Disclaimer: I own nothing and am making no profit off of this.

Notes: This is what happens when I watch too much High School of the Dead. Right before Glee.

When Kurt was a little boy, his mother used to tell him fairy tales before bed. He doesn't remember any of the specifics, but he does remember one about a child who was kissed by Death. Death loved the child and was always watching, judging, waiting – for what Kurt didn't remember, but it was important.

Kurt vividly remembers his mother's funeral. He remembers the biting cold wind, the dead trees, his father's face, the coffin lowering into the ground, and the cutting hazel eyes boring into him from next to a beautiful, stripped tree.

No one ever told anyone he was the child Death loved most.

Kurt was in pain.

"Stop it! Get off me!"

Everything was cold and he was so weak. It was hard to breath.

Hands holding him down; pain and fire spreading inside.

He mouthed the words to Human by Ellie Goulding. He thought of his father – this would destroy him.

He tried fighting back, but wasn't able to get away fast enough. His legs only provided so much kick.

Kurt Hummel died, beaten and alone, in the early morning of March 19, 2011.

Death paced, angry and impatient, as it watched its beloved being tortured. It paced as it waited to be able to take the child into its arms, soothe away his tears and pain. Death had watched, had waited, for seventeen short years. Death had watched its beloved grow, smile, laugh, cry, be strong, be weak, and fall in love. And through it all, Death had judged this world around its beloved.

And now it was proven to be lacking. Death would rend this world in two, would finally end it as Death had wanted to for years. This was the last straw, this was it, they had their chance and they wasted it.

Death stopped abruptly and smiled. Death knelt and wrapped its arms around its beloved, cuddling the child close as he cried in its arms, clutching desperately. Death cooed and rocked the child, smoothing fingers through the soft hair. Death could wait.

Death laid the child on a bed of bluebonnets, smiling down at him, before leaving. It went to Burt Hummel first, the father of its beloved. Death would repay him for his love and tolerance. Death reached out and gently took the man's life from him, no need to repay kindness with pain.

Death bent down and brushed a kiss across Carole Hudson's forehead when it was done with Burt, the woman had loved its beloved, no need for pain.

Death swept through the house, looking for Finn Hudson. The child had smoothed since moving in with Death's beloved. These first souls would feel no pain from Death – it was visiting them first out of respect and gratitude.

Finn was asleep. Death reached out and, in a moment of kindness, showed the child all possibilities he could have been: He could have taken over Hummel Tire and Lube, he could have had a family with children and a dog, weekend dinners with the parents, visits from Kurt, lifelong friendships with the kids of New Directions, he could have been named Godfather of William Schuester's sons, and he would have died old and content with life at 98.

Time to move on.

When Death sweeps into Rachel Berry's room, she's on her elliptical. A golden star with the word "Nationals" is tapped to the wall in front of her so she can see it. Death places its hands over hers and decides to be kind once more, and shows her all the possibilities she could have been.

Rachel Berry could have been a great Broadway actress, could have had a wall lined with Tony awards. She could have been an actress – triple threat with singing, dancing, and acting – and won Oscars. She could have lived in Los Angeles or New York or London. She would have kept in touch with her friends from New Directions; she could have met the love of her life in the Prince of New Zealand. She would never have children, but she could have had a happy life.

She'll never have any of that.

Death leaves her sprawled on her bedroom floor and decides it likes leaving its beloved's friends with good last moments. Death twists space around it and fads back into being in Tina Cohen-Chang's room.

The small girl is brushing her teeth with a vacant, half asleep gaze. Death presses a kiss to her cheek and for an instant she sees: A lavish wedding to Mike Chang, dropping her daughter off at kindergarten, long nights spent choreographing dance movies and music videos, watching her daughter excel at sports, living in a beautiful house just outside of Los Angeles, some problems here and there but overall a good life.

Death moves on. Mike Chang dies at the breakfast table, putting his parents into a panic, but he dies with a smile, seeing his wedding and child and knowing he could have been a wonderful choreography teacher sought out by record companies and movie producers alike.

Brittany Peirce stops brushing her hair when Death appears behind her. The blonde turns and looks right at Death with wide eyes. Before Death can move, she throws herself at it sobbing hysterically. Death is not unused to people begging for their life, but Brittany isn't begging for her life, she's calling for Death's beloved, saying she felt something was wrong.

She quiets when Death lowers its head and closes its mouth around hers in a mockery of a kiss. In that moment she sees all possibilities – she could have married Artie Abrams, she could have pushed her husband and her best friend into starting a polygamous relationship so she didn't have to lose either one of them, they could have bought a house together with a dog and a cat, she could have gotten a teaching license, she could have taught English at McKinley High, she could have taken over the Glee Club, she could have spent summers watching Kurt on Broadway, could have gotten free passes to Hollywood movies Rachel Berry was in, and finally died happy and loved later in life.

Her vacant eyes stare up at Death as it gently lowers her corpse to the ground, taking care to make sure she didn't bruise on her way down.

The girl's cat leaps onto her chest, glaring balefully at Death until it leaves to seek out its beloved remaining friends.

Santana Lopez, Mercedes Jones, and Quinn Fabray are all together drinking coffee at the Jones residence. Death wraps all three in a hug, touching foreheads with Mercedes. Quinn sees herself meet Matt Rutherford again in adulthood, sees herself support him through his NFL career, sees their child, sees herself taking over a Real Estate agency, and sees her lifelong friendship with Rachel Berry. She never sees their marriage, but knows they're in love and happy. Santana sees herself choose two instead of one, sees Sue giving her the signature megaphone for her first day of work, sees summers spent watching Broadway plays, and feels love and family and happiness. Mercedes sees two dueling possibilities, all centered on a choice in college she will never make, one path taking her to France and becoming a fashion designer and the other taking her to England to become a singer. Both converge in a desire for a child when she's forty and she sees the child she could have adopted – a little bruised, but still beautiful.

Death feels the pull of a car accident, but ignores it in favor of seeking out Matt Rutherford. Death effortlessly passes across the nation, finding the boy still asleep and the sun not quite up. Death reaches out and squeezes the boy's heart, stopping it. Matt sees the choice that he will never make that leads him either to Quinn or no one. He sees his career – one path happy and fulfilled with teammates who tease him about his beautiful girlfriend and another long and tedious. He sees the game that makes or breaks him – sees the phone call right before the start that he has a son and sees the subsequent game that propels him to stardom; and he sees himself fall, break his knee and rip through the tendons, the injury destroys his career.

Death feels a fire breakout somewhere and ignores its duties once more to find the last three that he will show mercy to. Death fades back to Lima.

It finds Sam Evens, Noah Puckerman, and Artie Abrams in the locker room of McKinley High anxiously waiting for Finn, who will never come. Death touches Sam first and Sam sees: The choices that either makes him an FBI agent or an IRS agent. The nurse he meets and falls in love with, the son they have together, summers spent coaching football and soccer, a wife who loves his friends, and exposing his son to both Broadway and football.

When Sam hits the floor, Noah runs over and Death grabs him. Noah sees getting out of Lima, taking his sister with him to Colorado where he gets into a University on a music scholarship, sees the choice that takes him into law, sees his sister become better than he ever was a as teenager, sees affairs and heartaches and stupid decisions until finally Kurt introduces him to his wife. He sees the deaf woman he comes to love, who adores his little sister just as much as he does, who cries just as hard as he does when she leaves to have her own life, and the woman who gives him four children and gets him through the hardest cases. He never meets Beth, but he's happy.

Artie seems to half know what's coming, looking around frantically as Death sweeps up to the boy. He's about to call for help when Death gently caresses his check. And he sees: the agony of thinking he's not good enough for Brittany, especially when she continues to see Santana even after they're married, the process it takes to fall in love with Santana, his career as a guidance counselor, the first time he sees Rachel Berry on the big screen, the first time he turns on the radio and hears Matt Rutherford's name on a sports channel, the first time he gets tickets to a show on Broadway with a note from Kurt saying he had better see the three there or Kurt will stop talking to them, and the first time he watches a movie and happens to see Tina's name in the credits.

A smile full of teeth and pain cuts across Death's face; Death can finally punish this world that made its beloved suffer so. And what better place to start than at his high school…

Azimo Adams is the first to see the fallen bodies of Noah Puckerman, Sam Evens, and Artie Abrams. He stares at them in a kind of shock while Death walks up to him. Azimo opens his mouth and Death surges forward, biting down harshly on the boy's neck. His squealing brings the others, who watch in fright and horror as he goes down, clutching his neck wound that is spurting blood.

Death seals all exits to the locker room and glides into a hallway, to wait for the venom to take effect. Death is so happy that humans have a strange fear and fascination with the walking dead, for it will mean this will be much more fun. Death smiles as the feel of terror and pain come to him from the helpless humans. Within minutes, the emotions quell and all that's left is a mindless desire to serve Death. Oh, how fun this will be…

Death blinks and the halls of McKinley are filled with students seated in their classrooms, ignorant of their fate. Death opens the locker doors and Death's puppets come shuffling out, blood dripping and flesh hanging and Death's perfume hanging around them. Death shooed them away and they shuffled along and things were quiet for a few precious more minutes.

Then the screaming began and Death basked in the terror and fear around it. It could feel its pets extending Death's touch to the other students and Death was among them and they quaked. Death glided through the halls, occasionally looking to see his pets eating a corpse or stealing the life of some pesky mortal who tried to resist. A few tried to run past Death, and Death reached out and they fall mid run and terror and pain was in the air. Death heard glass shatter and hope rise like the coming tide. It would not have that. It closed its fist and the window that someone broke open vanished before their eyes. The plummeting hope was delicious.

Soon, there was no nose in the halls of McKinley, just Death's massive legion of pets. They looked upon Death with adoring eyes – those of them that still had eyes – and Death laughed. Laughed because these were its Beloved's tormentors, these were its Beloved's murderers, and now they were slaves. They would never harm its Beloved again. They would never be again, either.

Death opened the doors of McKinley High and unleashed its pets into the unsuspecting city. Death would enslave the whole human race before cutting their strings and leaving them to rot in their beautiful artificial world. As Death walked from Ohio to Washington, the screaming began. Death walked in crowded places, biting a few humans as it went, brushing across the unsuspecting; the touched fell where they were, the bitten fell only to rise again and surge forward in hunger. Death passed across the Pacific and stretched across all islands before reappearing in Tokyo.

The screaming was louder by now. Death tilted its head back and blew out, infecting the air with its perfume and poison. Death twisted out of existence and reappeared in Moscow. A blind man turned as Death reappeared and screamed in terror. Death smiled at the man before sinking it's teeth into him. Leaving the man convoluting on the ground, Death turned and bit the next thirty humans it came across.

Death passed into Africa and found its oldest pets, Death's beautiful dogs, and unleashed them from their shackles. Death was done, it could just sway and listen as the world grew louder and louder. And then gunfire sounded and bombs explode and fire reigned and Death laughed. Laughed and laughed and laughed as prayers were sent up, as people tried to hide, as people tried to fight, as guns were fired, and as bombs were sent through the air in panic.

And looking at the sky, Death was reminded that humans had people in space too, a handful of them in some box or another, high above the planet. They would run out of food and water eventually. Death would have to come for them again, but they are few in comparison. Death could wait them out.

The screaming was winding down now, quieter, but still there. Death sat and listened. Waited. Death admired the tall buildings the humans had built as it waited for them all to give in to the inevitable. The sun had set and rose and set and rose again when finally the screaming stopped. Death had them all, they all belonged to it, and it was connected with them all. They were all there, waiting for Death to assign them new fates and stings and connections and possibilities. And Death held them all in its hands…

And then threw them down into a pit, never to be picked up again. Death's dogs would feed on them and be well fed and happy. Death would have to start from scratch should it even want to put its Beloved back onto this planet, but for now…for now, Death could be with its Beloved. Now there was no need for waiting, not need for watching.

Death walked back to its Beloved and found him surrounded by his family and friends, the few that Death had spared and ensured they get to him. Kurt squealed and sprang up, laughing as he ran to Death, hugging it and crying, thanking it for giving him this wonderful gift.

"Blaine, thank you so much, you brought me my family, thank you!" Kurt gushed and Death wrapped its arms around the boy, happy that Kurt was happy and that he remembered Death's name.

Kurt dragged it over to the small gathering and Death sat and held Kurt, happy for the first time in a long, long time.