She let her sorrow hold the blade as she lay down beside death and stabbed the cowled visitor to her cell with an ice knife.

“Ouch! What did you do that for? What did I ever do to you?” asked Death as she wrestled the blade away from the crazy woman.

She spluttered unable to form coherent words to answer Death’s question. What hadn’t Death done to her? It had robbed her of friends and foes alike. Now she had no one but Death. That thought rattled the chains of her sanity.

She sat there shrieking as the caped and cowled scythe wielder picked herself up off the padded floor and knocked on a panel in the wall. A door swung in on silent hinges and Death processed out with all her regalia in place before shutting the door and shaking her head.

“Another one?” asked a male voice from a shadowed alcove. His quill rasped against the parchment.

“Yeah, I just wish I knew what caused it.” She gave her silver hair a shake after releasing it from the bun that had kept it hidden.

“Ah–are you okay?” Her shadowy servant pointed a finger at the vertical slash in her tunic. White ichor dripped down the slippery fabric.

“Oh this? It’s nothing. It’s already healing.” She waved off the wound and her minion’s concern. After all, she was Death and she was about as immortal as one could get without being god-born.

A pool of darkness slithered towards her and tipped its moon face up at her.

“Another one?” She asked, shaking her head.

Little Death nodded and pointed a bony finger down the hall at lucky 13,131,313,131,313,13,131,313. A struggling body of indeterminate sex rolled about on the floor outside that cell.

“I’m on a break. Why don’t you call Drugged Death.” she sniffed and crinkled her nose at the stench of feces which made her cough. “Yeah this one’s one of his.”

Little Death bobbed his head and scuttled off.

She pulled her cowl back down and stalked down a hall that just kept lengthening every time she needed another holding cell. Death was a good business but what could she do with all these crazies? Heaven didn’t want them and neither did hell.

She didn’t want them either but the dead had to go somewhere. Or did they? Who said they had to leave earth behind? A sickle smile curved her lips as she caressed her scythe.

Perhaps the unwanted dead didn’t have to go anywhere at all. Locks snapped and doors flipped open as she passed.

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Thanks to Maria of Doodles and Scribbles and Rosema of A Reading Writer for Word High July #FilipinoWords #Prompt.