Things to know before reading:

1) This is the sequel to my first fanfiction, The Alternative. It is not mandatory to read it, but should you ever need clarity, the first story is always there.

2) Narration style inspired by Markus Zusack and his work, The Book Thief.

3) I would like to thank my readers from the first fanfic for their ever-wonderful support and feedback. Without you, I will not be writing the sequel. Thank you for helping me improve, thank you for being there, and thank you for sticking with me until now. You are amazing.

4) The plot is inspired by Marek Okon's headcanon for a sequel. Also inspired by thehammerofthor's one-shot called, The Hope. Very special thanks to those people.

You may continue now, please enjoy the sequel!

THE ALTERNATIVE PART II

CHAPTER ONE

PRINCIPIUM

First.

Let us begin with an introduction.

Everything, whether you know it or not, needs to start with a beginning.

So let's do it.

Let's have something to start off with.

Here is the first fact about me.
It may not seem much, but here it is.

o-O-o
I am merely a watcher.
o-O-o

Yes.

It is what I do.

Despite my line of work, I watch. It's a hobby of mine. And I take in the business of viewing countless things the world has to offer. I take in the sights, the smells, the sounds.

But there's more to it.
There is so much more.

The second fact.

o-O-o
Whenever I do manage to look upon the surroundings of this world, I also take in the feelings, its thoughts, and its actions. I take in everything at once, while doing everything at once.
o-O-o

Some call it a gift.

At times, I concur with them.

I can be at any place, at any given hour, with all the minutes I can acquire from the universe. It is something humans have been wanting to do, with their excuses of limited time, excessive work, and all of that nonsense.

They wish to be me. Or rather, be like me.

At times, I wish to be them.
But I cannot. It isn't how things work around here.

Oh—and you may be wondering, but I'm afraid that I'm going to disappoint you.

The third fact.

o-O-o
I am not the green-eyed girl you're so familiar with, nor the other one with her eyes the color of coffee. I am not the man with eyes of hazel and a broken watch, nor the boy with blue ones that tend to spark every now and then. Neither am I God, nor the deity you pray to every night, nor perhaps the omnipresent force up high that you do not believe in.
o-O-o

I am none of them.

As I have said, I am merely a watcher.

...

But that is only a hobby. Watching.

It is not my line of work.

What I do—what my main focus in doing is, well, I carry souls.

The fourth fact, yes.

o-O-o
I carry human souls.
o-O-o

Let that statement mull over your mind.

Let it twirl around on the tips of your fingers, allow it to lie down on your palm.

Let it linger.

Please, do not be alarmed. I'm no ghost. I have yet to tell you the next.

The fifth fact.

o-O-o
Most of you already know me.
o-O-o

And if not, well, you will. Sooner or later.

Yes.

You heard me.

All of you—every last one of you—will have to go through me as you approach the end of your lives. May it be slow or quick, painless or not. You will meet me, and I will take you in my arms, carry you. Your soul.

It is inevitable.

You cannot escape.

Try not to be afraid. That was not meant to scare you.

I will give you three more facts.

o-O-o
I am not frightening.
I am not atrocious.
I am just me.
A result.
o-O-o

And while I also do my line of work—the whole carrying ordeal—I make sure to put in the habit of watching the surroundings around me. The Earth is a rather big place, and there are billions of people scattered about in their quaint little islands and territories. It is almost amusing, watching these humans. I do not pity them. In fact, they amaze me. Such small things with huge hearts, small voices that could impact their whole world.

It almost scares me.

And then there's the thing with lives, these humans. People are born, they get to live, and then I come in and carry their soul gently and they die.

It is like watching a seed grow and wither over the course of months, perhaps years.

Very poetic.

There is something in the midst of despair that makes dying seem so . . . dramatic. I've seen numerous of those types of deaths, and as I carry soul after soul in this huge, wide world known as the Earth, I watch these poetic phenomenons. I carry the souls in my arms like they are fragile beings. I can tell you that they are soft and almost transparent.

But there is volume in them.

Something ethereal that I can't describe.

Often, they whisper into my ears, words that they had said before surrendering themselves to me. I can hear the names of their loved ones, their wills, sometimes their conscience.

For example, at one point during my line of work, the soul I had carried over a darkened sky was whispering a name in my ear.

Daddy.

She was very soft, like feathers.

The body whom the soul belonged to was that of a twelve-year-old girl, her hair cut short and blonde.

Here's a fact that is not about me.

o-O-o
She died in her father's arms.
o-O-o

Poetic, it was.

I remember the surroundings.

The color of velvet was splotched in her abdomen.
Tears were frozen on her once youthful face.

The father's arms were heavy—so very heavy—like he was carrying the entire world, his eyes were streaming out flows of sorrow. The air was reeking with grief, agony, or the feeling one gets when they've lost all sense of hope in this world.

And I can remember the sky.

Oh, yes.

The sky.

It was the color of shadows, looming over my the audience and myself.

I stood and watched, the girl's spirit clinging to my arms. The other soul, that of the soldier who had the misfortune of shooting the girl, was perched on my shoulder.

He emitted guilt.

Somehow, I could not blame him.
It was his line of work.
And I had my own.

We all wished it could have gone down a different route.

But it couldn't. And thus, here I was, picking up after humans.

Meanwhile, I could not seem to tear my gaze away from the scene. With the father, his grieving face, his heavy arms, and the wristwatch strapped to his left. Another man knelt by his side, his eyes were also leaking. By their similarities, I assumed it was his brother.

The weeping father was shaking her limp body. They always do that—the shaking.

Why do they do that?

Is it just pure habitual purposes?

Out of disbelief?

Out of the desperate search of hope?

Sometimes I question it. The human behavior.

Sometimes it bewilders me how a human can continue on after having a loved one taken away from them.

I've seen millions—billions, actually—of these occurrences.

People circling the dying one in their deathbed. People caressing the dying one in their arms. Et cetera, et cetera.

Sometimes the watching folks are silent, usually they are not. The ones who don't have their grieving mouths shut are most likely wallowing in disbelief.

Like the father that was before me, for instance. He was a mourner, that one. Only the brother remained as the silent type.

Usually, I try not to get too attached to such people, with their human emotions and all that melodrama. Mankind can do things to me, believe it or not. And I find myself fearing them in a way—even more than they fear me.

It's strange, isn't it?

It's strange how beautiful, scary, and tragic being a human must be.

Even in all my years of picking souls up and carrying them, they continue to live and multiply.

They tell me that Life goes on.

That even if I am Death, and even if I take them away,

Life always goes on.

x

I digress.

Back to the scene.

As I watched the presentation of the crying father, his watch, and his brother, the young soul in my arms whispered a secret.

I, being a sucker for spiritual children, leaned in to listen.

From her, I learned that she had given that watch as a gift for his birthday.

His birthday—which was just a few hours ago.

And while I managed to look back at that man with his face of pure devastation, it made something move within me. Like how a gear would. Only it was rustier, creakier . . .

Sadder.

Sometimes I like to spoil myself. I often peek into the soul and see glimpses of the memories it has to offer.

As you can expect, I indulged myself in her visions.

For the one of the young child's, I saw a girl humming along to a song that her father was playing on a guitar. I saw her running across a field with her blue-striped soccer uniform. I saw her walk into a store, with her pocket full of money from dozens of odd jobs, carefully picking out an expensive watch for his birthday.

I saw her in joy.
And also in grief.

One thing that'd been present in the majority of her memory fragments, was her lively aura.

And now?

Now, all that was left was a body.

Pale.

Limp.

A shell that once belonged to a beloved daughter.

I'm almost sure that if I had a heart, even if it was dark and gloomy and murky, it would have been broken.

A fact.

o-O-o
Perhaps Death can cry,
And perhaps Death can express grief.
o-O-o

Unfortunately for me, my schedule was an impatient one, and I had many things to attend. Many souls to pick up and carry in my arms. I bade farewell to the two bereaved brothers, expressing my condolences as I went out.

They hadn't heard me, of course.

They weren't ignoring me either.

It is one thing to be ignored, but I'm sure they knew I was there. I'm sure everyone knew.

Because there is another fact.

o-O-o
On that day—and on that year of 2013,
Death reeked from all places.
o-O-o

The reason was that a fungal outbreak had raided the globe by surprise.

Casualties were in the undertow.

As someone who is very well aware and skillful in the arts of soul carrying, I can tell you that my arms hadn't been that heavy and soul-overflowing since the second world war.

A busy time period for me, a tragic one for humans.

It was a dark age for them, the early 1940s. Where the Germans were reigning major parts in Europe and the Japanese were expanding themselves in Asia. Each day counted thousands and thousands of souls. I picked many ones up in the city of Kassel, Germany. There were thousands waiting for me in the raided territories of the Philippines, as well as the bombed cities in Poland. The Holocaust broke my theoretical heart. The London Blitz made me trip on my own weight.

The overabundance of souls, they were everywhere.

And then there was Japan.

Tokyo.

March 9, 1945.

I remember it very well. It was one of the busiest days in my line of work. My watching came in full effect.

The sky was charcoaled.
Buildings were decimated.
Heaps of bodies were piled up one another.

They were burning.

Tokyo howled its death cry.

The bombings caused by the United States had hit the city with literally groundbreaking force. That day, I carried more than a hundred thousand souls in my arms.

Most of them died quick. Others did it slowly and painfully until they could bear no longer, throwing their whole essence into my heavy arms.

A large number of them had been children.

And they were fragile.

So.
Very.
Fragile.

Similar to that young girl I picked up in 2013.

I watched the sky turn ablaze with them as I rested and sat on a mountain pile of rubble. They all spoke to me at once, their secrets, their words, and they told me what they saw last before I came to them and brought them up.

It was tragic. It made me feel for them.
Sometimes I am a sucker for humans.

Even then, as I carried the soul of the young girl, I was still about to divulge myself in the business of carrying a thousand more. It would be heartbreaking, I knew that. The United States wasn't doing quite well in dealing with the Cordyceps brain infection, and casualties kept tolling and tolling. Other densely populated countries like Singapore, Israel, and Bangladesh hadn't been spared.

It was the epidemic of the millennium.

No one saw it coming.
I hadn't seen it coming.

But it arrived, so I was given no other choice.

Carry and watch.

Here is another fact.

o-O-o
It is what I do best.
o-O-o

Before we advance, let me tell you a secret.

As the outbreak unfolded itself over the years, there was the infected—I believe that's what they call it, yes.

The fungi-covered humans with their ghastly eyes and aggressive demeanor, those ones.

Here is the secret.

They absolutely terrify me.

Perhaps it is because I've never seen such a type of human. That these small little figures are capable of executing much horror. The fact that a minuscule fungal element could be able to influence something horrid, like making a person eat the flesh of its own kind, it's frightening.

It was cannibalism.

In the most predatory, deranged kind of way.

Many of the souls I carried from the beginning of the outbreak and onward had a fate of murder by those people-eating humans.

I would keep telling myself that it was only those causes that made me so scared of the infected.

It isn't for any of those reasons.

There is only one.

A terrifying fact.

o-O-o
Their souls were still inside of them.
o-O-o

I tried to get them out, even if I knew I couldn't and that it wasn't how things worked. But my deathly heart could bear no longer, seeing those fungi-riddled humans—have you seen them suffer?

I have.

The fungi would continue to grow.

On them.

It would break their bones.
Split their teeth.
Cause them pain.

I couldn't be able to retrieve their spirits, so I opted to watch.

It's grimacing.

I've seen them, I've been up close. Their brains had been overridden by the drive to kill anything that moved. Even if their eyesight eradicated in the later stages, the infected marched on.

It's abhorrent.

Because they used to be people.

People with stories, people with families.

Sons.
Daughters.
Mothers.
Fathers.
Friends.
Relatives.

Now, they're just . . . victims.

And they aren't even dead.

They only die when their body feels like it. I've seen it, too.

These fungal humans, they find a spot in the corner of something or slump against the wall, their breathing slows down and their heart rate does the same. Their infamous twitching continues—up until that last, infected breath.

And they die.

Finally.

I then retrieve their trapped souls that'd been desiring to break out of its shell the moment a fungus had impaired their senses and made them into something they were not. The body remained, left to wither and sprout spores. I cradled their exhausted spirits and held them softly in my arms, because I too was exhausted.

Exhausted of having to see them suffer for so long.

Personally, it brings me great relief whenever I reclaim their spirits. Having to be trapped in there for days, months—even years, without one knowing what was happening.

It terrifies me. Absolutely.

How unfortunate it must be for a human to live in this bleak period.
How unfortunate it must be for a human to even live.

Sometimes I truly believe that people resent my work. But in a world that'd been rotted and turned and changed for the worse, Death seems almost merciful.

Death seems like the quiet tide that soothes the burning shore.

Another fact.

o-O-o
Unsurprisingly, in this world of despair,
Death seems more like a friend than it is a foe.
o-O-o

So what is it, you may ask, with all the rambling?

What is the point of me being here?
Why is Death giving me his accounts and adventures of soul carrying, facts, and hobbies?

For one, this isn't about me.

Even as ironic as it sounds, whatever I'm going to tell you doesn't just involve myself. Above was just a plain introduction of your narrator, since I do figure that it would be impolite to advance without a proper beginning.

I feel that I rarely tell stories. Despite being quite abundant and popular among these humans, I stay and linger like a shadow. It feels empty, to just keep my own thoughts to myself. It feels forlorn. Sometimes I happen to stumble upon some remarkable humans with remarkable stories. Sometimes these stories touch my ghastly, theoretical heart. And I feel the urge to share it with a non-existential audience.

But here you are.

You are my audience for today. And you may still be my audience for the forthcoming days, weeks, and perhaps months. Don't assume that I am forcing you to sit down and listen to my musings. But treat it more as some sort of weekly story-telling session, yes. Sessions where I narrate a story. A particular story that I've witnessed over the course of years.

The story.

Is of adventure.

Of hurt.
Of trust.

It's about sorrow and grief.

Of love.

It is about a human—or to make it more specific—a cluster of humans. I was not much of a major character in it, but I was there.

I was always there.

This is where you'll start to get interested. Invested. I won't deny that I'm thoroughly excited in narrating such a thing to someone other than myself. Frankly, it's my first time.

Be wary, though, for it isn't full of happiness.

Reality is not like that, anyway.
Reality isn't full of happiness.

It is full of experiences.

And since I've been lingering on this Earth for as long as I have the capacity to remember, I witness things. I see historical events happen right before me. I see constructions of landmarks, the declarations of the peoples, the progress of humankind, everything.

I experience the stories of certain humans and their associates, and it reaches to a point where the stories make me feel like man's existence is worth something.

I keep a myriad of these stories. It gives me hope. It gives me faith to the human race, and not quite in a way that you'd expect.

One in particular is something I've always wanted to share.

It is about two girls.

You know them.

It's also about a man who lives on borrowed time, with his hazel eyes and heavy heart that has lies hidden beneath it.

You know him, too.

It is about them and so much more than just them.

It's about other people.

About love.
Sorrow.
Maturity.
Understanding.
Faith.

Hope.

It's about experiences.

It's full of them.

And today, I'll bring it out to you.

So please, do take a seat.

Have a drink.
Enjoy your merry time.

I'm going to tell you a story.

Death's POV inspired by Zusack's The Book Thief
Plot and storyline inspired by thehammerofthor and Marek Okon.
The whole fanfiction series is inspired by The Last of Us, its original content, and a handful of good books.

I own nothing but my OCs and pieces of my own headcanon.

Welcome to The Alternative II.

What'd you think? Leave a review! It keeps me going.
Couldn't have done it without you guys, I'll see you folks soon x