[ WP ] Death spared your life and made you immortal . Over hundreds of years , you have become friends . He 's been very busy with work and you miss seeing your buddy . You spend centuries attempting to create world peace , stop war and cure diseases so you can spend some quality time with your only friend .

I guess it was because I was stubborn. I got it from my mother, you know. She was every bit as stubborn as I was. Maybe even more so. The men in the village used to joke with my father, and tell him that he should hook her up to the plow instead of the mule, but he never would. She was too stubborn, or too strong, to be treated in that manner. And, to his credit, my father knew what a special woman he had. He was ever loving, even when the combined stubbornness of both me and my mother almost got to be too much for him to handle. He was proud to be married to such a strong woman, and she was proud to be his wife. 
 
 Her strength, I suppose, is what made it so shocking when the Sickness struck her. Today they call it The Black Death; in those times they did n't call it at all, for fear of gaining its attention. It just came, like a storm cloud on a moonless night; darker than the eyes of the ones who knew what their newly-acquired cough meant, and more quietly than the wings of the ravens that feasted mere days later. It just came, and when it left it took everything with it. My mother was stubborn though, and in the end that's what did her in; her insistence to help my father, even after the cough came. Even after the lesions began to bleed and ooze and fester, and even after the fever burned within his veins. She mopped his brow, and sponged away the blood from his skin, until she also began to cough. She was too stubborn to save herself, and that's how she met her end. 
 
 I too was stubborn, but no child will disobey the mother's decree when life is in the balance. I was young, but not too young to see what was happening. When she told me to take the food that remained in the kitchen, and stay in the cowshed for as long as I could, I did as I was told. I went, and stubbornly I hid. As the Sickness ravaged the town, I sat in the cowshed chewing on crusts of bread and salted beef. As my strong, stubborn mother succumbed to the cough, and the blood, and the fever, I sat in the vacant cowshed and wished. What I wished for, I ca n't recall. Maybe I wished for a different life, maybe I wished to just wake up. Maybe I wished for Death, but when I was finally out of food and drink, Death did not come nearly as I had expected. 
 
 I guess it was because I was stubborn. I suppose that's what first caught his eye. For so long, I had been cheating him of the soul which he desired, my soul, and he had taken note. And so it was, as I lay weak in the cowshed, floating in and out of consciousness, that Death came to me. He slipped in through the door, through a gap that looked too small, and slid towards me. He looks nothing like they tell you in church, you know. The Death they talk about in church is terrifying; with long, cold limbs and a skeletal face. The Death that approached me in the cowshed could almost have been my father; a squat, jolly man, with a nose red from a few too many pints and creases around his eyes. The Death that approached me was familiar, and yet inexplicably strange. I was overwhelmed with a sense of calm as I realized what awaited me at the end of this visit. 
 
 As Death grew closer and closer, I began to anticipate the sweet release that I thought He was bringing with him. It's fitting, I thought, that Death would be so friendly when life had been so cruel. As Death opened his mouth, I was bracing for the end when I heard a very unexpected sound. Death, it seemed, was *laughing*. At that sound, the stubbornness of my mother returned like an autumn gale, and I resolved not to die, just to spite this being that now stood before me in the cowshed. 
 
 `` I like you'' said Death, `` you are stubborn, and you cling to life like a limpet to a rock in the ocean. You think that I have come to kill you, my child, but I have not. Not unless you wish it.'' 
 
 Death moved closer to me, His low voice filling the tight space: `` I have instead come to offer you a choice. I have noticed you resisting me, even as your food and water dwindled and disappeared. Even as your mother and father succumbed to this Sickness. I have noticed, and it has amused me. You may choose at this moment to live or to die. This is not a choice lightly given, nor should it be lightly taken. Should you choose to die, I will escort you gently to the afterlife, as is my duty. Choose to live, however, and you shall live through ages untold and see things you can not fathom. Whatever the choice is, you must make it now.'' 
 
 I was lost for a brief moment before recalling the resolution I had made upon hearing the laughter from that strangely familiar face. I set my jaw, looked up into the face that now bore an even stronger resemblance to my father, and indicated that I wanted to live. 
 
 It's been many years since that day, as I was promised. My appearance has not changed, though people seem to know innately that I am older than I look. If only they knew. Death and I travelled the world together for the remainder of the Late Middle Ages, stopping in where His services were needed. He was good company, and told me many stories of the people, great and small, that he had escorted to the afterlife. He bragged often that he had met everyone who had ever been born, and I would teasingly reply `` not yet.'' He never did stop resembling my father, and I almost began to think of myself as his child. 
 
 As humanity has blossomed on the planet, His services have become more and more in demand, and I have begun to see less and less of him. It's a similar feeling to my beloved mother sending me to wait out the Black Death in a cowshed, a similar sense of loss and loneliness. Fortunately, I'm still as stubborn as ever. The men in the village all those years ago used to say that more hands make for light work, and I picked up a thing or two while I travelled the world with Death. 
 
 I think it may be time to get into the family business.
