“Please father,” Mena pleaded, as she shivered in the silver spotlight. “Now I’m forced to marry a handsome, intelligent and sweet-smelling prince rather than Romulus”—she quietly added,” Actually that doesn’t sound too bad, but nay, I digress.”

Janus smirked. Her lengthy, bony figure rose high in her dark robe. “Will you do anything to escape this tragic fate?”

“Yes” Mena pleaded, “Any solution is preferrable.”

“Even…” Janus said, taking a dramatic pause with hunger in her eyes. “Death? Would you face Death himself and flee your tragic life?”

Mena sighed and tried to make it sound like she had given up. “Oh,” she cried. “I’d even leap off a building if I had to”—and she shifted her eyes to the side—“a one story one so I could hook up with that handsome prince afterwards.”

Janus touched the tips of her spindly fingers. “I have a remedy if you wish.”

The Bourgebeasts all murmured to each other. A cheetah in a tuxedo sipped red wine as he chatted to a gazelle in a red ball gown. “I say, odd how this Julianna has more chemistry with a cadaver than her co-star.”

The female gazelle nodded. “Perhaps the arts are as dead as we think they are.”

“Then,” Janus smirked again and removed a black vial from her robe. “I want you to drink this bottle. When you do, your face will turn a whiter shade of pale, your breath will cease and your pulse will stop like a broken clock. Your warm face and blood will turn cold and no one will be able to distinguish you from a corpse.”

Janus sighed and rested her head in her hands. “Then you’ll truly be dead and lovely to the mortal eye.”

The way Janus was salivating at the thought of Mena’s near demise gave Mena the creeps. The young witch hesitated to take the bottle from Janus, but Janus urged her. “Don’t fear the reaper child…Don’t you truly wish to face eternity?”

Mena looked at the edge of the stage. Electra mouthed the words, “What are you doing? Drink the bottle. It’s nothing but warm water.”

Mena looked again at Janus, a giddy look of anticipation was fixated on Janus’ face. “Drink the bottle and become one with death,” she cried.

“N-No…” Mena said at least. “I won’t.”

“Then…” Janus growled. “Death will become one with you…”

Mena gasped as Janus’ head began to turn round and round, pivoting on her neckbones like she was possessed. And suddenly, the pixie reaper changed.

Her body elongated and tore through her vicar’s robes with bony scythes like arms, and her face, normally perky and cute for a skeleton stretched and sprouted thousands of sharp teeth.

The beasts in the audience cheered, not knowing this wasn’t part of the act. Mena immediately recognized the creature’s terrifying visage. Janus was the phantom of the performing arts center, but she scarcely could believe it. “What the bloody dickens?” Mena exclaimed.

The creature of nightmares gave a horrifying snarl that was as far off from the pixie reaper’s spritely voice as possible. “Janus…?” Mena asked, feeling herself turn pale without the help of the vile vial.

“Janus?” it said in a grizzly voice. “There is no Janus here.”

“Then who are you???” Mena cried.

The phantom tossed its head of stringy hair back and gave a congested laugh. “I am known by many names: Famine. War. Conquest…but the one you are most familiar with, is Death Embodied.”

The audience all gasped. “Plot twist,” a gopher man with a monocle said in a deep, campy voice.

“I do declare, the vicar was death personified?” the snake man next to him said. “This is a new twist on an old classic.”

Mena could not believe the sheer stupidity of the audience as much as Janus’ new form.

“I don’t get it…” Mena said, “But what happened to Janus?”

The creature hissed loudly. “Who cares? I need more souls. I cannot flourish without sssssssouuulllllsss. And you, will be my first delicacy, Mena. One of my best friends…in the realm of the living.”

The creature wound up its scythe like arms, ready to swing them and reap Mena’s soul once and for all. She backed away slowly, not ready to die at her friend’s own blade hands. The blade fell at her like a guillotine, she squeaked and screwed her eyes shut. Instead of the meaty sound of sliced flesh, there was the clang of a metal blade clashing with another. She opened her eyes and Tal stood triumphantly blocking Janus’ scythe from reaping its prey. He swung his rapier back at her, and she drew away.

“Hah,” Tal laughed at Janus as she pulled her scythe hand back. “You should add Slow-Witted to your collection of cool names, reaper-thing.”

“Tal?” Mena said, her eyes wide with shock. “Why would you save me?”

“You really are a doofus, Mena,” Tal said with a smile. “As much as you annoy me, you remind me that I have a reason worth living.”

“That is?” Mena asked.

“Your love!” Tal said, and the audience and Mena swooned.

“Perhaps I underrated that boy’s acting skills,” a donkey in a checkered vest said from the audience. “A shame he didn’t show them until this late in the play.”

Janus began to brandish her scythe arms and swinging them rapidly. “I should have killed you when I got the chance. When I possssesssed that lion girl.”

Mena and Tal’s jaws both dropped. So Ashlan was indeed possessed by the phantom. All that time in court really paid off. There was no time to think about that, however. Not when the scythe arms were chopping up everything in their vicinity.

Tal stood in front of Mena and leveled his sword at the phantom, searching for a blind spot in Janus’ assault. He angled it perfectly, and jabbed his sword between the scythes, jamming both and sending the reaper recoiling.

“Hubba hubba,” Mena exclaimed with her tongue sticking out. “Gotta admit, I’ve really got a thing for a man who knows how to use his sword! Where did you learn that?”

“I simply taught myself all these jabbing techniques,” Tal said, twirling his rapier. “I am an edgy fellow after all.”

“In this case,” Mena smiled. “I don’t mind at all.”

“Now…” Tal said, turning around to face her. “Let’s get out of he….”

Without warning, one of Janus’ scythe arms stretched across the stage and punctured Tal.

Mena screamed Tal’s name as he fell to the stage with lifeless eyes.