"Okay. Good luck."

(What??)

He Transportalates.

But it's too late. The Grim Reaper is already establishing a connection to Tae-hwan's soul and extracting it from his body.

"No! Stop! Alexei, you asshole! Don't do that!"

"Oh now you show up," mutters Peter.

"Oh shut the fuck up, you."

"...what?"

"It is too late for him now. He has already departed," says the Grim Reaper, although "says" might be too generous a word for that that is. He emits some sounds that could maybe be words, but they're not words he's familiar with, and also it doesn't sound like it's a Sim's voice saying it, as opposed to a combination of percussive instruments being played from the bottom of a crypt. Eric can understand him anyway.

"No it's not you dunderhead, if nothing else he can just be a fucking ghost."

(What?)

"If he so wishes," he concedes.

From the way he is materializing from within the lightshow between Alexei's hand and his body it does seem like he so wishes. "Oh I'm a ghost. Wicked!"

"...wait."

"Was there aught else?"

"I guess fucking not. ...sorry, Alexei, I know you're just doing your job."

He waves a hand dismissively. "I am used to the distress of the loved ones of the deceased. You have nothing to apologize for." Then he clears his throat and switches to a normal Sim's voice to ask, "But, uh, do we know each other?"

"Oh. Uh. Not exactly. I'm a friend of Zach's, I was at your wedding but we never really talked. I'm Peter."

"Oh." He pulls his hood down, going from skull to Sim. "You're Peter. I see. Nice to meet you, Peter. Zach likes you a lot."

"Uh, yeah, nice to meet you, too." He looks a bit shaken. "Anyway I don't, uh, want to keep you, you're probably busy?"

"I am." He pulls his hood back up then slams the ground with the butt of his scythe and vanishes in the same smoke and music that announced his arrival.

"My body looks weird."

Eric is feeling very, very, very confused right now.

He thinks he's been feeling very confused for a very long time. Thinking on it, though, that cannot possibly be true, because the source of his confusion has always been Peter, and they've known each other for not even two weeks yet, and two weeks is not a very long time at all.

He'll... think about that later. "Tae-hwan? How are you feeling?"

"Weird. Dead, I think?"

"Tae-hwan, you're a fucking idiot."

"Hey, what's up with you? What'd I do?"