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Toby Wallace liked to think he was the type to laugh in the face of death. He could laugh at many things, even things that deserved a reverent silence. Currently, Toby was finding it impossible to find any trace of humor in him while he stared at the hooded skeleton in the corner. The skeletal monstrosity stood roughly nine feet tall. Despite being hunched over, its head still scraped the ceiling. Wrapped in its cloak and holding a wickedly curved scythe that somehow glimmered in the darkness, Toby had no doubt he staring at what had to be the reaper.

Three thoughts ran through Toby’s head as he stared into the shadowed, empty eye sockets of the reaper with a false courage. The first thought was that he was either violently hallucinating or he was about to unquestionably die.

The second thought was for the life of him Toby couldn’t remember what he did to deserve this. He hadn’t bathed in the blood of innocents slaughtered under a new moon while he chanted fake Latin or anything even remotely similar to that. He couldn’t quite remember what he’d been doing, but he knew it hadn’t been anything to deserve the embodiment of death’s attention.

Toby also didn’t recognize the room he was trapped in to even the slight degree. Somehow, without even looking around, he knew the room was featureless. He knew it lacked an entrance of any sort. He didn’t know how, but he knew.

The third thought was wondering why the grim reaper specifically was lurking in the corner. It had to be the most cliche and stereotypical representation of death in existence. It was admittedly terrifying, but it was done to death and painfully unoriginal. In fact, it was stupid that this monstrosity looked undead. If it was some sort of all powerful being, it should at least have the skill to make itself look like some abomination of indescribable horror that could not be described with mere words. Toby felt he must have somehow drawn the short straw in selecting an all powerful being.

The trite reaper moved from the corner in what could have been frighteningly silent swiftness. Instead, Toby could hear bones creak, snap, and pop as the hooded cliche  moved closer, stretching an impossibility long arm out before it. The arm flung to the side with a loud, disorienting crack. It arm bent at an impossible angle so that a single, bony finger pointed to a long white slab that stretched a good length across the floor. At one end was a cushion that had a metallic dome with what seemed like wires poking out of it.

The bony finger pointing to the slab turned an impossible angle to point directly at Toby. Toby winced despite himself. Fingers weren’t supposed to bend like that. The finger moved slowly, leaving white, misshapen lines in the air behind it. The lines formed into jagged and thick letters. ‘U N N A T U R A L’

Despite the circumstances, Toby oddly hadn’t felt fear or adrenaline flow through him. The desire to mockingly laugh at the absurd situation was squashed with a certain amount of reluctance. The very intimidating and utterly terrifying reaper looked and acted like it belonged in a rightfully forgotten B-movie. The white slab wouldn’t look out of place in a low budget sci-fi film either. It was becoming exceedingly obvious to Toby that the reaper was feared because of the fact that it overly beat a dead horse.

Really, the only thing Toby needed that could make this even more cliche would be for the reaper to decide to grant him ungodly powers for a poorly explained and barely thought out reason.

Coincidentally, that’s exactly what happened.

With the sound of popping bones rapidly brushing past each other and dislocating, the reaper pointed at Toby. It’s finger moved again, spelling out another floating message. ‘E L I M I N A T E’

A cacophony of cracking and snapping bones filled the air as the reaper moved the glittering scythe. With a fast swing the blade neatly cleaved the white slab into pieces. The slab started to blur, slowly fading from existence.

Toby didn’t have time to ponder what exactly had happened or even to feel a tingle of fear burst in him. With a swift slice accompanied by a chorus of cracks, the scythe neatly cleaved Toby Wallace to pieces.

Chapter 2
https://pastebin.com/eezZkGCS