#heshi

Silence. The child on the other side of the door curled into themself. They flinched and jumped up when something cold touched their back. In the hole in the door which they used to pass food to the other side, a bony hand was stretched out.

"Give it to me and get out. I need some quiet time."

"Thank you." The child beamed and passed a messy stack of ink-stained papers to the god.

That evening, the young child, Heshi, skipped their way down to the castle's basement with a little basket full of hearts they collected in the garden.

"It's dinner time!” they knocked gingerly on the massive wooden door as if the entity on the other side had any means of opening it.

Heshi waited for a moment before opening the slot in the door to pass in the basket, but a hand emerged from the other side first. It was holding a slightly crumpled stack of papers.

"Here's your story, kid. It was okay." The hoarse voice left Heshi with their jaw slack and mouth gaped open, no words emerging.

They silently took the papers and pressed them to their chest, staring into the dark square of the slot.

"Thank you." They managed, finally.

"Hey, just don't forget to feed me, you hear?"

Heshi hurriedly shoved the basket to the other side and ran upstairs, the widest, silliest grin on their face. This is the first time anyone did anything for them since their moms left. Well, they didn't really know anyone but their moms and the grumpy uncle imprisoned in the basement: the downside to being the experiment child of a mad scientist couple that lives in the middle of a forest the rest of the world considers cursed.

They had their books - a giant library, in fact, but in the end, books weren't people. They couldn't talk to them and tell them about their worries and troubles. They couldn't get a hug or a head pat from them. They tried their best to keep the castle up and running until their moms returned, but they were twelve. And alone. And terribly lonely.

While straightening out the pages of the little story they wrote for the god, they found that he didn't just read it. He left notes. Letters crossed out, with the right ones written over them. Extra dots and commas appeared here and there. The margins were filled with short, informative remarks, like “don’t forget to separate sentences”, and “just use ‘said’”.

At the very end, right under the “The End” written in Heshi’s somewhat crooked handwriting, there was a schematic drawing of a cloaked skeleton giving a thumbs up. It was drawn in a brownish-red – what Heshi assumed to be blood left from god’s meals, so when salty water drops fell on it, they stained the paper a gentle pink.

The next day, the God of Death woke up feeling refreshed. He contemplated the feeling - one completely unfitting for an entity that was destined to disappear from this world any time now - right until a knock sounded on the door.

“Unce, I brought you breakfast.”

The slot opened, and a basket appeared in his cell. He took the basket, not bothering to correct the kid, and ate the hearts with more appetite than usual.

When he finished his meal and stretched his hand through the slot, handing back the basket, something small and soft grabbed his hand. He froze.

“Uncle?” Heshi asked in a small voice.

“What is it?”

“You, you’re not going to leave, right?”

The god opened and closed his mouth. Leave? Resume his position as the God of Death, or, if that doesn’t work, find work as a morbid spirit of some kind. Get back to his normal life. That would be great. And also not what the trembling child on the other side needed to hear.

“Don’t talk nonsense. It’s not like I can do anything about this ridiculous prison your parents set up. I’ll probably be here forever.”

Both sides of the door were silent, the child’s hand gently holding the god’s.

“Uncle?”

“Stop call- ahh, fine, fine. What's the matter?”

“Do you want to hear about a story idea I had?”

“Well, it’s not like I have anything better to do down here.”