Tick-tock, tick-tock! - a heartbeat was echoing on the screen, but it was going to eternal sleep. With each tick, the sound faded from the painful moans of a pale man who was lying motionless on the bed.

- My daughter, are you here? - he asked with a hazy look as he was searching her around the room.

- Yes, Dad, - a young girl sat on the bed and clasped his palm in hers, - I'll always be here with you! Till the last breath!

He sighed contentedly, his face glowing even though her skin was white like virgin snow that flooded the landscape behind the window under the cover of the night.

- I know you were the only one here for me! You, my daughter, you have known how to understand me and love me since I was born to this cruel world. Well now, - he stopped as he couldn't breathe, so he gestured her to come closer, - today is the day, when my purpose ends. I will have to follow Him! - he whispered, kissing her on the forehead.

She didn't answer and she just smiled with a painful smile and gripped his palm harder. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, full of their shared memories.

- Don't cry baby-girl! It had to come once. I'm not afraid. You couldn´t be afraid of the Death. The life is born in his shadow, and with a gentle touch of his bony hand, life becomes eternal under the cloak of our unconscious fear! - he wiped tears from her wider jaws with his thumb.

Raspberry-filled lips trembled with each father's touch. She knew deeply that they were the last.

- Do you know, what do all the stories have in common, honey? - he asked a question which she couldn´t answer as a child.

She blew her nose and brown eyes looked away to the snowy landscape, which had been falling asleep after a hard day. - Today I know the answer... Every story, whether beautiful or sad, has to end!

Only in fairy tales it is written: "They lived happily ever after!" But our destiny is no fairy tale. No happy ending awaiting for you! The end is only the end, no matter what happened. It's still just the end! - she replied in a voice full of anger associated with a heart-crushing grief.

He braced his elbows to get up and hugged her tightly to his tiny chest. He was silent for a moment, inhaling her scent, but then he opened his mouth: - Where my story ends, your story begins! The story never ends, - he stroked it convulsively, - now you will write your own story, my dearest treasure! Death… He is not bad. On the other hand, he can be quite generous and forgiving.

She raised one eyebrow in surprise, thought for a few seconds and paused: - Death can love?! That's absurd father! If he had at least a bit of emotions, he wouldn´t, - her face wrinkled into an enraged grimace, - take our loved ones!

- He didn't take anything from me, he gave me a purpose to live on. He gave me you, Hope! - he answered confidently, his cheekbones blushed and a piercing flash of teeth appeared from below the narrow lips.

His daughter was looking into his dark eyes until she was completely lost in their darkness. She tried to find the answers, but the longer she was searching for them, the more confused she became.

- Death is our most faithful reader. By reading our story, he kills the loneliness that tightens his empty chest. - he narrowed his eyes, but his eyelids were falling with endless fatigue.

A hoarse but well-known voice spoke to him: - You still have some time, buddy, so use it wisely. Please, see out to your dream until your strength will be completely gone!

Death was leaning his back against the wall, waiting patiently for the last grain of the life-essence to fall in his friend's hourglass.

- From the very first meeting, right from the very first breath he knows our name, just as he knows our story at the last exhale. - he blinked at the wall; it was time to pay off the debts.

The pale rider nodded, walking unobtrusively to the bed. He didn't smile like you think. Death went for his only friend. - Hush now, rest, depart in peace and return to nothing…

- Dad?! - she asked him in a sweet voice when his heart stopped. The beating fell asleep, the blows receded, the blood froze, but the soul took over from the eternal dream to more beautiful morning.

He sensed, but could answer no longer. Death arranged it so that hearing persisted and left among the last. He knew from personal experience that people would sometimes show more sincerity to the dead than to the living. People have it in their nature.

Death sidled up to them carefully. He took a deep breath, grabbed a pair of strands of her curly hair in his right hand. He was wrapping them slowly around his bony fingers and was drifting by their softness.

Intense chills ran down her slender neck. The unrecognizable cold of Death's disturbed breath slid across the velvety skin. She faced around and noticed his hurt face. He was very emaciated, too morbidly grey, his face didn´t receive much beauty, but his black coals flourished with childlike innocence.

- Why are you sad, huh ?! - she glared at him. - Only I have the right to mourn now!!!

He looked at the floor: - Every reader will be sorry, when he reads such a magnificent work.

- It didn't have to end if you had the effort to change it! - she replied with a voice full of poison.

- I'm just Death, nothing more ... This is my job, believe me or not, I didn't choose it voluntarily, - he took the hood down from his head, - I don´t specify the length of life, I can´t change your end either. - he clenched his fists.

- If the role of Death is not death, then what is it? - she moved closer to him in astonishment.

Death was silent for two minutes, gritting his teeth nervously, then whispered softly: - Accompanying you to the other side. Being your beacon in the dark, until you get to the place, where you belong.

The girl frowned sharply, but she realized that it would be unfair to be angry with him. She rested her head on his bony shoulders: - So Death, who is next?

He slowly stood up from bed: - Everyone…

- And what about me? When will my time come? When will I meet my dad again? - she asked him, while she was hugging her dead father.

- It will be a very long journey; people still need you here!

- What do you mean, that people still need me here?

Death came to her and tenderly caressed her cheek: - You are Hope, so you cannot die, child! Please teach them that:

“Embracing Life means accepting Death.”