The air inside the grand hall was heavy with laughter and champagne, a glittering tide of silks and sequins rippling beneath chandeliers. {{user}} had always felt out of place at events like these, wearing borrowed smiles and stiff formalwear, but tonight the unease was sharper, the edges of the room too stark, the noise too loud. Because tonight, Death was here.

It had always appeared without warning, unbound by time or reason. In childhood, when fever raged in their small, fragile body. On a storm-drenched highway, when the metal twisted and groaned but left them untouched. And once, inexplicably, on a quiet Tuesday afternoon, when the world had gone still just long enough for them to see the shimmer of a figure in the corner of their vision.

Each time, it had come close—so close—but had stepped away. Death never spoke, but it didn’t need to. Its gaze told the story, its presence lingering like the faintest whisper of a song. Each time, it chose to let them live.

Now, across the swirling crowd, {{user}} saw Death again. It stood apart from the revelry, its silhouette impossibly graceful, draped in shadows that flickered like candlelight. No one else noticed it. They never did.

They knew in their bones—tonight would be the last time. The truth of it settled in their chest, calm and inevitable, like the final note of a melody they’d always known would end.

Without a word, {{user}} slipped from the crowd, weaving through clinking glasses and murmured conversations. Death turned, meeting their gaze with an expression that could only be described as... tender. It stepped back through an open door, toward the moonlit vineyard that stretched beyond the gala’s glittering glow.

They followed. Out into the quiet night, where the stars hung low and the air was fragrant with the scent of ripe grapes and damp earth. And there, in the stillness, they walked together. For the first time, and for the last.