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He breathes in, once, twice, before his foot reaches the edge, teeters on the line between life and death, flips the coin, knocks on Death's door.
He leaps, the line snaps, the coin lands, and the door creaks.
Air rushes through his body as the sky turns blurry with tears, he hears distant screams but in seconds they turn to silence.
The door has opened, and he has stepped through. The coin has landed and he has opened his hand to show the result, oddly enough there is no head or tails, instead there is a grinning skull, looking up at him. The line has started burning up and he finds that he doesn’t need to bother with stepping over it.
He feels something. He isn’t sure what.
It isn’t pain, not really. It’s more the sense that there should be. He should be screaming, his bones should be poking through his skin and his brain should be splattered across pavement.
But all there is is an uncanny feeling of wrongness, of danger.
A skeletal hand reaches out to him, it traces his cheek and talks in a voice that invades the depths of his mind and echoes through every crack in the universe.
“TIM. WHAT IS DEATH? FOR YOU. WHAT DO YOU SEE ON THE OTHER SIDE?”
Tim doesn’t know. Sometimes he thought it would be his family. His parents. He doesn’t think he would like that, not now.
“I think- I think I’d quite like my nanny. And if it’s not too much trouble, maybe Robin?”
His voice is younger, his mind is warping inside itself and flipping and tumbling through his memories. He remembers his nanny tucking him into bed, kissing his head and singing him a lullaby, he remembers watching Robin wink at him from buildings and give him a friendly wave across the room at galas.
The voice seems troubled.
“IS THAT ALL? YOU DO NOT WANT TO GO, SAY TO HEAVEN? OR BE REINCARNATED? THAT HAS BEEN POPULAR FOR SOME TIME NOW.”
“No, not really. I don’t think I believe in heaven. It’s all rather silly once you start thinking it through. Reincarnation would be nice, I suppose. Do you think I’d be a bird? I rather like the red ones.”
It hesitates.
“IF YOU WISH. YOU MAY HAVE… YOUR NANNY. AND THIS ROBIN.”
Tim is happy with this. He knows he likes those. The desert of sand around him transforms into his old room, the one he had decorated in paintings and pictures of everything he had seen.
The grey haired nanny he loves is tucking him in, gently arranging his pillows and laughing at his attempts to escape the monster of blankets she has swaddled him with.
Robin is smiling, just like in the pictures. His grin is loud and outshines the darkness that threatens to overtake Tim’s mind.
“I HOPE YOU ENJOY. I AM SORRY THAT YOU LEFT THE WORLD LIKE THAT. NO ONE DESERVES SUCH AN END.”
Tim grins, “I think this is the best time I’ve ever had! Thank you-” He hesitates “What’s your name? Mister?”
When the voice speaks it is solid as always, a block of stone that time cannot touch.
“IT IS DEATH. MY NAME IS DEATH.”
“Oh. That’s a lovely name. Thank you Mr Death.”