The En Passant Capture
Trigger warnings: Death, Supernatural forces
Note: As a hesitant consumer of horror, I found this piece challenging to write. I added more description, especially onomatopoeia, and in-depth details that I would brush over while usually writing. I also tried to deter away from the stereotypical portrayals of death and supernatural forces associated with death to introduce a different, yet genre-abiding perspective on a widely written subject!
~
I have a question for you.
Are you really paying attention?
I could be sitting on that empty chair in the corner of the room, I could be the shadow you swear you saw run past your wall while your eyes were shut.
Do you feel that?
The icy chill at the nape of your neck. I could be caressing it at this very moment.
Am I the woman you bumped into, leaving behind a momentary unsettling feeling? Am I the man with a scowl at the end of the street, making you cross the road?
Well, well. It's not your turn yet. You’ll know.
~
As the sun dipped into the ripples of the water beyond the horizon, Carlos, and his spite-filled heart, walked across the shore, dragging his bare feet through the sand. Instead of appreciating the serene sounds of the waves breaking near his toes, his mind blared thoughts of hatred for what his life had become as though his internal sound system had exploded into tiny frequencies of rage.
He was a man of quick witts, smug looks, and breath filled with a lingering smell of liquor from the night before. If you walked past him on a regular Tuesday morning, he wouldn’t really catch your eye. If you stopped and spoke to him, you could probably see the crow lines on his face, telling you he was an average working man, crippled with the stresses of the 9 to 5 life, trying his best not to show it. If you knew him well, you would tell your partner to cancel your rescheduled dinner for the third time, because whenever you met him he would look at you with this sense of peculiar ease, that made you uncomfortable for reasons unknown.
His life was the epitome of luxury. He was one of those men who had a gold-plated toilet seat, although, rumors ran like wildfire that it was fake. He was the luckiest man alive, at least, that's what he told himself. Amidst the gambling, the drinking, and the partying - he lost his sense of purpose by entangling his day-to-day activities in a string of white lies that had turned as black as tar. And when dawn arrived, he would open the doors of his mansion to an empty home, surrounded by memories of a past that never existed.
“Only men who are ruminating in their own problems walk the shoreline at this hour,” said a raspy voice that seemed to come out of nowhere. Carlos looked to his left and saw an elderly man shuffle past him. He wore a bright red scarf that draped onto a white muddy t-shirt, paired beautifully with khaki slacks tucked into leather Armani shoes. The numbered, icy, grey hair on his head fell loosely down his wrinkled skin, illuminated like that of a 20- year- old boy. Simply put, he was a walking definition of a juxtaposed sentence.
“My problems could be solved with the bottle in your hand,” said Carlos, as the man continued to walk ahead. He was surprised to see a seemingly homeless man, who may or may not have robbed a very rich one, carrying a bottle of a 50 Year Balvenie.
The old man signaled Carlos to walk with him, and the two doddered along the beach as a deep blue color gently kissed the sky. They sat down in the sand, and the man opened the bottle. He took a sip and exhaled, as though he too was dealing with conflict so traumatic, and so dark, almost like he felt the grief of every dying man on the planet.
“Do you play chess?” asked the man. Carlos nodded and shifted his position, facing the man and now a pocket-sized chess board. The man lay out the pieces and began setting them up.
“I can play chess in my sleep,” Carlos smirked. He received no reaction from the man, and for a moment, he felt vulnerable in a way he never had. He was not used to getting unreactive responses, they were usually followed by an eye roll or a grunt, which he perceived as a sign of power.
“I’ll be white,” said Carlos, in a hopeless attempt to cover up his relatively menial blunder, and moved his pawn two spaces in front. The old man smiled and gently locked eyes with Carlos. It was the sort of look a mother gives to a child who misspelled the word ‘dog’.
The game continued like a slow-paced tragedy, as each one of Carlos's pieces began disappearing from the 8 by 8 board. As his frustrations grew, the old man sat still, enveloped by the silence of the wind. Carlos felt an uncomfortable aura encapsulate him, as each white chess piece left the board.
Carlos began chewing the skin around his nails, as a bead of sweat dripped down his forehead on a cold December night. “I’m just… not used to losing,” he said, trying to use his newfound vulnerability to his advantage. “But you’ve already lost,” said the old man. “I’m just stringing you along until your inevitable end”
Carlos brushed off the comment but grew wary as his senses started to tingle. His drying eyes began noticing things he never did, like how the tide pulled in closer every second, or how the sounds he heard seemed like little whispers, mocking laughter. His heart began beating faster, his pulse beating from the highest point of his head to the tip of his little toe. His skin began feeling calloused, but nothing seemed to change physically. The air grew hotter and denser, but chills ran up and down his spine, as though someone was right behind him, watching, waiting.
And in a moment, he felt reality once again. The pieces on the board glared at him, urging him to play the last few moves toward his irrevocable doom. So, he moved his queen three spaces to the right.
The old man reached forward, moving his pawn diagonally opposite the white king. In just one move, the anticlimactic war was over using the en passant capture.
“Checkmate”
Carlos became aware of his ignorance of the little pawn that made its way toward the king. His pride began to boil bubbles inside his stomach, as the feeling of abomination dipped in acid arose to the surface of his mouth, and as he tried to erupt his anger and frustrations and belt out the unjust nature of the game of chess, out poured… nothing. He tried to speak but no voice came out, not even the whimpers of a scared man made it to the surface.
“What an excellent day!” said the old man, taking the last sip of his expensive Balvenie. His body began to expand. And it continued to expand into a beautiful black smoke, showered with diamond-like glitter. The faceless figure emitted the most extreme bone-chilling fear sensation but at the same time, there was peace and quiet that surrounded it. Death had arrived, in all its glory, claiming another human towards the eternity we know as nothingness.
Carlos felt a skewer plunge deep into his chest, but when he looked down, there was nothing. He felt the light of a thousand watts shatter his beating heart, spilling fragments of blood into the already wet sand. The red, smeared against his body and mind encapsulated him into what felt like a tightly wound cocoon, closing its walls as he gasped for a tiny breath of air.
With a tornado of questions running through Carlos’ mind, he fought the suffocating walls of the nonexistent cocoon as his face turned the shade of a violet rainbow. His eyes bulged out like a cartoon character being squeezed by the hands of the universe. His ears longed for the sweet symphony of sounds that would give him the answers to why? When? For what?
Time stopped.
He felt suspended between two infinite parallel lines, as weightless as the feather of a white dove, yet the weight of his whole life holding him in place, waiting for the inevitable, bone-chilling words that were to come out of Death’s mouth.
“What an interesting creature you are! I had to come see for myself.” said death, circling Carlos like a dead deer between a pride of lions.
Carlos felt his breath tighten, as though the last oxygen atoms were fighting to be consumed by this poor, dying man. “Why” he whispered, trying to make sense of one of life’s greatest moments.
“You are a bad man, Carlos.” said death. “Death forgives, but it does not forgive a malicious heart”
Carlos felt a sense of Deja Vu, and suddenly he was standing outside his apartment circa 1995, fresh out of university, ready to conquer the world.
“Go on, open the door,” said a faint whisper. Carlos knew what was behind the door and with no control over his body, his arm reached out and pushed it open. He saw his father, lying in a pool of his own blood. The red liquid had stained the perfect white carpet, like a spilled bottle of wine. The stench of betrayal overshadowed the smell of an unplanned, poorly executed death of his own flesh.
“Have you forgotten why you possess all the riches in the world?” said the whisper. Carlos had gotten his start by taking the life of his own father after the Burra Gang from the west end had recruited him. His father had exposed their crimes to the world, and to seek revenge, Carlos’ first mission was to kill him. The gang gave him everything he ever wanted and more after the unfateful night.
In a sense of warped time, Carlos lay flat on the beach once again.
“Who are you to decide when it's time for me to claim my next victim?” said Death. Carlos did not know what to say. In a state of panic, he grabbed a rock beside him and threw it at Death.
“Ha! You puny human. You try to hurt death?”
Death placed its shadow over the sand and lifted it into the air. Carlos tried to close his eyes but they would not shut. Death allowed the sand to drop, burning every inch of Carlos' remaining soul, as the sand seeped into the crevices of his eyes. This was the end, he knew it. Carlos always believe he was a fighter, but for the first time, he felt weakened by his past, a feeling he never thought he would have to return to.
“I’m sorry.” said Carlos, “let me go today and I will do anything you say.”
Death laughed in his face. “This is my favorite part. When the human repents as his last hope. You have sinned Carlos, I cannot be convinced otherwise. Unless…” Carlos looked at the angel-like shadow, his tears pouring out with grains of sand scratching the insides of his eyes as they spilled out. “Unless what? I’ll do anything.”
The air was filled with an ominous stillness. So still that one could hear Carlos shaky breath echo in the night sky. “Unless you become me.”
Death awaited a response, while Carlos awaited more information. “You take my place. Become death. Take people away from their families. Every second of my existence is telling people they are dying. Every moment of my journey is dark and cold. Take my place, and I will spare you what comes after.”
Carlos felt like he was in a fever dream. “But, what comes after?” he asked, hoping his curiosity would not rescind the offer.
Death smiled, “what comes after is nothing, Carlos.”
That was enough for Carlos to find the energy to stand up straight. He nodded. Carlos agreed to become Death and spend the rest of time reliving the same feeling he felt when his father lay dead beside him.
The waves grew taller and created a whirlpool around Carlos and Death. Carlos could hear voices. He heard people screaming, the sounds of chaos, the stench of a rotting carcass, and the sight of blackness. He felt a pull towards the center of the earth, as though gravity no longer existed, but another force, keeping him shackled to the ground. He immediately regretted his decision. Death faced him and said, “Welcome to your worst nightmare,” and disappeared from the beach. Carlos was now Death.
Death felt like the space between two people, the space where nothing exists but something does. It felt like no movement, no tactile sensation, but a weight of the world pushing it down and trying to bury it. It is impossible to stand, to move, to exist, because it didn’t.
Death was transported to the other side of the world. A little girl crying upside down in a tumbled car. Death saw the look of fear and felt the very sensations the little girl felt. It was time to take a life. It just knew.
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A message from death, to you,
Are you really paying attention?
I could be sitting on that empty chair in the corner of the room, I could be the shadow you swear you saw run past your wall while your eyes were shut.
Do you feel that?
The icy chill at the nape of your neck. I could be caressing it at this very moment.
Am I the woman you bumped into, leaving behind a momentary unsettling feeling? Am I the man with a scowl at the end of the street, making you cross the road?
Well, well. It's not your turn yet. You’ll know.
