He's heard. He's heard an awful lot about what seems to be going on out
there, out in the ocean. About the dead animals, about people
disappearing, about boats coming back empty or not at all. He's dreamed,
too - he's dreamed apocalyptic dreams, visions of death and misery and
destruction, visions that involve Dolphin somehow. That involve his
Dolphin - his girlfriend, the one he loves, the one whose love helped save
the world before. And then the way she acted - she said she'd come back
for him. But he's worried - so Sandy's gone out, under cover of darkness
as per his usual. He's gone past the barricades and snuck past the coast
guards, and he's got himself a rebreather and a change of clothes in the
boat. He'll go in looking if he has to; what good he thinks he'll do is
unknown. But before he tries anything stupid, he's calling her with a
quick desperation, knocking against the bottom of the boat with a rock,
tapping out her name. "Come on, Dol, be here...be all right..." he
whispers to himself.

Normally, the tapping of her name brings the swift approach of dolphins,
even if Dol herself is not in the area. Tonight there is nothing. The
waves are empty and dark, slapping against the side of the boat. The name
echoes down through the water, and nothing is there to relay the message.
The ocean, however, is more silent than usual, the drastic decrease in
life allowing the small sound to carry much farther than it might usually.
Eventually, a faint grey mist drifts across the water, reaching tendrils
around the small vessel. Almost cirling, curiously, like a live thing.

Carrying on tapping as though it's the only thing he knows how to do,
Sandy doesn't even notice the mist for a little while. But then as it
obscures even the starlight, he finally glances up, faltering. Silently,
he switches the rock to the other hand, and starts tapping again, every
once in awhile glancing back at the mist, or over the side of the boat.

She rises. Not with a playful leap over the prow, not even with the
half-lunge and kicking feet that normally keep her torso above the water.
No, she rises silently, motionlessly, as though she could walk on water.
The massive, gleaming scythe in her hand is all that cuts through the fog
surrounding the boat. Her hair is plastered around her but she makes no
gesture to put it aside; her pale eyes are cold. Hard. Evaluating. She
merely.. remains there. Watching.

The rock clatters to the bottom of the boat as Sandy's hands suddenly go
nerveless. It takes a lot to put the Golden Ager off, but the sight - no,
the spectre of his lovely, loving Dolphin so cold and abysmal...and
seemingly lifeless, no matter how much she might be staring at him - it's
enough to kill any nerve he had. He stares back, hands fallen to his lap,
eyes wide; the mist and the wind touch his face, his hair, cooling the one
and ruffling the other, and still he looks. It's as though he were trying
to resolve the image before him with the memory of the girl he loves - or
rey to keep the present from mirroring the future of his past dreams. One
word - one question. "Dolphin?" His voice is a strained whisper.

The mist continues to circle. Not passing the boundaries of the boat's
edges; it ebbs and flows, but does not touch the Golden Boy. Not yet. Its
mistress, perhaps, is curious, though one would not know it from her utter
lack of expression. One hand holds the scythe. She raises her other hand,
as well, to the wooden shaft, resting her webbed fingers lightly on the
weapon. Her eyes remain on Sandy. Slowly, and only once, she shakes her
head.

"And I looked," whispers Sandy then, a look on his face like he's realized
that this time - like so many others, but unlike so many others in its
disastrousness - his dreams were able to do little in the task of helping
him prevent the future. "And I looked, and beheld a pale horse; and her
name that sat upon him was Death, and Hell followed with her." Someone had
to do it. Someone had to quote, to put it together, right? Too bad he
won't be telling anyone else. Wordlessly, then, the Golden Boy stands up
in the boat. Carefully. Keeping his balance like a kid on a tightrope,
knees bent, arms ever so slightly out, then dropping to his sides. "I
shouldn't have looked for you - for Dolphin - should I?" he asks quietly,
regretfully.

She watches. Unmoving. Even the waves shy away from her, seeming unwilling
to slap against her legs. Around her in the water there is only stillness.
For a second time, slowly, she shakes her head. Pauses, for just a
moment.... that may be the only sign of Dolphin, that Death pauses for
Sandy. And then she says, in a voice like a razor on the wind, "Sanderson
Hawkins."

As Death speaks - says his name - Sandy's watching her eyes and searching
for more of that hesitation, more of the source of it. But she says it,
then, and he flinches - all of the stories, they all say that that's what
it takes. Hearing the Banshee cry, or seeing the driverless carriage come
for you - or just hearing Death say your name. And he straightens in the
silence, throwing his shoulders back, half-aware that it's a futile
gesture against the darkness but half-relieved that he's not shaking in
his boots. No one can be sure how they'll react. "Sandy is all that's on
the certificate, actually," he says, his voice only faltering slightly. "I
used Sanderson in school to sound more important."

Death is both unamused and unoffended. She has the patience to let Sandy
make all the comments he feels like. But if saying his name was enough to
slay him where he stood, it seems she has granted him a few, precious
moments longer. Even muted, however, the weight of her gaze for so long is
enough to begin the process, to cause a wave of dizziness. She caresses
the scythe with her thumb. When Dolphin last spoke, it was with mild
desperation. When Death speaks now, it is with... nothing. Her voice is
cold and sharp. "It is the end," she says, quite calmly. "The time has
come." Her words hang in the starless mist, an echo of mere days past.
"Will you stay with me?"

"I...I promised to stay...with Dolphin," answers Sandy, doing his level
best to remain upright. And he's speaking now with a stubbornness that
comes not from fear, but from Brooklyn in the Depression, where if you
didn't make sure you weren't being cheated, you'd be cheated unimaginably.
He also...doesn't want to be lonely. "Will it be Dolphin I'm staying
with?"

The woman on the water does not reply. Grey mist flows around her, melding
with the pallor of her thin tunic. It clothes her legs for a moment,
nearly gives her the illusion of a robe, and then dissipates again into
the fog that surrounds, ever-growing. Death regards Sandy without
response, and her eyes are chill.

"I don't have a choice, do I," mutters Sandy softly to himself, feeling
the effects more and more. "All right...I'll stay." What's he agreeing to?
What's he giving up?

Death drifts closer to the edge of the boat, the blade of the scythe
almost beginning to develop a glow of its own. Perhaps it is only illusion
or reflection, the light that casts itself across her platinum hair. "You
do," she corrects tonelessly, "have a choice. You alone. I am the End, and
your pledge is remembered." She lifts the scythe across herself, the blade
extending over the prow of the boat. "A cut," she continues calmly, "or a
kiss. Now." She has yet to blink.

Ay, and there's the rub. Faithful to his heroic past, or faithful to his
promise and - more importantly - the one he trusts above and beyond anyone
and everyone else? He's not blind, and he's not dense. He knows what the
choice means. Acceptance of destruction and death, or fidelity to the
ideals of his fellows and a refusal to - but no, he doesn't *know* that,
not for sure. And Dolphin - she needs him. And there's no time to
deliberate. He reaches out, shifting carefully in his little boat. "I
asked you to take me with you, once, and I'll do it again." With this
said, he goes to kiss Death.

She is cold. So far beyond ice it is indescribable - the coldness of
space, or of absence. There is an emptiness in her now that can never be
filled, and it sucks Sandy into itself with no more thought than it might
a gnat. Just like that. The space between one heartbeat and the next.
Death. And in that vast emptiness, she gives to Sandy her own knowledge:
that the end has come. That good, and evil, and joy, and misery, all mean
nothing, because it simply all must cease. This is her task. She cannot
rest until it is done - she will not be filled until it is done. And the
vessel of this hollowness is the shadow that was Dolphin. The knowledge
and understanding sudden and all-encompassing.... before the spirit of
Sandy is taken, and wrenched, and breathed out again from between her
lips, into the corpse that is already growing cold. One webbed hand at his
back, supporting him, some grotesque parody of an embrace.

No - he shouldn't have come back. But he did. Rousing himself out of the
cold embrace, feeling as though his body was ill-fitting, Sandy tries to
relax - and finds he already is. Well, that's good...that's good. "Then
there's still a lot to do, isn't there? Where to next, Dol?" he asks, his
voice light like it used to be, but wrong - sure, it's capable, it's even
cheerful - but it doesn't have anything behind it. No happiness, no
warmth, no...no *life*. It's still him - but it's like a twisted shade of
him. "Hey, maybe you can finally give me that tour of Poseidonis you kept
promising."

She drops her hand, and glides back again in the water. The swirling
darkness creeps up her legs as she begins to lower. "My name," she says
calmly, "is Death. Follow." Only that, and she is gone, vanished again
beneath the waves. The grey mist begins to dissipate as a breeze finally
catches it. The night is chill, but that means nothing to undead flesh.
Nor does the iciness of the water. Everything dulls in comparison to the
horrendous knowledge inside. Below, duty waits.