Day 5: 04:06PM

"No."

There, just beyond the shadow of the twisted trees from across the street, sitting on the porch of their house, and right beneath the supposed bright blue skies now turned into a sea of space devoid of color lies a masked figure that looked at him after uttering a single word. Without even minding the muffled voice of a man and woman interwoven beneath the figure's black cloak that covered its body like a haze and a white weeping mask that had a red smile and a single red tear dropping down at the corner of its eye, the man stepped back and squeezed his cheeks to smile.

"I don't know anything that you're talking about," it continued with its monotonous tone.

The boy's lips twitched. "Well… you at least told me that you're here for me right?"

"Yes, I am here to kill you. That's what I was tasked to do."

"But… shouldn't I... be dead already?"

The figure, in silence, tilted its head and leaned forward as though its unmoving lips were now curving into a grin, making the man take a step back once more. "That's exactly why I am here."

"I mean… I'm dead right, and you're supposed to be my grim reaper?" The man held his breath and forced his lips to show his awkward teeth as he waved his hands around to help him bring his words out of his stomach. "Shouldn't you be like… should you have like a scythe or something and, should you be like, ushering me already into heaven?"

"Wow…"

"And now who's breaking her-his character," the man added, pulling out his words in a sarcastic tone. "How come you're talking normally? If you're a grim reaper too... so should you like silence me for my insolence or—"

He stopped himself even before he could voice out another word. In that moment of sudden silence, he felt that the space around his neck was beginning to tighten. It was then when his heart moved as if it finally found its will to beat, urging his lungs to empty out his breath as quickly as possible so he could gorge a mouthful of air in front of him.

Just then, a slender arm emerged from the middle of this weeping figure that gazed into his eyes. It opened its long but thin fingers covered with a glove that glinted with the faintest light that lit their surroundings filled with living people, not knowing what's happening and at the moment it brought it together, the man felt the same heavy string that he had touched before, croaking as it started to constrict his neck and biting into his skin as if it was ham until it began to dampen.

"That, I can do. Thanks for reminding me, Jason," she added.

Jason, without even taking his head off of her, raised his hand to confirm it. He didn't feel such pain except for this cramped feeling around his throat so when he tried to caress his neck with his fingers, this newfound sense of wetness and stickiness almost made him squirm.

Even so, he bit his lip and kept his cool by heaving a deep breath through his nose. "I-ah… thanks? A-anyway… now that's… have you got a name? It's getting hard for me to address you, you know?"

"Do not forget why I am here. It'll be much better off if you would just make peace with yourself and your family and summon that light once again," the figure said, spreading its palm once again to let the feeling on Jason's neck loose. "Also, It's Mary, just call me Mary."

"Mary, huh? What a normal name for a girl... are you cute? And you're here for me too…" Jason brought back his confident smile and stepped in to sit beside her at their house's porch. There, with his eyes climbing on from the red line of a teardrop on her mask, he looked into the holes of her mask and asked, "Hey, tell me, what made you come here?"

"I was tasked to do so, going here… I… I was tasked to kill you." She pushed herself back to distance her face from his.

"I see," Jason replied with his smile getting wider, and with a tone that seemed playful and endearing, he followed, "and you're not doing it right now because?"

"I'm just killing time."

"I—"

Just then, his smile turned lifeless.

"You're the last one on my list. I have somewhere that I need to be, and I can't have a new set of work dumped onto me because I let you die too early," Mary added with her voice still seeming monotonous.

Knitting his brows, Jason cleared his throat and sighed as if he was making a silent protest. "Don't tell me I'm the last because I'm somewhat special and…"

"It's because you're Jason," she said without turning to look at him.

"And? I'm sorry?" He continued with his wavering smile, hoping that he would get something that would build his confidence.

"Your name starts with the letter J. It's natural for me to start with Abby first, then to Dirk and moves from there all the way until I reach you, Jason."

The man heaved a heavier sigh than before and Mary, as a response, pulled her body away from him in silence, surprised that somehow, she found herself slowly being pushed towards his body.

She scanned his figure from his feet to his head, and she found nothing except for his eyes that seemed so wide and full emotions in contrast to the rest of his face that remained plain as if it was a piece of plastic pieced together.

Then, the man at her side took a shallow breath and parted his stiff and dry lips.

After a moment, the man at her side, Jason, took a shallow breath and with his voice sounding so low that it was almost upon breaking, he parted his stiff dry lips, saying, "It was supposed to be my funeral you know."

That moment, at the corner of her ear, she heard a man let out a hearty laugh and a group of women giggle. She dismissed it as just a gesture coming from the visitors talking among themselves but as soon as she got back to her subject, she found out that it made his reaction worse, he now revealed a deeper and darker smile compared to what he had worn before.

"Well yeah… what about it?" Mary said, trying to dismiss it.

"It was supposed to be my funeral you know?" Jason, with his face still hardened, turned his gaze towards Mary with an expression like he was on the verge of tears and with his brows slanted as though he was begging for something.

Mary stole a glance at her surroundings, and nothing seemed different except for the sudden increase of this sense that she was getting pulled. It made her brace herself into her seat and at the moment she saw a glass of water afar, right at the table in front of that group of men talking with each other, tumble down, dragging her attention back to him with a sharp look to complement his ghastly expression.

"It was supposed to be my funeral you know? It should be me, me! They should be mourning for me, they should be looking at me…" He took a few shallow breaths and with a grim tone and a disappointed chuckle, he followed, "Why the fuck did someone laugh?"