought I had Thanatos. But it was you."**
He remembered now.
**He was the one who wanted to disappear.**
All this time, he believed he was saving her.
But she had been leading him—gently, silently—toward this moment.
Not out of cruelty.
But out of mercy.
***
And then…
A light.
Soft.
Faint.
Somewhere beneath the surface of the water.
He reached for it.
And as his fingers brushed the glow—
The world changed.
---
He was no longer in the river.
He stood barefoot on a path of glass, suspended in an endless twilight sky. Beneath his feet, stars shimmered like fragments of forgotten dreams, scattered across the abyss. Above him, silver clouds drifted in slow, silent procession—weightless, serene.
Yet the sky was steeped in darkness, not of night, but of something deeper… a void that breathed.
"Where am I…?".
And then, a voice.
**"You're in the space between."**
He turned. No one was there.
But the voice came again—inside him.
**"The border between life and death."**
Nafees took a slow breath, though he wasn't sure if he even needed to breathe here.
This place…"
**"You walk where others cannot… because you carry Thanatos. This place exists for you—and you alone."**
The voice echoed again, low and distant—like a whisper folded into the wind. It sent a chill through his spine.
He glanced around, but there was no one. No shape, no shadow. Just the glass path, the void, and that voice.
Where is it coming from?
He wasn't sure if it was outside him—or buried deep within.
***
At that moment the space shattered—
Crack crack!
like glass cracking beneath the weight of silence.
Everything fell into pitch black.
Then, a faint blue light appeared in front of him.
A massive shadow stood—
not made of flesh or bone,
but of nightmares and the echoes of something ancient.
The air around it was heavy,
so heavy that the space itself began to crack.
Huge chains wrapped around its body,
glowing faintly with strange symbols that pulsed with light.
Its head was like a giant stone,
covered by a cracked, shadowy helm.
Blue light ran through its surface like veins.
From beneath the helm, black tendrils flowed—
moving like living smoke,
whispering in voices older than death.
They slid through the void like memories trying to disappear.
**"I am Tharoth"**
it spoke—not with a voice, but with a force that shook the very soul. The words felt like thunder, marking themselves in the very bones of existence.
Before it stood a lone figure, dwarfed, trembling, yet drawn forward by something deeper than fear— "fate!!"