[ WP ] You wake up in the middle of the night at the hospital to find Death literally standing at the foot of your bed . To your surprise , instead of taking you , he breaks down in wailing sobs and apologies .

It was, perhaps, the creaking and cracking of old bones that had caused Leon to awake. This long hallway that made up his wing of the ICU had always seemed so much brighter and happier despite the conditions of the patients within, especially his neighbor Tommy with whom he had grown accustomed to seeing after the months of in and out. Yale was a wonderful hospital for heart problems, as the research department was always up to something. Some new way to make a heart tick. Some new way to get the blood flowing. But it was this same creaking in New Haven Connecticut that had caused young Leon's heart to actually miss the familiar beat. Before him stood a figure clad entirely in black robes. The texture was tattered and the sinews of cloth looked solid but worn. Yet despite their age, they still swung. It was this observation, seeing the cloaks so old yet so solid and real that made the barely awake Leon's heart skip yet another beat. 
 
 `` Are...'' 
 
 Leon spoke the words and felt a shiver run down his legs. His eyes darted for a second, unable to grasp the heaviness of what was occurring. His heart monitor had flat lined from what he saw, but there was no movement. It seemed time had stopped for this moment of speech to be had. But why was he so cold then? Was death supposed to be this cold? And why was his breath foggy? The thoughts came quicker than his next words, but even faster still was the gravel lines, hollow voice coming from the body in the chair at his feet. 
 
 `` The answer, is yes child.'' 
 
 The words hung in the air and echoed through the room, ghastly and abound with some unknowable yet familiar horror. Leon wanted to cry. He wanted to sulk, and scream in fear, and get angry. But in spite of all of his instinct, he simply took a breath and sighed. He closed his eyelids tight, the normal ringing of muscles in his ears as he did was gone. 
 
 As he tried desperately to hear the rumbles of tension again, the only sound in the room he could hear was a soft whimper. Confused, Leon's eyes flashed open. The figure before him sat there, it's gravelly voice echoing through the room again, but this time instead of a harrowing message, the whimpers gave way to sobbing. Leon looked left, into the hospital hall. Nobody was there. To his left, overlooking the city was the window. It seemed covered in a blue hue. Time stopped. Of course. But what of the thing in front of him. As the bellows continued, the gravel of the voice had begun to disappear, in their place was simply a man's sobs. Leon, in all his years had never felt so awkward, yet afraid. 
 
 `` Are... you all right?'' 
 
 The figure at his feet, it's bones for hands, stopped moving suddenly, it's sobs and moans halted in an instant. Leon's incoming breath was stuck in the center of his throat. Even though he was dead, he dare not make even a single subtle move again. The hands, white as snow, pulled back the hood, revealing something Leon had not expected. A face. A human face. A middle aged man, completely bald and paler than than the bone of his hands, but just an average man. A whispiness hung about him as he spoke, the echo returning but not the gravel. 
 
 `` I... I'm so conflicted young man. I do n't want to do this. I have to do this...'' 
 
 This was Leon's chance. He had heard, in other times that men had bargained with Death for their lives. This was his shot. 
 
 `` Look, you do n't have to take me. It does n't have to be this way if you do n't want it too.'' 
 
 The man stared back, deep into Leon's eyes. Leon was frozen, fear hanging in his pupils as much as the rest of his body. It was an eternity before the man stood up, walking briskly but calmly over to Leon's side. He reached his hand out and it made Leon reflexively shrink back and close his eyes tighter than ever before. But he felt no touch. No death. Just, a maneuvering of his own fingers. The man had placed something, a ring, on his pinky. Leon's eyes rushed to open and as they did they saw the man. He withered quicker and quicker with the passing seconds. 
 
 `` What? I do n't understand.'' 
 
 The man looked as sullen as before, his eyes sinking into a deeper grey as he aged rapidly. 
 
 `` I am so sorry child but...'' And the man smiled, despite his sullenness, perhaps the air of shame making his eyes move away from locking onto Leon's own. 
 
 ``... my turn is over. And I must do this to you no matter how bad it hurts, as the last did to me. So I am sorry, but it's only 50 years. Perhaps, for you, it wo n't be so bad... I hope it is not.'' 
 
 With that, the finality of his age had approached the man, and he withered into a skeleton inside of those black robes, then into dust alongside them, scattering into a wind that Leon could not feel. Leon, more confused than he had been in the entirety of his life, looked around then down to the Gothic ring on his left pinkie finger. A skull, embossed on the center piece looked back at him. It's eyes grew periwinkle and it spoke three sentences into his mind, in a tone reminiscent of the strange man's first sentence to him. These three sentences would not be the last he would here, but they would be the most important and the last from the ring itself, even in those lonely moments as he moved around the world each second; fulfilling what was now required of him. 
 
 `` The cloak, the bones, and the scythe will come in time, though you do not have to use them as a touch will work just fine. You accept no deals, and these years are not optional. Your first will be the hardest to reap, as your neighbors always tend to be.''
