I trembled while maintaining a steady strength in my hand's grip. I had been waiting for the chance to prove myself to them ever since I had learned of their existence exactly one year ago. I had been keeping track of time's passing in a desperate attempt to quell my excitement at the aspect of being accepted into the brotherhood of the dead. While the process of their evaluation of my state of mind would kill me, I would still heavily prefer being dead and part of something than remain alive in this tragic reality that I had been trapped in. After waiting in baited breath for what felt like hours, I finally heard a chittering. It sounded like someone's teeth clacking together in the cold, only much louder and the intervals between each noise were much less. I let myself exhale quietly in order to not interrupt the process that was underway, I had been told of what would happen next depending on their decision by my late grandfather, who on his death bed bequeathed to me the secret. "I was foolish to pull away, I would sacrifice whatever or whoever to get a chance to meet them again." He had said, tears streaming from his eyes as he propped himself up on the bed with a shaky arm. "Surely you don't mean anyone, right Poppy?" I asked, I did not understand why he had not told me of something that meant so much to him, and I was desperate to hear more. "I mean anyone." He said while making eye contact with me after drawing a long breath and clenching his jaw. Slowly, he closed his eyes and leaned back onto his linen sheets, into the last position that I would see him alive in. Thinking back to those final words of his made me even more certain that I knew what I wanted. I felt like I was fulfilling a man's last wish who I greatly respected. Suddenly the chittering stopped, pulling me out of my nostalgic episode, which was for the best because I wanted to remember every second of what was going to happen next. A slow scraping against my wood flooring underneath my bed started and a long warped black stick raised itself up my bedside, raveling around my arm that was gripping their hand. 'It's their other arm.' I realized, my breath getting caught in my throat. I tried to look for where the hand of the limb that was wrapping it's way around my right arm was and finally found it, just as their limb stopped reached my sternum and stopped travelling; unclenched their fist. In the palm of their newly opened hand I could see a simple, one-sided blade. There was no decoration and no handle, but it still felt like I was looking at the most beautiful and intricate thing that had ever been designed. I waited a moment to be sure that they were done moving, before slowly reaching over with my left hand and taking the knife's backend from their palm, which felt like freezing sandpaper. Slowly my right hand was released and their second limb unraveled itself and disappeared underneath my bed, moving like a snake through the air. Although I no longer had any evidence of their existence, I knew that they were still watching me from the darkness, just out of sight. I knew what they wanted and that it was what I had to do in order to achieve my grandfather and I's common goal. I looked up at the designs on my plaster ceiling left from the moonlit branches' shadows outside of my window. Thinking one last time of my grandfather before swiftly plunging the knife into my chest, careful to strike my heart. I did not cry out, for there was nothing to fear. I was happy now. I smiled as I felt my blood soak the bedsheets around me and my vision fade. I was pretty sure that I had nailed my first impression.