Douglas decided it was time for him to step out of the darkness. to take his rightful place in the world again.
He smiled as he looked at the little people studying his home. They had these little brushes, large wide brimmed hats, and sacks with pieces of chalk and string. The leader of these people looked to be examining his alter. He was making some notes in a little book.
“Have you found anything interesting?” Douglas asked him, while peering over the man’s shoulder at his book.
“Holy shit, where did you come from?” the man yelped.
“I came from the shadows.” Douglas gestured towards a darkened alcove under the main icon of skulls and bones.
The man had a hand against his chest he was breathing rapidly. He took a breath and swallowed, “Yes, right, but before the shadows. Did you sneak up the stairs?”
Douglas laughed. It was a dry laugh, like papers shuffling. “No, nothing like that. You see this is my temple. These people worshipped me.”
The man scoffed, “You, right.”
Douglas shrugged, “What did you have to say about Olivia? My she was a pretty one.” He gave a look at the man, “I really argued with Thorgen not to sacrifice her.” Douglas sighed and shook his head, “There was no reasoning with Thorgen, he was convinced that building this.” Douglas gestured around, “Would stop the end of their world.” Douglas sadly shook his head.
The man was staring at him. The man blinked a few times, “Thorgen, I’d only just translated this disc.” He held up a bronze disc looped around a leather thong.
“Well, Jimmy. I’m sorry, do you mind if I call you Jimmy?” Douglas asked, somewhat blandly.
“Oh, you wanted a reply, no well, that is. How did you know my name?” the man named Jimmy asked.
“I told you, this is my temple. I’m so sorry. My name is Douglas.” Douglas held out his hand for Jimmy to shake.
Without thinking Jimmy took his hand, absently shook it.
Douglas smiled, “I’m the god of death. I’m pleased that you find what my friends left behind. I was getting lonely. Many of them have been crying, about some betrayal, for what feels like no end.” He waved his hand dismissively.
A young person came up to Jimmy, they said, “Jimmy, who’s this?”
Jimmy cleared his throat, “Dom, this is Douglas. He lives here.”
“Him? Where, there’s no bed. Why would an accountant be living out here.” They looked confused.
Douglas reached out his hand, “Pleasure to meet you Dom!”
Dom glanced down at it, “Sorry, I don’t shake hands. The world I grew up on had a chronic plague. I’m sure you understand.” Dom shrugged.
Douglas broke into a huge, “A plague world?” he said dreamily. “So, many lives to count and categorize.”
“You’re a creepy ass accountant.” Dom muttered.
“Dom, let me ask you a question. Don’t you think an accountant is a fantastic aspect of Death? Counting and reviewing every aspect of life. Every life. Someone has to determine if a world is worth living, right?” Douglas queried.
Dom stopped in their tracks, “What do you mean?”
Douglas gestured towards the disc in Jimmy’s hand, “Now, there you have Thorgen deciding the ONLY way to save the world is to sacrifice more and more people to me. To build an alter and temple from the corpses of the sacrifices. How does one judge those choices” Douglas cried.
Dom stared at him. Jimmy coughed, “Is that a serious question?”
Douglas nodded vigorously.
Dom’s eyes got huge. They tried to blink. Bring themselves back to reality.
Jimmy sighed, “Well, that’s a tough question. Could you manifest like this to them?”
Douglas nodded, “Yes, but they never listened to me. I would tell them to stop killing people, but they REFUSED to believe their god was actually named Douglas. Well, their translated version of Douglas, of course. They had some ridiculous name for me, like Doomhammer the Bone Forge.”
Dom nodded, “You can blame the old and the conservatives. Reformers and victims were not at fault. You needed to judge each person by their own actions.”
Douglas rubbed his chin. He gestured towards Olivia’s bones, “Ok, sure. Olivia there was both a victim and a perpetrator. She sacrificed her unborn child to me! What? Who would do that?”
Behind Dom a voice called out, “What did you do to them?!”
Douglas turned around. “What do you mean?” He took a step forward and tripped over Jimmy. “Oh, I get it.”
He waved his hands. Dom and Jimmy gasped for breath. He muttered, “Sorry” as he stepped back into the shadows, lost in thought.
Dom was skittish as they ascended back up to the alter. It’d been over a week since their literal brush with death. They peered into every shadow and carried multiple lanterns and torches to make sure Douglas couldn’t appear to surprise them.
The base doctor had checked them out and there was nothing wrong. Well, there was a strange scar and a freshly healed fracture but that was it. The scar was shaped like a hammer and chisel. The fracture looked a bit like a forge, but probably was just a tablet of stone.
Dom was going back up to see if they could detect any presence of Douglas. Not that they wanted to experience that again, but they were certainly marked by the experience. The expedition had found scriptures referring to those marked. They had been given the Hammer of Doom. In almost all cases those individuals were ritually sacrificed.
Dom surmised all of them had been visited by Douglas and had “survived” the experience. The people of this world, decided they should die for that. Dom was setting up their work station. They had just set up a camera and was looking through the viewfinder.
“Ok, so you know. I talked with Olivia. It appears she did not actually sacrifice her unborn child to me. I, uh, revived it outside of her body.” Douglas’s voice came from the wall.
Dom glanced up. He was right there. They could see him, but the camera couldn’t. “Fuck” Dom muttered. Then they registered what Douglas said, “Holy shit that’s fucked up, what’s wrong with you?!” they strung the words together into a single long word.
Douglas shrugged, “I’ve never had a child before. Didn’t understand the mechanics then and don’t really now.” He eyed them up and down, “can you have one? maybe i can….”
“None of your business and whatever you are thinking no. My body. Mine. You violated my bodily autonomy once by doing this.” They pulled up their sleeve to reveal the Hammer of Doom.
“Huh,” Douglas said, “Wonder if that’s where they get my name from.”
“How fucking oblivious are you?” Dom cried.
“Hold on, you have to understand, there were a lot of people dying. I was trying to understand what was happening. I asked a lot of people. Next thing I know, they stop worshiping the sun and build this monstrosity to me.”
“What was killing them?” Dom asked.
“Oh, they were killing themselves. They fucked up this planet so bad it was rejecting them like you might reject a donor organ.” Douglas shrugged, “Wasn’t anything I could do. I usually had a pretty stately job. Sure it was getting busier in a linear fashion even with the exponential population growth, but I could plan for that. Then BOOM, tipping point, crash.”
Douglas sighed, “Now I just track animals. Don’t get me wrong, those are interesting to track, but their lives are so boring compared to the likes of Bronty here. What a life!”
Douglas had picked up a skull and was staring into the eyes.
Dom took a few steps back, “I’m sure it’s much less interesting here now. What do you plan on doing?”
Douglas gave them a quizzical look, “Doing? Whatever do you mean? This planet is alive and vibrant and will eventually have interesting life again. I got a taste of your life and WOO Wee. SPACE TRAVEL! Your people’s chronic plagues. Your home world is on the brink!”
Dom stared at him, “Are you going to stay here or are you going to try to leave?”
Douglas looked at the stars wistfully, “I’d love to leave, but I can’t. The suffering I’d leave in my wake would be criminal. Every god in the universe would hunt me down. Can you image a world where Death abandoned their post? The poor animals would be alive as their bodies failed them. Leaving them in never ending pain.”
Douglas looked at Dom, “No, I will not do that. Death is awful for you living. I have learned that much. I do what I can to ease their anger, but there’s not much I can do.”
Dom swallowed hard, “What would you do if my people came here en mass?”
“Kill you all.” Douglas laughed, “eventually.” He shrugged and glanced about. “I’ll have to chat with death fragment you brought with you. I’m sure we’ll come to some sort of agreement.”
Dom started as he disappeared. They glanced at their other arm, a matching scar. They staggered to the ground with a wracking sob.