Forty stories separated the conference room and the city below. Tall windows stretched from floor to ceiling, a reminder of the distance between us and the millions of people who would never see it coming.
"I have to admit, I don't quite understand the product." The investor leaned forward onto spreadsheets.
I'd given this pitch for three thousand years. The words have changed, but the vision remained. "We're disrupting the human condition. Creating systemic change at scale."
"That's marketing speak." He was unpacking something from a canvas tote. "What does your product actually do?"
A thermos.
He unscrewed the cap, steam slowly rising. That smell-
Tomato bisque.
The hunger woke. My teeth ached with the phantom taste of a thousand missed meals - saliva thick and hot in my mouth.
"You don't mind?" He poured into his travel mug.
My jaw locked. Behind him, through the window, I watched a bird freeze mid-flight, wings spread but motionless.
As he slurped, the bird fell.
I forced words out. "Developed markets. High density..."
He finished the mug, then set it down. The lights stopped humming.
I exhaled as I felt my grip loosen on the chair. It was over. I could breathe again-
He reached back into the tote.
Pulled out a second thermos.
No. Not again.
"Your burn rate is catastrophic," he said, unscrewing the cap.
French onion.
Every light in the building went out.
Complete darkness, seconds pass.
When they flickered back, the window cracked from inside the glass itself.
He ate. Each spoonful pushed something back that wanted out. My hands were clenched, barely able to hold myself back. The cracks in glass spread further..
"Four co-founders creates friction." Cheese stretched from spoon to mouth.
He finished the second thermos and wiped his mouth.
My shoulders dropped. Twice. I'd survived twice. Just had to hold on until-
His hand went back into the tote.
"And marketing," he said, "that's what I really want to understand."
Third thermos.
The window exploded, shattered outward like the building itself had screamed. Then, the city noise rushed in: sirens, horns, twelve million voices.
"Jesus Christ!" The investor stumbled back.
I walked to where the window used to be. Below, I could taste them. Every meal. Every crumb. Every satisfied, wasteful bite.
"They'll be hungry," I said. "They'll be so, so hungry."
Behind me, the investor brushed dust off his suit. "Hunger-driven marketing. I like it. Creates urgency, drives engagement." He pulled out his phone, and began tapping notes. "But I'm going to be honest with you - you're a big risk. Four untested co-founders, catastrophic burn rate, no proven revenue model."
I turned from the void. The hunger crawled back into its cage, and I crawled back into my suit.
He met my eyes but still didn't see. "I need proof. Concrete evidence of return. Show me your Q4 projections. Show me you can actually deliver on this vision." He packed up his thermoses like nothing had happened. "Bring me numbers that justify your vision. Then, we'll talk."
His handshake was warm. His fingers smelled like garlic and thyme. Disgusting.
I stood alone in the conference room with broken windows, staring at the spot where his soup had been. Then, my phone buzzed.
W: how'd it go
Me: They're interested. Heading to HQ now.
Down the hall. Through security. Past the receptionist who never looked at us directly. The real conference room waited at the end. The one without windows. Without warmth.
"Sorry I'm late. VC meeting ran long." I announced.
Three figures sat around the table, backlit by monitors showing statistics.
The first man looked up from his tablet, and the room felt smaller. His suit was blood-red, cut so sharp it could draw blood, fitted to a frame that suggested violence even at rest. He took a slow pull from his vape pen - chrome, expensive, from his last conquest, a stark upgrade from the ash he used to breath. The exhale smelled like burning cities and costly cologne. When he smiled, it was all teeth and malice and the kind of dangerous charm that made you forget what he was capable of.
"So?" He snarled.
"They want numbers. Hard projections."
A wet, rattling cough from the corner. The second one hunched over a laptop. His skin was the color of spoiled meat, mottled purple-green in the fluorescent light, slick with something that might have been sweat. When he shifted, I caught the sweet-rot smell of him, somehow it made me want to lean closer. Code streamed across the screen: mutation models, infection vectors. His phones buzzed on the table. Notification after notification from apps with icons of hearts and flames and bees.
"Did you mention the retention metrics?" He spit.
"Lightly."
At the head of the table sat the third. He hadn't moved since I'd entered. Hadn't blinked. His skin was translucent enough to see what should have been veins beneath but instead was black and still, like dried ink.
Our CEO. Our founder. The one who'd been doing this since before there was competition.
His monitors were dark and empty. He just stared at the black screens like they showed him everything he needed.
Some monitors glowed red with tactical overlays. Others pulsed sickly green with outbreak patterns.
His remained blank.
My slides appeared with their faded blue background. "War, Pestilence, Death - They want a proof of concept. They want to see our Q4 projections that justify ending the world."
"Proof of concept?" Death's voice was older than language. Rather than the throat, it came from the space where sound goes to die. "I am the concept. Since-"
"They won't meet with you." I had to interrupt before he went on this rant for the thousandth time. "The last three venture capitalists who took a meeting with you are dead."
His screen reflected nothing. His hands, translucent. "They were in the way." Beneath his skin, that black network pulsed.
Pestilence didn't look up from his laptop. "We need their capital. We need their infrastructure. We need-"
"We need nothing!" Death's hands pressed flat against the table. Where his palms touched, the laminate greyed, aged, cracked.
"Times have changed," War cut in, his red suit sharp enough to draw blood. "They've known peace for too long. Complacency." He leaned forward, excited.
"Then show them war," I said. "Let's show them famine. Show them plague."
Pestilence's wet cough. "Let's run the numbers."
"Fine." War stood. "I'll start something small. Manageable. See how it scales."
I nodded. "Crop failures. Two regions. A/B test."
"Outbreak vectors," Pestilence muttered, already typing. "Need transmission data."
Death said nothing. His screens stayed dark.
We hurried out and left him there.
The wheat field stretched golden under late afternoon sun.
Where I walked, it turned the color of ash.
I pulled out my phone, snapped a few photos from different angles. This will look good on the deck.
"What are you doing?" The farmer stood at the edge of his field, he wore the kind of weathered face that came from decades of sun and soil.
I didn't look up from my phone. "Field research."
"That's - that's my crop. My whole-" His voice cracked. "What are you?"
"You're part of a larger ecosystem." I framed another shot. The dying spread in a perfect gradient. Beautiful.
"Ecosystem? This is fifty acres! Three generations!" He was close enough now that I could taste his breakfast. "My children depend on-" I stopped paying attention. Death would’ve ended this conversation by now.
I turned back to my phone, pulled up the metrics app. Crop mortality rate: 73% and climbing. Excellent.
The phone buzzed with a new message.
W: we're ready. conference room 3.
I arrived last. War was already pacing. Pestilence hunched over his laptop. Death sat perfectly still at the head of the table.
I pulled up the shared drive, created a new deck. "War, you're up first."
He grinned, all teeth. "Border skirmish. Started with a post, escalated to armed engagement within 36 hours." He swiped through photos on his tablet - burning vehicles, scattered debris, faces frozen in terror. "47 casualties. Minimal resource investment. Proof of rapid deployment capability."
He swiped to a close-up of blood spraying across concrete, still wet. He ran his thumb across the screen, slow, like he could feel the warmth of it. "Beautiful panic response. You can see the exact moment they realized they were meat."
"User engagement?" I asked.
"Off the charts. Trending globally within six hours. Organic reach exceeded projections by 300%."
"Excellent." I made notes. "Pestilence?"
A wet cough as his screen swiveled to face us - code, heat maps, cascading green markers across a hospital network diagram.
"Dual-vector approach." His voice gurgled with something that might have been pride. "First wave: ransomware deployment across three major hospital systems. Digital infrastructure completely compromised. Patient records encrypted, emergency services crippled. Average response time delayed by 47 minutes."
He pulled up another screen. Infection curves. Exponential growth.
"Second wave: introduced pathogen through emergency intake during the chaos. Without coordinated response capability, containment failed immediately. Current projections show 12,000 infections in the next two weeks."
"Beautiful synergy," I said, already building his slides. "Infrastructure collapse plus biological threat. The compounding effect is exactly what they want to see."
War took a drag from his vape. "I prefer kinetic solutions, but I'll admit - elegant work."
"My turn." I pulled up my field photos. The wheat progression looked even better on the big screen - that gradient from gold to grey to ash. "Two-region crop failure." The others watched as I flicked through my slides.
"So we have proof." War stood, energized. "Hard numbers. Multi-vector capability. Scalable impact."
"We have a pitch." I saved the deck, titled it "Q4 Projections: Global Impact Analysis."
My phone buzzed.
Investor: Impressive preliminary results. Let's schedule a formal presentation. My office is hosting a small launch celebration next Thursday for our portfolio companies. Join us.
At the head of the table, Death remained still.
"You're not invited," I said quietly.
His empty screens stayed dark.
He said nothing.
The launch party was exactly what I expected. String lights, exposed brick, thirty people in blazers networking like it really meant anything.
And glitter. God, so much glitter. Scattered across every table. Hanging in banners that read "CONGRATULATIONS PORTFOLIO COMPANIES."
"This is it," War muttered beside me, adjusting his red tie. "We close this tonight."
Pestilence coughed into his elbow. Even he'd made an effort - actually showered, wore a new shirt, though nothing could hide that sickly tone to his skin.
The investor saw us approaching. Smiled. Set down his wine.
"Gentlemen! The deck you sent over - those metrics addressed every concern. The proof of concept is undeniable."
War grinned. Pestilence managed something close to a smile.
"We're ready to move forward," I said. "Tonight, if you're willing to discuss terms."
"Absolutely. Let me just grab something from the catering spread, and we can find a quiet corner to-"
He walked toward the back of the room.
Where the catering was set up.
Where I could now see, with growing dread, an entire station dedicated to-
No. Not again.
Soup.
Four different kinds. In elegant warmers. Little cards with calligraphy labels: "Butternut Squash Bisque." "Italian Wedding." "Lobster Bisque." "Minestrone."
The investor picked up a bowl.
He started ladling.
I felt it wake, the hunger, the rage - and something colder.
Every conversation in the room stuttered. Like the air itself had forgotten how to move.
Death stood in the doorway.
“Fuck.” War muttered under his breath. “He’s not supposed to be here.”
The receptionist at the entrance looked confused, checking her tablet. "Sir, I don't see your name-"
Death walked past her. The potted plant beside her desk browned, wilted, and crumbled to dust before she finished gasping.
She stumbled back, hand to her face, fingers discovering the new geography of her skin—the hollow beneath her cheekbone that hadn't existed, the papery texture of her eyelids, the way her lips had thinned. He'd touched nothing but the air near her. That's what made it intimate.
The room felt hollow. Empty. Like all the warmth had been pulled out through a drain.
Death moved through the crowd. Where he passed, drinks went flat. The glitter stopped catching light, turned grey and dull.
He stopped in the center of the room. The glitter wasn't falling anymore - it hung suspended, like the universe had buffered.
"This ends now." His voice echoed. "Your plan is pathetic. Begging humans for permission to end their world."
War stepped forward. "We had a deal-"
"We are beyond deals."
Death's eyes fixed on the investor, who was still at the soup station, spoon in hand.
"You," Death said. "You're always in the way."
The investor turned, bowl in hand. "I think you have me confused with-"
"It doesn't matter."
Death raised his hand. Everyone's phones displayed their death dates; most were set to three seconds from now.
The investor took a spoonful of soup and tasted it thoughtfully.
"This is excellent," he said, meeting Death's empty gaze. "You should really try some."
Death's hand froze.
The investor took another spoonful. Casual. Unhurried.
I felt the surge. That rising hunger, the chaos building inside. It collapsed inward. Compressed. Trapped.
The room collapsed with it. Not the world - not yet - not until we get funding.
Thirty people, all gone. Simply unmade, like they'd never existed at all.
The string lights flickered. The glitter on the tables turned to ash.
War stumbled, hand to his chest. Pestilence's cough went silent mid-breath.
Death looked at his hands. The black network beneath his skin began to fade.
The investor took another spoonful. "The butternut squash has a lovely sweetness to it," he said, looking directly at me. At War. At Pestilence. At Death.
"Now then. Where were we? Ah yes, Series A terms."