When the Masquerade ended and the spirits departed, a group remained beneath the stars in a cabana looking over the moonlit lake. Debs and Rafe joined us having showered off and changed in Limbo. Uncle Morbid, Scott and Susan were there, as were Ted, Lillian and Darryl from the Wonder Emporium.

"That was quite an involved melodrama you guys put on," said Ted. "Though most of it seemed to happen away from any kind of an audience, other than the five of us watching the monitors."

"A lot of our roleplays go down that way," said Debs. "We're a kind of immersive theatre, it's more about letting experiences happen than putting on a show for spectators, though sometimes that can be a part of the fun."

"I couldn't put it better myself," said Uncle Morbid. "And I must say you all excelled yourselves. The back story, the big speeches, the near escapes... you've brought a whole new dimension to the Masquerade with this."

Rafe smiled.

"It wouldn't have worked if everyone hadn't been committed to it," he said.

"Ted, Lillian, Darryl, thank-you so much for joining us here this evening," said Uncle Morbid. "I hope you realise now we are not trying to dispatch you from this plane, on the contrary I would very much like our two organisations to co-operate in a spirit of friendship. In that regard, I wish to be completely frank with you about what our trinity does here, and why you have nothing to fear from us."

"We appreciate it," said Ted. "There's a lot I don't understand right now."

"Well, let's start with this," asked Uncle Morbid. "What kind of beings do you imagine the custodians that make up the trilogies actually are? Ted, you've said you're an atheist, so when you started noticing us all what did you think you were looking at? I'm guessing not gods or angels."

"I wasn't sure," said Ted. "I'm still not entirely, but there has to be a reason."

Uncle Morbid smiled smugly.

"What would you say if I told you I died in 1973?"

He went on to elaborate. Carl Evans, our Uncle Morbid, had been a special effects artist in the burgeoning horror genre until he was killed in a workshop fire while working late. Before total recall he travelled around doing whatever jobs he could find, but soon realised he couldn't settle into any of them. He began to notice the trilogies just as Ted had, but his reaction had been less fearful and more philosophical.

"You must believe me when I say that I genuinely don't know what plane of reality exists after this one," he said, "so let's imagine for the moment that it is some kind of heaven or hell for good and bad people to end up in respectively. By any criteria, very few people will fit neatly into either of those, so that would make this plane a kind of sorting house to tie up loose ends and see where everyone ends up. Limbo, purgatory, the spirit world, call it what you will, but neither heaven nor hell.

"Even after all that, they still seem to be funneling everyone into some kind of conformity. So I concluded, much like you did, that the job of the trinities around this plane is to calm and settle spirits into something simple enough to pass on, by which point they pretty much know for themselves what they deserve next. But what of the misfits; the creative people who could never settle or conform to anything so prescriptive as heaven or hell? Are they just meant to wander as lost souls?"

"Hey," interjected Maise, "I like wandering!"

"We've noticed," said Uncle Morbid. "And that's why I never offered you a job here at Morior. Not all of our spirits belong here full time – many have other jobs, they might even have other custodians. To some we just serve as an eccentric diversion to a completely unrelated walk of afterlife. But you, my dear, are an entrepreneur. It is in your nature to seek out people and opportunities, you couldn't wind down and settle if you wanted to. And all the energy you stir up, all the people and influences you find, you bring right back to us here."

And I get her all to myself every night, I thought. Don't forget that.

"Anyhow," Uncle Morbid resumed, "there I was wandering around the afterlife wondering how any of it could apply to someone like myself, then one day I had a sudden desire to do something with my experience in movie effects. By a remarkable coincidence I discovered a mysteriously large sum in my savings account just as the lease came up on the land and premises we are in now, which allowed me to set up the first iteration of Morior Studios. Film companies would come to us with an effect in mind, we helped them make it happen. It worked so well I was eventually able to buy the premises outright.

"At that point I knew what this plane was, but not what I was doing here. It didn't look like I was going to be passing on anytime soon, so I started thinking about those lost souls and misfits, what could I do to help them? When I talked to people socially about what I do, a surprising number wanted to talk about my horror effects with a kind of morbid curiosity, a lot wanted to know what it felt like to get killed in various ways. So I set up the first Mortal Masquerade to provide that experience. It wasn't advertised because I wanted to vet the people that attended, but word got around and soon we had a little secret club formed. I realised these were the wandering souls I'd wondered about, but they weren't so lost once they found us.

"Scott was my right hand man right from the start of Morior Studios. As well as being an amazing technician, nothing fazes him, however weird. He just gets on with the job in hand, whatever it is. Susan came to run the office shortly after we started the Mortal Masquerade. I knew deathplays weren't her cup of tea, but she said she'd been sent for a reason and I sensed that too. Then on her first night at the Masquerade she made someone vanish."

All eyes turned to Susan, who took up the story.

"This guy, his name was Henry, he'd been a trainee priest that went off the rails and found the Masquerade as a way to work some things out that he hadn't been able to in his lifetime, he found it both a sexual and spiritual experience. We talked about his life and he cheerfully guided me through everything that happens here, but I could sense he'd had enough. He'd done all the deathplays he wanted, the passion for it had ebbed and now he just wanted to be at rest, to return to the Lord. When I brought him in for a hug I felt a great sense of calm wash over us both, he looked up at me, thanked me and began slowly fading into nothing. I was left alone with empty arms, him nowhere to be seen. I should have been freaking out, but it felt right, it felt closed."

"When I saw that, I knew at once what was happening," said Uncle Morbid. "Suddenly it all made sense; all the coincidences that led to me setting up Morior and the Mortal Masquerade, my urge to seek out lost souls and bring them here, the entire purpose the universe had set me up for. I had my maintainer Scott, who takes everything in stride, now I had to somehow tell Susan that she was Death incarnate. She took it surprisingly well, I thought."

"That guy really, really wanted to pass on," she said. "I wasn't really sure about the Mortal Masquerade, I thought it was in bad taste at first, but then I realised the different ways it was letting people face up to the shock of dying and come to terms with their own mortality. And then when they'd had enough of the whole thing, they'd come to me to check out. It was actually quite sweet."

"So the bottom line is, we were now a trinity," said Uncle Morbid, "Back then our deathplays were straight up horror effects and simple games with minimal roleplay, mostly the spirits got over the initial thrill, decided death wasn't so bad and settled down ready for Susan to send them off to the next plane. That's how it seemed to work, so we took the job and ran with it. But we hadn't reckoned with the sheer depth of human creativity.

"Wilco was the first properly creative person to come here and stick around. He didn't want to do deathplays but was great at coming up with artistic concepts. He made me look at the whole thing in a different way, including using avatars to build up more detailed games and roleplays. The spirits took to that right away, and that's when I started seeing them choose life. They were no longer lost souls trudging their way through purgatory, but inventive storytellers creating fluid worlds all of their own. They were using our games to come to terms with death, but now they weren't looking for closure or acceptance, they were facing down mortality in order to feel alive.

"Debs took it to a whole new level when she came along. Her avatars were detailed characters with passionate personality traits dressed in elaborate themed costumes she made herself. And then when Rafe arrived... Debs and Rafe started writing actual scripts and storylines that spanned individual games and there was no going back after that, everyone wanted to play dress-up and take part in the craziest deathplays possible. And they weren't getting bored of it either.

"They started coming to me with creative ideas and skills they wanted to contribute. Craig and Rebecca, down in the lab? They were another Debs introduction. They'd worked on schlocky movies that had been known for their substance effects, so I hired them to work on our fake blood and some other things. Then they started coming to me with ideas for boiling tar, lava, acid, you name it. That cement recipe we used? I came up with the idea, but they made it happen, and insisted on being the first to get buried in it. They like getting messy, those two.

"We hired Chris because Scott needed an assistant to keep up with all the stuff he was having to make. We'd been training up Wilco, but he had all these ideas for the jungle so we let him take a sabbatical to go and learn about animatronics. Debs introduced us to Maise, who was every bit as creative as her – the two of them were like lost sisters. By this point I'd realised we were way past preparing souls for the next plane, now it was about creating a second chance at life, something with free will and expression, that's why we do everything as survivable illusions. It must have been strange for Susan to adapt – her whole purpose had been to ferry souls off to the next world and now she had less and less of them checking out."

"I don't mind," said Susan. "It keeps it special, and important."

"I should have known it was out of control when Chris won that tournament, asked to be put in a car crusher and started sketching out ways to do the stunt," Uncle Morbid carried on. "And when Maise brought Lexie it was like the spark in the primordial soup, like everything we'd built had been waiting for this team to come together.

"I might be running Morior, but the universe puts us all where we should be. So when Maise and Chris said they wanted to recreate something based on their actual past lives, I took the hint. That had never happened before, I knew it had to be another turning point. So we set up the whole thing with the cement tank and when Susan asked if she could join in and be the executioner I said sure, why not. I was a bit nervous when they left the breathing tubes, but it turned out OK in the end."

Susan smiled at the three of us.

"I only get to dispatch you when it really is your time," she explained. "I knew that it wasn't, so we were able to have a little fun together."

"In a way, it was everyone's time", said Uncle Morbid. "That was the period when we went from being a loose society of misfits to an actual community."

"Great story," said Lillian. "But why are you telling us all of this?"

Ted sighed and pointed at me.

"It's what she said the other night, isn't it?" he said. "Three of us coming together in our own little establishment with no other custodians around? It's basic bloody arithmetic."

Lillian smirked.

"Hey, if I get dibs on Death, I'm in," she said. "Do I get to wear a uniform?"

"You might not be custodians," said Uncle Morbid. "That's why everyone's here, I want you to know that there are regular roles on this plane that don't involve either passing on or farming lost souls. But the early signs are there, and if you do end up as a trinity I want you to remember that these particular spirits belong here with us."

"Fair enough," said Ted.

"Also," Uncle Morbid went on, "when and if that day comes I want to offer you something the three of us never had, and that's someone to help you through it. You see things as they are so you must have seen the similarities between us. When you bought the Wonder Emporium, I bet you just happened to have the money appear like I did, right?"

"Yes, you smug bastard," said Ted. "And thank-you. I really do appreciate you telling me all of this. I'll be in touch when I've given it some thought."

Uncle Morbid had said he hadn't accounted for human creativity, but he was only partly right. What he really hadn't bargained for was love. Love for each other, for the world, for life. And it is love that really lies behind the mask of this Mortal Masquerade. If there is a heaven or hell waiting for us it can go on waiting. Love has led us to our own heaven, right here, right now. Look at me, Miss Antisocial Morbid Misfit Weirdo, about to run down everyone's relationships like a soap binging granny in the hair salon.

Maise and I were destined to be together from the first day we met, back when we were both at school. Chris and Wilco were meant to be as well, but they had to wait longer to find each other over time and dimensions.

Craig and Rebecca are a married couple that love each other deeply and wear their kinks on their sleeves. I admit to finding them a bit much at times, but it's good to have them around, their positivity is catching.

I don't know when Jess and Ben first got together, whether it was here or in their past lives. Nor do I know too much about Hannah, beyond her and Jess being best friends.

So, and this actually is a little sadder, are Debs and Rafe.

I had asked Debs if she and Rafe were a couple, because the two of them are like a force of nature together. She sighed, and said sadly not.

"Rafe left someone behind, his widow," she said. "My ex was an abusive murdering asshole who I never want to see again, but she was his soulmate. They worked in the theatre together and were happily married for thirty years before he passed on. She's creative and dark just like me, he still loves her and said that even if he were able to move on, she and I are just too similar."

"It sounds like she'd fit right in around here," I said.

"Exactly what I thought," said Debs. "If she doesn't show up to reunite with him when her time comes, I'll eat my hat. At least I know that Rafe and I will only ever be friends."

And what of our custodians, Susan, Scott and Uncle Morbid?

My first impression of Susan had been someone out of place, but it wasn't in the way I'd thought. I knew now why she'd come to bury us in cement that time – she wanted to know that she could kill us without us passing on, that we genuinely were settled here. And I saw that glint in her eye, she'd enjoyed playing Death just the same as we liked playing dead. Everyone needs the opportunity to roleplay from time to time, even deities.

Scott takes everything in stride, he's a maintainer after all. The only difference to him is that the spirits are sticking around a bit longer than before.

And Uncle Morbid? He never set out to be the boss of a trinity, but when it happened he rose to the occasion. The universe guides, assigns and uses its custodians just like it does its mortals.

I've said before that the way we deal when the darkness manifests is a part of what defines us. It turns out you can actually live there quite happily.

THE END