Part 1

Wren was dying. He’d come to terms with it, as much as any eighteen-year-old kid could come to terms with death. He just wished he had more time. Two weeks ago, he was thinking of university, and girls, and finding a summer job. Then he got sick with pneumonia, then complications, and since then, his life’s been a blur; coughing liquid fire from his lungs, struggling to walk, then to even sit up.
 The hell with it. If this was the end, he wasn’t going out bitter. It’d been a decent life, better than some, that’s for sure. Much of it he owed to his dad, who was always there for him. He was there for his mother’s death, there for his first break-up, and there to take him to soccer practice when he was young. As he lay on the hospital bed, limping along on shallow breaths, his clammy hand was clasped in his father’s, who was here now. Wren’s hand ached as his father clung to it as if he loosened his grip for a moment, then Wren would slip away.
 Apprehension was thick throughout the hospital room, filled with nurses, doctors, and medical apparatuses struggling to keep him alive. He glanced at the still fresh yellow perennials sitting in a vase on his bedside. He’d received the flowers as a get-well-soon gift from his best friend and neighbour, Lily. The idea was that Wren would, like the flower, bounce back year after year. Not these ones, they’d been cut from the ground and put in a bouquet. So much for their help.
 Neither Wren nor his father moved, not wanting to be disturbed and reminded of the time that was slipping past. The bedside monitor began to beep quickly, and the nurses rushed around him, but Wren was too tired to pay attention. He fought his drooping eyelids, the weight upon his chest, and the desperate desire to rest to open his mouth.
 “I love you, Dad.”
 He never heard the reply, just a long single beep as he sank into unconsciousness. Like a dream, he drifted across a dun, arid wasteland; a checkpoint separating his life from the after. Like any checkpoint, it was manned, but there was neither a booth nor a gate. The guard just stood alone before Wren like a reflection in a pool. He was an old man, his hair was grey, and his skin wrinkled. He reminded Wren of his grandfather Isaac, but this man had darker eyes. Eyes like his own.
 “You’re me,” Wren said. “You’re who I could have been.”
 “I’m just the guide, kid.” The old Wren turned to the wasteland and waved for him to follow, but young Wren didn’t budge.
 “If I’m really dead, how am I talking to you?” Wren called out.
 The old Wren turned and chuckled dryly. “A man of science? Most end up religious by now. Maybe you’ll recognize me better this way.” His visage shifted from the eerily familiar mirror into a gaunt face with curled black hair. His body grew from a hobbled man to an angel with long, white, feathered wings, draped in stygian black robes, and a wreath of poppies around his neck. He wielded a scythe in his right hand.
 “Grim reaper, Thanatos, Yama. I’m called many names. But I prefer just one: Death.”
 “You’re just a myth,” Wren shouted his rebuke through protesting lungs, and his words were more hollow than he hoped. But something wasn’t right; his right hand still ached! He could still feel his father’s hand, and as long as he had that, he wasn’t finished.
 “You’re wrong, Death,” Wren said, his voice as steady as he could manage. “I’m not dead yet, and you can’t take me.”
 “Why not?”
 “I can’t leave my Dad, I’m the only family he has left. I never said goodbye to Lily, and I have the rest of my life to live!”
 “Not good enough.” Death shook his head. “Family, friends, and wasted potential are worn-out excuses. What’s so special about you? Why should I let you live?” Wren’s voice got stuck in his throat. He couldn’t think of a single thing, not for the life of him. “Everyone is scared of me,” Death continued. “No one wants to die, not when you’re looking me in the eye. But it’s a fact of life. And you? You can’t give me a single proper reason.”
 “You’re right, I can’t.” It was the truth, after all. In his eighteen years of life, he’d never found his passion. Playing soccer in the park, writing poetry, hiking with Lily, composing music, he’d tried it all, but nothing’s stuck. He had to take a gap year because he couldn’t think of a single university he was interested in. It was all true; his life had no meaning.
 “I may not be able to give you an excuse, but you still can’t take me.” Wren balled his right hand, still held by his father. “I may not have found my meaning yet, but it doesn’t mean it’s not out there. Until I find my meaning, I’m not letting you take me. I refuse.”
 As he spoke those last two words, something within him clicked and awoke. Nothing had ever felt so right, like a key that opened a dam deep within him he never knew existed. A sharp burn came from his right hand, but Wren hardly noticed it. He steadied himself, filled with a new fire. He stared at Death, not in anticipation, nor a fret, but with full confidence in Death’s response. For the first time in two weeks, he could take a deep breath.
 “You refuse?” Death chuckled. “I don’t see that often. If you’re truly so stubborn as to refuse Death, then perhaps I can give you a meaning to live for.”
 “So you’ll let me live?”
 “I will, so long as you work towards this meaning.”
 The wasteland and its guard vanished, and a light seeped through his eyelids as Wren became dimly aware of the commotion around him. Death’s voice still clung in his ears.
 “The meaning I bestow upon you is simple: answer me one question. What is my name?”