I blink and I go from standing up right, to flat on the ground with a hard thunk!, one of my drawers lying on my chest.

  "Ow..." I groan, looking up at my ceiling. Well that knocked the wind out of me a bit.

  "Can a delusion do that?" Death asks.

  I push myself up and stare at her, the reality that this is not a dream, and that she might be real begins to sink in: Death told me that I’m the spawn of Satan.

  "Okay," I say. "Okay, let's just...let's just say that for the moment I'm not hallucinating and you are very much real.

  The dubious brow arches higher, in the most patronizing "I really do not have time for this, but do, please, go on" kind of way.

  "So you're...Death. Like...Death-death."

  "I fail to see how repeating my title changes anything," she says. A moment passes and she sighs, sweeping her hand in an arc as a huge-ass fucking scythe appears out of smokey shadows into her grip.

  "Holy shit..."

  "Do not give in to amazement," she says, but damn if she doesn't sound bored. "You are not insane, you do not sleep. I am Death, the pale Horseman -- I am that which all humans fear because they do not understand before I am there. Yes, I am real. I am standing in your apartment. I first saw you a week ago outside your education building, and, yes, you have caught glimpses of me and even the other three Horsemen since. Now, please shut your mouth and cease wasting precious time."

  I shut my mouth. I hadn’t even realised I'd opened it. I nod because, especially now that she’s real, she honestly scares me, even without the whole "I am Death" show she put on.

  "Ok, um...but about the whole son of Satan part--"

  "Lucifer," she cuts in.

  "Huh?"

  "You are the son of Lucifer, not the son of Satan."

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  "Is there a difference?" I ask, confused as to why she’s splitting hairs over a name.

  "Yes," she says sharply, "but we have not the time to focus upon such nuances ri--"

  "So you’re saying my birth parents, whoever they were, weren’t even really my birth parents. You can’t drop that kind of a bomb like it's nothing and expect me to take it--"

  "This is not--"

  "Oh fuck, were, like...demons impersonating my adoptive parents so they could kill me? Wait, that doesn’t make any sense…”

  By this point my world is on fire and in complete fucking chaos. I wouldn’t say that nothing would surprise me anymore at this point...but I’m willing to hear just about any and all theories related to my life which I’ve now learned has been a lie.

  Death frowns, “Are not your adoptive parents deceased--"

  "And you've supposedly been watching me and think I'm the son of Sa--the devil..." I say, as if this false equivalency will make any sense to her when it barely makes sense to me.

  "I have corroboration from a higher source," she nods.

  "Such as?"

  "The archangel and leader of God’s armies, Michael."

  I turn and start heading towards my front door. She's already in the hallway ahead of me when I open it. "Where are you going?" she demands.

  "Class."

  "You cannot--"

  "It's Friday and I have an assignment to turn in. Then I’ve got to train my ass off to make up for the time I missed due to getting hit in the head with a danbong thanks to you distracting me. If you really want to stop me that badly, I guess you’ll have to do something physically."

  I manage to sound braver than I feel. I'm shaky and jittery and a little queasy, like when I’ve pulled an all-nighter thanks to far too much coffee or, you know, had a particularly traumatic psychotherapy session. At this point, denial and acting like nothing has happened is the only way I think I can survive the rest of this day. It’s the only way I can continue to function without needing to be in a soft, padded room.

  Death keeps following me, appearing around every corner and doorway as I make my way to the apartment lot, where U-re is waiting in his already-running car. He honks the horn at me, and I waste zero time jumping inside like I’m being chased. Which I am. Death says nothing, only stares as if she’s gonna make like her name and kill me. At the very least, she doesn’t follow me inside the car, but she absolutely follows it from behind.

  I can’t even focus on what U-re’s saying the entirety of the drive; I just make errant noises of agreement that make it seem like I’m listening. Or, at least, I hope they do. Even once we park and start making our way inside the building, I can feel Death’s pale eyes boring into the back of my skull from where she sits atop her massive horse.

  CULTURAL NOTES:

  Paradise Lost, and he is often also referred to as the "Morning Star." Satan, however, is the name given to a devil -- oftentimes, it is said that Satan is the name that Lucifer was given upon being cast from heaven. He is seen only as an adversary, accuser, tempter, and deceiver; the serpent in the Garden of Eden is, in fact, often believed to be Satan in some analyses. In the simplest of terms: they are often referred to as two existences of the same being, but Satan tends to encompass/symbolize all of evil in general. Lucifer is the person/character himself, and Satan is the entity/force he comes to represent and rule after his fall from Heaven.