I feel myself come back. From where?

One rectangular shaped piece at a time the inky blackness breaks to light. Someone is unburying me from rubble. Wait, no. Not rubble.

I hear the crumpling of shrinkwrap. I see faint text. That font. I’d recognize it anywhere.

It’s my Warhammer 40k backlog.

I squeeze my eyes shut as the light becomes unbearably bright. I try to groan but my throat is bone dry. My hand is free now. I rub the sleep away from my eyes and open them.

I blink a few times. It’s still there. I squeeze my eyes shut. Prayers I’ve long forgotten begin to rattle in my head until it crescendos into a blaring orchestra of disjointed voices. I open my eyes and it stops.

A long Abaddon Black cloak shimmers in shades of Macragge Blue and Genestealer Purple. Inside the hood was as deep as Black 3.0, sucking the light out of my room. I try to speak again, but an awkward choke is the only thing that escapes.

“You’ll be able to speak soon. Give it time.” The sound of its voice is cool. Soothing.

Two piercing, faceted eyes of Waystone Green appear in the hood. They’re set in a skull seemingly dipped in Skeleton Horde. I would’ve dry brushed.

“You always have questions. Look around and find answers for yourself. It’ll make it much easier once you’re able to speak.”

I look around my office. Everything is as I remember, save for the two bookshelves that have crashed down onto the floor. They carried my entire backlog. There’s dried blood caked into the carpet.

Oh.

I sit on my coffin of cardboard and plastic. The first word is finally free.

“Why?”

“That question always seems so important, doesn’t it?”

Death comes closer.

“Why?” It says.

I think of the most recent army I started collecting. I waited years for my dream faction to finally be playable in the current edition, only for the next edition to be expected in less than a year. I felt my fist clench.

Death was right, nothing did make sense.

Death made its way to the other side of the room in a silent glide. It stopped short of my finished miniatures.

“You have an eye for beauty.”

What? “T-thanks. His name is Be’lakor. He did the rounds on Reddit when I posted him.”

Death doesn’t respond. It continues to scan the shelf.

“Sorry, Reddit is a site where you can po-”

“I know what Reddit is.”

“Sorry.”

Death stops in front of my most completed projects, a handful of combat patrols.

“Which army is your favorite?”

“Oh well that’s so hard to choose, I just love the whole universe. I would probably say I’m most excited to play the Astra Militarum which is basically - okay have you seen Alien?”

“Which is your favorite to play?”

My face goes hot. “Well.. I.. I haven’t exactly gotten to play just yet.”

An almost imperceptible turn of Death’s Head.

“I.. I’ve painted a lot of different armies,” I start to explain. “I tried to get family to play but everyone quits after the first 30 minutes of explaining the rules.. I.. usually forget them and then relearn them when someone shows interest, but no-one really ends up playing. That’s what those small armies are for, loaner armies I guess. The nearest game store is far and I don’t have a full army painted yet.. I just get distracted I guess. I really like painting. I have played all of the games and I'm getting into the lore. I tried playing against myself in a tabletop simulator but I haven’t played with anyone else on account of the social anxiety and-”

“Who are these?” Death stands before my Chaos armies.

“Oh, those are all the forces of Chaos I have. They’re from another plane of existence, kind of like you I guess. There’s a whole lot of gods and demons and-”

“They are nothing like me.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you..”

“They are Legion.”

“Well, kind of. They don’t always get alo-”

“I am the only One.”

It’s quiet in my office. I was torn between sympathy and existential dread.

I try to break the awkward silence. “Well, you never know. There could be more. Warhammer spans 40,000 plus years! New gods and demons appear all the time. Like Slaanesh, Slaanesh was born out of the hedonism of the Aeldari. It’s pretty metal right? I dunno, maybe it can happen in our universe.”

Suddenly Death is facing me.

“Under special circumstance I am able to present a challenge. Life or death. A wager for your soul.”

“Like in that song with the fiddles and playing it hot?”

“Yes. However, the game is traditionally chess.”

“Oh.”

“I would like to make an exception for you. I want you to teach me this Warhammer.”

“Sure.. ok! It’ll take a while to explain and I need to brush back up on the rules though..”

Death holds the rulebook. “You’ve taught it plenty of times. I trust you can teach it again.”

“I also don’t have a full-sized army yet which would be the intended rules I think. We have to at least assemble some and people find that really tedious..”

Death holds a combat patrol box in each hand. “We have plenty.”

“You don’t want to just.. I don’t know, use magic to create them?”

“It wouldn’t be real.”.

“Okaaay.. Painting is a lot though, I guess we can play with unpainted ones or just do a quick coat so they’re at least color coded..”

Death holds a bundle of paints. “I want to do it the way you do it. I want you to show me.”

I blink. “Okay. I guess the first part is choosing an army.”

“These Aeldari, you said they created life?”

“Well- uh I mean that’s not exactly how I would describe it but sure. I figured you would want to play Khorne, he’s the Blood God of Rage an-”

“I want to play the Aeldari.”

I start to feel a flutter in my chest. Is that even possible if you’re dead? I bend down and start sorting out the boxes. I find Death beside me, doing the same. A few minutes later we’re at my desk. The file and snippers are neatly arranged by the bottle of plastic glue. We each sit down after grabbing our first box.

I look over at Death as it runs its bony hand over the back of its box. I can only imagine it’s admiring the variations of paint jobs.

“Those are color schemes that match up with different sub-factions. For the Aeldari it’s different Craftworlds, which are like giant ships they live on. It’s kinda hard to explain because it’s different for every faction. If you want I can grab their codex and we can get into some lore.. But that would probably take up a lot of time..”

“That’s okay. We have plenty of time.”

I smile and rush off to grab it.