“How utterly boring!” Martin exclaimed as he walked down the street, his head stuck firmly in his book, “not even a single person dies in this story. And they dared to call it a ‘Romeo and Juliet’-type romance, hmph.”

Dodging instinctively out of the way of a cyclist making little ringing noises on her bike’s bell, he found himself rather unfortunately in the middle of the street, just as a truck came speeding down the way. Just as he noticed that the honking horn was aimed at him, he felt the wind get knocked out of him. Brushing himself off, he looked around for the projectile that pushed him out of the way, to find nothing, merely the truck continuing to barrel down the road.

“That's weird,” he muttered, “it’s really best that I get home.”

As he limped down the street, roadburn making his every step a little bit more aggravating, he decided he was in too much pain to continue reading the stupid book. As he arrived at home and hung his jacket up, he turned to see an elderly woman in a room he didn’t quite recognize. In fact, he didn’t recognize any of the rooms surrounding it. As he turned around to leave, he found the door had been replaced with a window that seemed to blind him with light, and the coatrack, along with his coat, were nowhere to be found.

As he stared at the woman, he found more and more that he felt he recognized her. Yet, as soon as he recalled it, he found it being snatched out of its grasp quite annoyingly. Perhaps she was his aunt, or something of the sort? Perhaps he’d just entered the wrong house, but no, he knew he put his coat on the right rack, and it was gone. As he looked closer, he noticed she was holding onto something for dear life, though it was so well hidden he could hardly see what it was.

“You’re lucky I found you before the timebeasts got to you,” she said, breaking the silence, “you dodged fate back there. Some might say that was incredible luck.”

“I…what? Was that you with the truck?” he asked.

“In a way, I suppose, but it was also me pulling you out of the way of the truck. You’re welcome, by the way,” she replied, sipping a chalice of something dark.

“Why should I thank you for putting me into a situation I didn’t ask to be put into?” he huffed.

“I see I indeed made the right choice,” she muttered as she wrote something down, “she’s a feisty one, I’ll give her that. She’ll make an excellent replacement, though I suspect she’ll get into too many fights with Lachesis. Ninety-nine point nine percent guarantee.”

“What are you even talking about?” he asked.

“Ooooh, that’s good, you’re a natural!” she replied, “you speak the old tongue within minutes of coming here, I do believe it took Clotho a good century to even do that much, and here I was thinking you wouldn’t understand me.”

“Hey, lady, can I just go?” Martin asked, annoyedly.

“No,” she replied, “and probably not for at least a few years. Or days, I forget which. You must forgive me, it has been a millennium or three since I’ve done this, and I have only done it twice.”

“Years?” he gasped, “are you out of your mind?”

“No, or at least, not yet. We’ll see how I feel when I’m retired from this old form, perhaps I’ll become one of those madwomen you find in the governments of men. Or maybe a dolphin, whichever I end up liking best. I’ve earned it after all,” she replied, as if it were all totally sensible speech.

“Lady, listen, I’m calling the cops if you don’t reverse whatever sleight of hand you’ve done to entrap me here. I’m a busy guy,” he replied.

“You are, in fact, neither of those things. For one, the only thing you should be busy with is being dead,” she retorted matter-of-factly.

“I…what?” he asked, confusedly.

She held up a gleaming golden thread, frayed at the end, her hand nearly shaking from how strongly she was holding onto it. “Come now, young lady, touch the tip of the thread,” she replied, “any of the frayed ends will do.”

As Martin touched one of the frayed strings, he noticed the gleam in it overtaking his vision. All of a sudden, he found himself back on the road, except he now noticed the truck, a bit too late. As it hit him, he felt the wind get knocked out of him, and then he felt the tires running over his body. As he felt warm blood pool around the jello that used to be his legs, he noticed the truck driving away, and he returned to the world of the living.

“What the fuck was that?” he screamed, jumping back.

“That, my dear, was your death. You were destined to die today,” she replied, “I erased that, you are welcome, or, well, I will once you stop being so stupid.”

“You…you’re one of the fates,” he replied.

“Lady Atropos, at your service, though I will say I’m not quite as inflexible as my name suggests,” she cackled in response.

“The thread cutter, then,” he guessed.

“Very good, you’re about half as stupid as when you entered. If you keep it up, we might have you well-trained enough to leave in a few centuries,” she said, grinning, “oh, sorry, days, I mean, I really have got to get those times unmixed in my head.”

“Well-trained?” he asked.

“Well, you don’t get one of the fates making an exception to the rules like this every day. In fact, it has been,” she paused as she summoned a scroll out of thin air and read down it at lightning speed, “three thousand, three hundred, and eighty-two years since the youngest of us was summoned, that’s Clotho. Though I will say it was under much more auspicious circumstances.”

“So there’s a catch?” he asked.

“My, you ask far too many questions, and have far too few answers. It’s too human of you, we’ll have that fixed up in no time,” she replied, winking at him, “and don’t call it that, you’re making me feel guilty.”

“You’re the one who decided when I should die!” he exclaimed in response.

“No, you made that decision,” she replied, “I merely enacted the consequences of your actions.”

“But you’re fate herself, you made the choice, I was merely your puppet,” he replied.

“Don’t argue with me just yet, young lady,” she replied, “you’ll be fate herself soon, but you’ve got to understand the rules of the universe first. They don’t make sense to that meatbrained head of yours.”

“You keep referring to yourself as if you’re not made of flesh and bone, but what are you made of then?” he asked.

“I’m made of willpower itself!” she replied, laughing, “and that’s what you’re going to be made of too, if I have anything to say about it.”

“This all is starting to make my head hurt,” he replied, “can I please go nap somewhere?”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” she said, standing up, “you’ll need to remain awake until we can stabilize your form. You’re about twenty-seven minutes out from exploding, and I’d like to remain unstained by your juices.”

“WHAT?” he asked, “well good job, because there’s no way I’m sleeping now! How do we stop me from exploding?”

“You have to want not to explode, dear,” she replied, “I can’t do anything about that, that’s on you.”

“I DON’T WANT TO EXPLODE,” he screamed, “IS THAT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU?”

“Well it’s not up to me, it’s up to you, dear,” she replied, “if that’s good enough for you, and you really want that, or rather, don’t want that, then that’s that and we’ll just have to wait and see. But I do suggest, to be safe, that you keep thinking about not wanting to explode.”

And so the odd pair sat at the elder’s table, the younger concentrating incredibly hard on not exploding, the elder holding the thread while sipping her chalice. At some point, a timer went off, and Atropos looked at him, motioning for him to turn it off.

“It appears you’ve not exploded after twenty-eight minutes, as the time suggests, dear,” she said, “I must congratulate you.”

“Has anyone ever exploded?” he asked, shakily, in response.

“No,” she said, “or at least not since I’ve been here, but we’re four for four now, so I consider that a pretty good indicator of a high success rate.”

He sighed and slumped in his chair. “Can I please, please pleaaaaase nap now?” he whined.

“If you insist, though I must say you’re being rude making me hold this, it’s all that’s keeping you alive, you know,” she said as she pulled on the thread.

As she did so, Martin started gasping for air. “Oh dear,” she exclaimed, “I forgot it makes you short of breath when I do that. How about we fix the thread up first, and then you nap?”

“How do we do that?” he asked, “like, how do we fix the thread?”

“Oh, simple!” she exclaimed, “we must burn it in the heatless fires of the underworld.”

“A..all of it?” he asked.

“Yes, dearie, all of it,” she replied, “that’s the only way to be rid of it. If we start there now, we’ll be there in a few hours, and we mustn’t wait, otherwise we could be waiting another year until the gates open up again.”

“Well, I suppose my nap will have to wait,” he said, groaning.

“That’s the spirit! Although, we can’t have you looking like the person they were expecting to visit there for the next eternity, we’ll need you to look a bit different.”

She snapped, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then, he screamed as he felt his body catch on fire, and then fall down to the floor, looking up at her incredulously. His screams eventually came out as pained whines, and he found himself padding around on all fours.

“Well, that’s good enough, a puppydog suits you, and it’s better than that musty old shell you had before anyways,” she said, scooping him up as he squirmed in her arms.

“The more you squirm, the more likely I am to let go of your thread, dear,” she chided calmly.

He stopped squirming and made a huffing sound at her. He knew she meant no harm by it at this point, but he was more concerned at the harm she’d cause without meaning it. As she walked out the suddenly reappeared door with him in her arms, he wondered what exactly he’d gotten himself into, or maybe what she’d gotten him into.