Darkness prevailed. The moon shone in the sky, yet it cast no light. The stars were sparkling with brilliance, but were cold to look at and caused the observer to cast eyes downward in sudden despair. Time passed and the darkness embraced everything. The sun rose, but it did not quell the black emptiness which had grown ubiquitous. Shadows cast by the sun's feeble mockery of the darkness were pits leading to the bowels of hell, and sunlight only succeeded in making the pervading evil more visible. In the midst of this, Death strode down a desolate street. It was hard for him to believe, but he was growing very tired of all of this dark business. Ever since the minions of Hell had defeated the forces of good and overrun the Earth, he was a very bored spectre, indeed. Everyone was frightened of him, which wasn't surprising... after all, he was Death incarnate. But Satan had left him in charge of the devastated Earth, and had assigned all of his demon hordes to other black deeds known only to him. Death wasn't privy to this information, and he really didn't care, but he did find that he was kind of lonely now, being the only minion of Hell inhabiting the Earth. The lack of good company left only the shattered inhabitants of this wrecked world to associate with, and none of them were worth talking to. Once he had cornered a frightened lady, trying to reassure her that all he wanted was for her to talk to him. Comment on his new cloak, admire the spit shine polish on his scythe, tell him a joke, anything... but (yawn) she promptly went into a catatonic stupor. He reaped her soul, sighed, and ambled on down the street. Then he heard something that caused him to take pause and consider for a moment. Strange, tinny screams were filling the air. Something was obviously in serious agony, although from this distance, he couldn't tell what. Intrigued, Death made his way towards the mangled voice. He rounded a corner and was presented with the sight of a young boy, about ten years of age by the look of him, happily nailing a cat to a 2X4 by it's paws. The cat was struggling and yowling furiously, thus the screams... and the boy was enduring many scratches, but he was smiling. Death strode up to the little boy, capes billowing behind him.

"Ahem," ahemed Death. "Excuse me, but I couldn't help but notice that you derive a perverse kind of pleasure from what you have been doing to that poor kitty." Death leaned on his sickle, swaying back and forth expectantly, looking at the child and awaiting a response. The little boy paused in mid hammer stroke and looked up, regarding Death for a moment. He resumed his hammering.

"Oh yeah, kitties are fun to play with," he finally replied. His attention never wavered from the task at hand, and at length he was finally satisfied. He held the board up, cat attached and thrashing, to admire his handiwork. He turned to Death again. "I've got lots of them. Wanna see?"

Death clasped his bony hands. "Oh yes, very much so, please!" The boy hopped up onto his feet, discarding the agonized cat, which mercifully landed on it's head. With a loud snap, it's neck was broken, and it lay still after a few twitches. Death noticed this and couldn't help but giggle. Maybe this day wasn't turning out to be so bad after all, he mused. He followed the exuberant child into a deserted backyard, where a spectacle worthy of the 9th Hell of Chukalaku greeted him. Everywhere, hanging from every scrap of fence, dangling from every tree limb, mangled in every type of torturous device a ten year old deviant could imagine, were cats. Hundreds of them. Most of them dead, some of them alive. All of them sharing one thing in common... they all had been, or were currently suffering enormous torture at the hands of this creative little boy. There were cats hanging from tree limbs, perfect nooses encircling their broken little necks. There were cats nailed to the fence, crucified with their guts splayed out and hanging from their bowels. There were cats with their heads turned into sausage between cinder blocks, still attached to their bodies. Cats with the skin taken off of them and covered with pepper. Charred, blackened corpses of cats... cats with their heads completely covered with duct tape, cats with exploded firecrackers occupying the sockets which once held their eyes. Everywhere Death looked, he discovered another cat, dead or dying, each one tortured most creatively. He turned to the little boy. "Did you do this?" he queried the child, tapping the blade of his scythe into his palm expectantly.

"Yeah, I sure did," replied the boy, proudly. They both regarded the grisly scene in silence for a few more moments. Then the boy noticed a few cats which looked as though they could have a few more ounces of pain squeezed out of them, and he became engrossed in his work once again. Death was content to watch for a while, so he settled back on a gnarled tree stump and made himself comfortable. Presently, the boy returned to Death's side to admire a complex piece of pyrotechnics he had just engineered. He had a half-full can of gasoline in his hand.

Death was impressed. He regarded the flaming cat corpse. He regarded the boy. He looked back at the flames. He looked back at the boy again. Finally, he just shook his bony head. "That is some piece of work, boy. Just what in Hell's name possessed you to do all of this?" As if he didn't already know. He half expected the voice of Satan to arise from the boy's throat, but what happened next was even more surprising.

"The same thing that possessed me to do... THIS!" With that, the boy sloshed Death with the gasoline, and before he could react, the little shit had struck a match and thrown it onto him. Death instantly burst into flames. "Yeearrghh!!!" screamed Death, completely caught off guard. His flaming capes billowed around him as he ran around in circles, desperately trying to put out the inferno which was consuming him. Eventually, every scrap of his capes were turned to ashes, and Death stood there, a charred skeleton, holding a scorched scythe in his hand, patting at the few remaining flames. He coughed a couple of times, pat out one last remaining cinder, and slowly turned his eyes down to regard the boy.

"Boy, I should reap your soul for that-" he began, but before he could even finish his sentence, the boy had turned around and let out a piercing whistle. "Sick 'em!" he commanded. From out of the bushes, a 200 pound Pit Bull emerged, 6 inch blood stained fangs dripping with saliva, cat entrails flying from it's jaws, muscles rippling along it's massive body. It immediately leapt for Death. Death, again caught by surprise, just managed to swing his sickle, but only nicked the huge dog's tail. Meanwhile, the dog had latched onto Death's arm and was furiously shaking it with the power of it's massive neck muscles. With a pop, Death's arm came away from it's socket, and Guteater, (that was the dog's name) galloped away, arm in jaw, before Death could so much as say "bad dog!". Death was flabbergasted as he watched Guteater disappear over the horizon. He felt the place where his left arm used to be... an empty socket. He just stood there for a little while, massaging his shoulder socket, staring out at the horizon. He was so shocked by the whole episode that all he managed to get out was "Hey now, that wasn't very nice!"

"I'm not a nice little boy, farteater," replied the boy without a second's hesitation.

That snapped Death back into reality. He whipped his head back towards the little boy, eyes flaming with Hellfire. "Farteater? Why you little-" Death grabbed at the boy with his remaining arm. But, having the sickle in his hand and missing the other arm, he was off balance and not very adept at grabbing at the moment. The boy easily plucked the scythe out of Death's bony grip. Death gasped, completely taken aback... no one had EVER taken his scythe from him! No one had ever even HELD it but him! And here was this impudent little boy, holding HIS scythe, and SWINGING it at him...

Death noticed this too late, and before he could even chomp his bony jaws in rage, his other arm was lying before him, lopped off at the shoulder. Death stared down at it in disbelief, his jawbone hanging open in astonishment. The little boy stood there, giggling, surrounded by mangled cat corpses, holding the scythe, just the cutest little picture you could ever imagine. Then the boy swung again. Death looked up just in time to notice the blade swinging toward his neckbone, which resulted in the efficient disconnection of his head bone from his body bone. Death grinned his bony grin at the irony of it all, and managed one last insane cackle before his spirit dissipated.