I stood there on a pile of rubble, my hands raised in the air in a gesture that I wished would increase the morale of my allies.

"Get down from there before you get hurt," one of the Deaths shouted at me. It seemed that my short speech was completely wasted. It went over their heads like a summer breeze.

"We should get moving before that mysterious shooter or more of Ifrit's fanatics show up. Grab our God. I'll open a portal," one of the reapers said to others. This Death was very mysterious. He looked more like a large lizard. While his head was a dragon skull, about the same size as that of a human, he was not a skeleton. Every other part of his body was just enchanted armor. He was nothing more than a cluster of very powerful souls, bound together inside a small jewel, hidden within the depths of his metal shell. He was constantly slouching and a ripped black cloak was concealing his backside, while also protecting it from magical attacks, thanks to its magical properties. In the darkness of the night, his dark blue armor could barely be seen. Only a few teal decorative ornaments helped as the moonlight reflected off of them. While he could technically possess any sort of armor, he always decided to wear this one. It was a very old draconic set. In his world, dragons were a race that dominated every corner of the world, but after a terrible cataclysm, they all vanished. Anci, as others called him, based off of his world "Call of the Ancients," blamed himself for the dragons' demise. On that day, he had to work more than ever. Within a few hours, there was a genocide. He couldn't claim all the souls at once, so many of them were forced to stay alive and suffer on the edge of life and death. Since then, he started wearing this armor and used the skull of a young dragon priest as a sort of memento. Some might call it a mockery of the dead, but he did it out of respect. He felt bad for all those who died that day, and this way, he wanted to keep them alive even long after humans discovered the ruins of their civilization and took everything that wasn't nailed down and dismantled the rest.

"Got the portal." As I heard him say it, I realized that I lost myself in my own thoughts again.

*Nice work Eddie.

*Once again, you're just standing around.

*Useless.

I looked to the side and truly, there was a strange round pool of a wobbly green liquid. Bubbles were forming on its edges, growing until they were eventually large enough to break off and float into the cold weather of Nordan's night. At a certain height, they froze and shattered, making their tiny particles fall to the ground like a rain of glitter.

"I got the God!" the reaper made of black smoke grabbed me by the waist and threw me over his shoulder, or at least its equivalent on his body.

"Alright, let's go!" another Death commanded and pointed towards the portal.

"Um... Why do you have to carry me? I can walk on my own!" I felt like a little child. Given my age, it felt odd to be carried around like this if I wasn't even injured.

"It's simple." White danced to my side and started explaining. "You need to be able to control souls to pass into the realm of death. Or... well, what's left of it. That alone wouldn't be a problem because your Divine creativity could help you with that, plus we'd give you some of our souls, but most mortals can't handle soul scream, produced as a side effect. And if you were to pass out because of it, you could fall into the stream of the dead and... well... die. Get it?" It was tough for me to understand all the phrases she used and I couldn't put together a picture of such a place, but I didn't want to make it difficult for her. The idea that she might go for an even more complicated explanation should this one prove insufficient was something I preferred to avoid.

"Yeah, I understand." I paused for a second. Soul was just about to enter the portal. My mind didn't give me any rest, so I simply had to ask. "Will it hurt?" I turned to White.

"Huh? I'm not sure. Well, even if it is, it won't probably..."

*CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

All I remember was this extremely loud screech. The next thing I know, I'm leaning against in rock and White is standing above me, handing me a candy bar.

"Are you okay? Here, that'll help. It contains a lot of sugar, so it should immediately restore your energy." White tried to stuff a chocolate bar right into my mouth, despite it being still mostly closed. "Hold on, are you allergic to nuts? There might be some in it. Maybe I should've thought this through a little bit more. Do I have something else? No, I don't think so. Maybe I could..." I wasn't willing to listen to her rambling on and on like that. Before she could take any action, I grabbed the snack and took a big bite. True, the whole travel through the portal made me feel quite sick and dizzy, but only a few minutes later and with the help of sweet chocolate, I was back in business. Only now did I start to notice the environment around me. Everything was dark. The entire place seemed like a giant rock floating in space without a single star.

White helped me get back up on my feet. It felt like standing on two freshly cooked noodles, but with her as my support, I managed to at least stay upright until the energy from the sugary snack reached all parts of my body. The other Deaths were sitting around, each tending to their own business.

"Welcome to the Council of Deaths!" white exclaimed enthusiastically as if there was any pride to be taken in having such an ugly place as a base of operation. I had to admit, it was not what I imagined. Like a massive asteroid but with a few crumbling buildings here and there. Everything except for us was gray and there was no light or shadow. As if everything had its own personal glow.

"What... What is this place?" I looked around one more time but quickly decided to return my eyes to the ground, as the sight of the void surrounding us didn't make me feel much better.

"This is the afterlife. At least what's left of it. When the world started crumbling, heavens and hells from all your worlds collided and shattered. With the help of our combined strength, we managed to save this single island, suspending it on the edge of nothingness. It's pretty neat, huh?" Once again, she switched into her cheerful attitude right at the end of her sentence. I envied her optimism.

She helped me towards the center of the island, where the Deaths gathered around me. Not all of them had eyes, but I could still feel their sights dancing all over me. It was strange and uncomfortable.

"Alright, perhaps it's time for all of us to introduce ourselves to you formally." Everyone sat down and formed a circle with me in the center. I couldn't help but feel like an alcoholic at an intervention. White pointed to one of the Deaths and started with an introduction. I already knew most of them, since I was their creator, but she sounded so eager to tell me their names and job among their ranks, that I let her continue.

"This creepy-looking lizard thing is Anci, our main blacksmith. Although he's never worked with a hammer before the cataclysm, he really is trying. Plus, he wears a cool-looking skull." At that point, I realized that although they are Deaths, they lack any other practically usable skills other than reaping the souls of the dead. After all, that is not exactly a job that allows one to pick up hobbies or improve useful skills.

"This guy, who carried you here, is called Soul. He's our expert on carrying heavy objects. Unlike the rest of us, he actually is capable of doing something like that." The only Death with no physical body was the strongman of this group. That actually was a little bit sad, maybe with a tiny speck of irony.

"You should lose some weight, Ed. You're really heavy. Thanks to you, I've got a sore shoulder now." Soul started complaining.

"I'm not that heavy! And a sore shoulder? What are you talking about? You're made of smoke!"

"Fine, then I have a sore smoke because of you!" My brain wasn't quite able to follow his way of thinking. In order to just end this absurd conversation, I took a step back.

"Fine, I'm sorry. I'll lose some weight, I promise." Soul nodded and seemed quite satisfied with my apology. Even though I had to admit that reading any sort of emotions from his gaseous form was more than difficult.

"This next guy might look scary, but he has the heart of gold. His name's Uni and he is our main collector of food." White pointed to the side and my eyes quickly followed. When they saw this previously-hidden member of the council, my heart nearly escaped out of my chest. Uni was the Death from a story called "Universe burning." He was a huge worm-like creature, at least the size of a truck, with rags dangling over him, decorated with a metal trinket here and there. He also had a very interesting ability. Nobody who didn't know about him could see him. That was the only reason I didn't notice such a massive creature at first, and it was also a way for him to hide from the sights of mortals until a soul was meant to be collected. His giant mouth was primarily used for swallowing the departed souls, which would then get transported to the afterlife from his "stomach."

"Here." His voice sounded as if somebody just spoke into a gigantic brass bell. It was deep, dull, and had a certain echo to it. He opened his mouth a little and a single apple flew out. I barely managed to catch it. The saliva dripping off of it took away all my desire to eat it.

"We use Uni's stomach as storage for our supplies. Plus, his abilities allow him to pass unnoticed through the worlds and collect whatever we need," White explained his role in the group. Before I could even nod or express how I feel about it, she moved on to another member of the group.

"This guy's called Beast. He's taking care of... well... anything he wants pretty much. All previous attempts to assign him to any productive work have been met with failure." I wasn't surprised. Beast was from a story where Death (he) decided to take some time off and because of that, caused something comparable to a zombie apocalypse. It was the only post-apocalyptic story I ever wrote, so I was quite surprised to see him here. His appearance was one of the creepiest. He was wearing a black suit with a red tie, white gloves, and his head was pretty much non-existent, so he just wore a long-haired wig and a creepy marble mask, which could change the image drawn on it, so he often used it to show his different emotions. Right now, it was the most simplistic drawing of a smiley face, composed of two straight lines for the eyes and a wide curved line for the smile. I didn't like it. It made him look like a character from a creepy story found somewhere in the depths of the internet.

"And the one you should rather avoid. Garry. He's our... spy. Sort of." That name didn't sound familiar at all.

"Garry?" I asked with a certain confusion.

"That would be me!" A relatively normal-looking person walked up to me. He looked completely different than the others. He was wearing khaki shorts and a Hawaiian shirt with all kinds of colorful flowers in its design. His skin had a light tone of green and seemed to completely lack muscles. The skinny arms and legs were not something I'd like to see in such open apparel. Still, even after staring at him for a good while, he didn't look like anything I designed.

"Umm... excuse me but... I remember all of my creations and you... how to put it? Well, I don't remember creating you. Please don't take this in the wrong way, I..."

"Oh, you can't remember. You didn't create me after all." My heart skipped a beat.

"What? I thought this was MY world." That statement might've sounded a little bit arrogant. Fortunately, the Deaths didn't seem to take it as such.

"It is, but you didn't create all the Deaths, right?" That was a good point. Not all of my worlds had their own personification of Death.

"I come from the Temple of thousand wishes. Do you remember?"

I did. A few years back, I went to Greece during the summer. There, Inspired by local architecture and culture, I wrote a short story called: "Temple of thousand wishes." The thing had barely seven thousand words and was only published online on my blog. I never thought even such a tiny world could have its own Death. Questions were swarming in my mind, but White didn't give me an opportunity to ask any of them.

"Alright Garry, back to your place." He obeyed White's command without objections and sat down in the circle beside his brothers. White turned around and looked me in the eyes.

"And then there's me! I take care of obtaining information, medicine, and taking care of everyone in the Council." She took a step back, joined her brothers in the circle around me, and conjured a wide smile on her face. I looked around, stunned to see them all together. Some of my readers and fans would pay so much to read about such a crossover. Part of me even wanted to start creating again, inspired by such an unlikely meetup.

"I don't want to interrupt your 'moment,' but we don't really have much time." Beast broke the silence that started to settle down. His mask changed into a completely blank one and he slightly adjusted the tie of his suit. "White, take him to your place and teach him how to use his creativity. In the meantime, we'll send Uni and Garry to check out our next target location. You have one day, White. Use it well." She nodded, grabbed my hand, and started pulling me away from the others.

"Hold on! What..." I wanted to ask her where she was taking me, but her voice was faster than my thoughts.

"You need to train. Now that you're here, Ifrit will be far more impatient to kill you."

Ifrit. I assumed that he was the man behind the scene. If I heard correctly, Marley wasn't alone. Perhaps there was more to this than I originally thought. But the name... Ifrit... It shared the same terrifying characteristic as Garry. I never created anything with such a name.