Maliah blinked at Abioye who was still looking away from her. She opened her mouth once, closed it. Twice. By the fourth time she managed to speak, “Excuse me?”

Abioye waved his hand once.

Then Maliah laughed once, “Hold on, I don’t even remember being asked on a date much less being proposed to.”

Abioye growled as he turned back to look at her, “Do you think I want this either? Which is why we need focus on the second part. Apparently there is a way to reject this contract.”

“Then the devil you’re waiting for, reject it already. I reject it! There! It’s rejected!” Maliah cried, waving her hands as if she was flicking off water.

Abioye rolled his eyes, “Apparently it’s not that easy.”

“So what do we do? I don’t know you like that!!”

“That is immaterial.”, Abioye said, “I however know all I need to know with your file.”

He tapped on the close black folder with her name on it next to him, “But that there is only one thing that I know that I don’t like about you.”

Maliah forked an eyebrow, “Which is?”

Abioye bared his teeth to her, “The fact that you are human. I hate humans.”

Maliah straightened and looked thoughtful, “Well…... I can’t hate on that.”

Abioye eyes widen, “Excuse me?”

Maliah shrugged, “There are so many bad humans it makes the good ones look non-existence. I ain’t particular about humans either, so I understand.”

Abioye’s mouth was parted a little as his gaze dropped downwards. Was she serious?

Maliah crossed her arms, “But be that as it may, that doesn’t have to do with me. I didn’t ask to marry you. I don’t want to marry you. As I said, I don’t know you.”

Here Abioye composed himself, “Then you agree. We need to find a way to get out of this.”

Maliah began to pick up the folder, “Let me see. Is this real?”

Abioye nodded and handed it to her, “Very real.”

As soon as Maliah touched the contract, the paper glowed a bright yellow, making them both shut their eyes. When it faded, Maliah cracked her eyes open and gasped. The black boxes were gone and the entire contract could be read.

Abioye shot to his feet, “How?” He growled snatching it back from her. He read it quickly before slamming it down on the desk and spinning around, back to her.

He was seething! How could he have known that her touching it would make the rest of the contract readable. How can Baba force this on them like this? The least he could have done would be to warn them.

With trembling fingers Maliah picked up the contract and began to read:

Congratulations Maliah Anderson,

You are fated to the 2nd Death Prince, 3rd child of the Death King, Abioye. You are hereby granted 110 years of life upon acceptance of this contract.

Your greatest wish can be granted but be warned that the answers may not be exactly as you want. However upon acceptance of this contract, not only will your wish be granted but also an automatic guarantee of 110 years of life, pending soul bonding.

Soul bonding with the Death Prince Abioye is to be done once a week until your 110th birthday. Failure to do so will result in a premature death, making 110 years of life null and void. If you die prematurely, because of failure to soul bond, your soul will cease to exist. By soul bonding you can bypass your original 1st death date (Whether you have reached it already or will reach it in the future) as a permanent bond with a mortal will take until their 110th year of life. However, the day after your 110th birthday you will die and automatically become permanently bonded to the Death Prince Abioye.

You may choose to reject this contract. Rejection of this contract will make this bond null and void as well as your wish and 110 years of life will not be guaranteed to be fulfilled.

This contract has been written and what is written shall be.

Signed,

The Death King

Upon acceptance of this contract, sign your full name. This contract will stand until the end of time.

Upon rejection of this contract, sign your name followed by three X’s. This contract cannot be revisited at a later date and there is no refund.

I hereby accept/reject this contract: ____________________

Maliah had to sit with this for awhile. Time never moved, yet finally Maliah looked up and opened her mouth. Abioye still had his back to her.

“Soooo….if I do this soul bonding, I get to live until I’m 110 years old and my wish is fulfilled. But if this soul bonding is broken the whole deal falls through and I don’t exist anymore, nor do I get to 110 year of life and my wish may or may not be fulfilled.” Maliah summarized.

Abioye gave an absent nod.

“I’m assuming if I stay dead then we aren’t fated anymore?” Maliah inquired.

“That is my understanding as well. You can reject the contract which means we will not be fated anymore.”

“Then what happens to me? I don’t cease to exist do I?” Maliah asked with horror.

Abioye turned around to look at her, “No. That’s only if soul-bonding is broken. If you don’t agree to the contract then you continue on, getting processed like everyone else and eventually being judged.”

Abioye didn’t tell her if her soul was weighed and found lacking, she would cease to exist.

“What is the soul-bonding thing?” Maliah asked, pointing to the words.

“Accepting the contract means we are now pre-bonded and I have to nurture your spirit every week until you are 110 years old. If your spirit isn’t nurtured then you will die. If you die that way, you will cease to exist period. At the end of 110 years, you will die and the result is that we will be fully bonded. As you can see, it’s best for you to stay dead.”

Maliah gave him a look, “How do you know that? I’m only 28 years old. My parents would be devastated if I die now. I also have things I want to do.”

Abioye retook his seat, his eyes becoming hooded, “Death has no respect for age.”

Maliah looked at Abioye as if seeing him for the first time. She took a few moments to study him before looking back at the contract, “ Death Prince…” she looked up at him, “So are you like….like…..….the Grim Reaper?”

Abioye frowned and seemed to sink in his chair a bit. It occurred to Maliah that he might have been pouting as his bottom full lip poked out, “I suppose that’s what you mortals would call it.”

Maliah surveyed him once more. He didn’t look anything like the depictions she saw of a Grim Reaper. Other than dressed in black, he was not wearing a robe. Right now she was wearing another black senator-style outfit. He didn’t even look like a skeleton. She looked at his face. Other than his gold eyes, he didn’t look any different from any other man.

“Where is your scythe?” she blurted out after a few moments.

His elbow slid across the table a fraction before he caught himself, his right eye twitching, “What is with you humans? You think so little of us that you think we need to take a scythe and harvest you with it?

Here he snorted, “All Baba has to do is speak a whisper and your souls come here. A scythe? Woman, please.”

“Baba….you mean your Father?”

Abioye smirked then, “The Death King himself.”

Maliah glanced down at the contract, “And you are his child? A Death Prince?”

“One of them, yes.”

She was silent for a long moment before looking up at him, “Why?”

“Why? Why what?”

“Why me?” she asked.

Abioye waved his hand, “Who knows the mind of the Death King?”

Maliah was silent a beat before her nose scrunched and she asked, “If I come back to life, will I be a zombie?”

Abioye blanced, “Zombies? That’s another thing I don’t understand about you mortals. Why do you think the undead are just brain sucking leeches? Your brains come up with more nonsense than I know what to do with.”

Maliah snorted, “So I won’t be eating brains? Thank you!! I hate zombie movies actually.”

Abioye sniffed, “They are undignified. No, if you accept, you will live as you have normally for until you are 110 years old. In your case you have 82 years to live. The only difference is the pre-bond and the nurturing of your spirit.”

“About this nurturing of my spirit. What is that?” Maliah asked wearily.

Abioye leaned his head in his hand. He was silent so long that Maliah repeated her question. He finally looked at her, “Don’t know the particulars exactly. I just know that in order to keep you alive as it is going against nature we will have to nurture your spirit.”

“I’m not sure if I want to go against nature”, Maliah murmured. Every single movie she ever watched played in her head. Messing with fate never ended well.

Abioye was silent, surprise lurking in mind. The young woman before him was concerned about going against fate? He knew that humans talked about fate but at the end of the day if their selfish wishes were fulfilled they wouldn’t hesitate. Yet, here she was clearly conflicted about it.

“This contract mentions a wish, my wish….” Maliah murmured. She looked up at him expectedly.

Abioye shrugged, “I’m not a genie. I have no means to know what that is.”

“Does the wish get fulfilled now?” asked Maliah.

Abioye replied testily, “I don’t even know what your wish is much less if it can be fulfilled now.”

Maliah pressed on, “Be that as it may, would my coming back to life, count as my wish?”

Abioye blinked. He was not as far seeing as his father was, “Honestly, I don’t know.”

Maliah was silent as she sat back in her chair turning slightly to the side, “I have to think this through….”

Abioye shrugged before pulling one of the neverending black folders off a stack before opening it. He still had paperwork to fill out from those that stepped in his office for debates. He was halfway through one pile when he was jolted out by Maliah’s wry voice,

“A Death Prince has paperwork?”

He looked up to see her with a small smirk. He felt surprised at how long they had been sitting there in silence before she spoke. And then he became annoyed at how he felt that it was a comfortable silence.

Abioye silently cleared his throat, “You will find a remarkable amount of paperwork is needed for Death processing.”

“I want to return to life.” Maliah said without preamble.

The feathered pen in Abioye’s hand loosened. Maliah saw the gold eyes stare at her but she could not figure out any sense of emotion behind it.

Maliah continued, “I’m not sure if it counts as my wish but I want to return to life. I still have my family and things I want to do. I suppose if I’m given the chance though non-underhanded means, I suppose I should take it.”

“When you die next time, we will be bonded, for eternity”, Abioye reminded her.

Maliah bobbed her head once, “Honestly, I can’t think that far. What would you do in my situation? I can’t and don’t want to stay dead.”

“What human would?”

“All the more reason for you to understand.”

Abioye scoffed, letting his feather pen drop to the desk before sitting back folding his arms. Maliah reached over cautiously and dragged the feather pen towards her.

“It seems you can always count on human selfishness. Why Baba would cosign us to this fate is beyond me. And why I have zero say is also beyond me.”

The Death Prince’s words gave Maliah pause as she took the pen in her hand.

“I’m sure we can think of some compromise. It’s clear neither of us want this.”

“Compromise?”

She nodded enthusiastically, her tassel earrings slapping against her check.

Abioye thought about that. A kind of compromise? What would that even be? Right now Abioye just wanted her gone.

“I’m going to sign now”, Maliah said pointing at the line.

“I clearly have no power to stop you”, Abioye stated.

Maliah gave an apologetic smile before carefully signing her name before laying the pen down. The contract glowed before, the folder shut itself and rose up. It became a ball of light that split into two and went towards the heart of Abioye and Maliah. Both of them clutched her chest when it disappeared.

Maliah shook her head to clear the cobwebs that were forming in her brain. She wasn’t sure if she asked Abioye what was going on. Did she utter a sound? She was getting sleepier and sleepier until finally her eyes shut and her own body shimmered until it was a ball of light. Abioye watched as it shot through the roof disappearing as a star in the twilight.

Abioye stood and looked out the window still absently rubbing his chest.

It seems Maliah Anderson’s 82 years to her 110th year will start now.