The Day Death Was Born

“I’m sorry. You don’t know what for yet but you will. I hope you can forgive me one day.”

She awoke...disoriented, those words ringing in her ears. Did they…did they mean something? They felt…important but why?

Why, why, why?

She groaned. Her head...hurt. Or did it? What did it mean to hurt?

She was...confused. Or was she? She couldn’t be sure… What did it mean to feel such a way? Confused. What a funny word. She knew what it meant, to be in a state of bewilderment, but the question remained; how did she know what that? She was positive she’d never felt that way before as she hadn’t been awake for more than a few seconds. Which begged the questions…

Why was she awake?

Why did she know so much? Shouldn’t she have to…learn these things? This knowledge came with…age and growth, didn’t they?

What was her purpose?

Her head throbbed painfully. It was too much all at once and she wished to go back to sleep.

She blinked then, attempting to ease the pain, and found with surprise that she could see.

It was dark but not so dark that she couldn’t make out the four solid walls blockading her in from all sides. An unsettling chill settled underneath her skin and she trembled. Trapped. That’s how she felt. She was trapped in this tiny little room with nothing but herself. Or was she even truly there? She glanced down to check and found...nothing. Not an arm or a leg. Not a hand or a foot. She could feel them though. She could even feel hair tickling the small of her back, feel it falling over her shoulders when she turned her head, but she couldn’t see it.

Her confusion mounted higher.

This wasn’t right. None of this was right.

What was she?

A monotonous voice interrupted her confused, horrified gazing at her nothing-limbs.

“Hello, Mistress.” She jumped, looking up to find a pair of iridescent white eyes floating in the dark. They blinked down at her, but not at the same. “It is good to see you awake finally.”

She opened her mouth but any words she might have said got stuck in her throat as a fine mist began to pour from the eyes and pool onto the floor. The mist built and built, piling atop itself until a vaguely human-like shape hovered in front of her.

“What-?” She startled at the dry rasp of her own voice, touching her nothing-hand to her nothing-throat.

“I am your guide,” it told her when she remained silent. “I will introduce you to your role here and assist you with any questions you may have.”

She looked up and stared at it, this guide of hers, unnerved. Her newly acquired common sense told her it should have a mouth, but its voice simply emanated from...somewhere. She didn’t really know where in all honesty. Was it actually even talking? Or was it all in her head? Was this all in her head?

“I am speaking,” it assured her. “I have learned over time that most find it off-putting for me to project thoughts into their minds.”

She didn’t know what to make of that so, instead of worrying about it, she grated out, “W-Where...am...I?”

“Everywhere.” It answered after a beat. “And nowhere.”

The guide shifted, directing its gaze over her head to something behind her. Reluctant to take her eyes off it but needing to look, she turned around to find a window (that she swore had not been there before) at her back where an eerie red glow was spilling into the walls. Curious yet full of trepidation, she shakily pushed herself to her nothing-feet and shuffled over to the window.

“Welcome to Nihility,” the guide said. “The plane between everything and nothing.”

Nothing indeed…

Below them stretched a small piece of land; a plateau of sorts covered in a fine black sand with bare, decaying trees sprouting up here and there. Encircling the tiny island, and pierced by billions of thick, glowing, red threads, were skies of black shadows. There was so little to look at and yet so much to see.

Peering out over the land, this Nihility, she felt this everything and nothing all at once and became numb.

There were so many questions, so many things she wanted to ask, but she couldn’t decide on a single one. Her guide however easily plucked out the one question that kept circling her mind.

Why was she here?

“You were chosen to be Mistress of this realm,” it explained. “The link between the living and the dead.” It seemed to pause for an unnecessary breath before saying, “You are Death.”

Death? She knew what death was, the end of all living things. Is that what she was?

“Of course,” her guide continued on, “you do not have to call yourself Death. Past Masters have chosen other names for themselves.” At her unblinking expression, it added, “Though, that can wait as we’ve other things to attend to.”

She made to ask what it meant but was cut off by a sound she could only liken to an explosion. Clutching the windowsill, she searched for the sounds source with wide, frantic eyes. She spotted a splotchy grey thread falling limply through the air before it disappeared into the shadows.

“What-?” She cleared her throat to get rid of the remaining scratchiness. “What was that?”

The guide’s answer was simple. “A death.”

Another greying thread snapped, the ear-splitting sound echoing through the silence as it fell away into the shadows.

“And another,” it added unhelpfully. “And another.” She flinched as the third one snapped. Then a fourth and fifth went. “And so on and so forth.” A sixth and a seventh. An eighth and a ninth. On and on they went until she no longer flinched and, even then, they didn't stop.

Then, through the numbness in her belly, she felt a sharp tug and she gasped.

“Ah. Yes,” her guide intoned. “That is your purpose. The ‘why’ you are here.”

She squirmed underneath its knowing stare, listening with only half an ear as it instructed her to focus on the feeling and follow it. Which she did and it proved to be easier than expected.

Whisps of shadows that clung to the surfaces all about her rose up, wriggling and curling in the air. They fell over her as one, encasing her in a silky cool blanket and cutting off her vision. Then, with a vicious yank, she was falling. And then she just wasn’t.

When the shadows slunk back to where they’d come from, she was standing in blinding sunlight that staved off the chill she wasn’t aware had been clinging to her. She took a deep breath, her eyes fluttering closed at the taste of heat and grass on her tongue. It was much better than the tasteless darkness she had awoken in she decided. And then the moment of peace was shattered by an awful, animalistic screech of the likes she never wanted to hear again.

“GET AWAY YOU BEAST!” She turned swiftly to find the owner of the voice.

Or what was left of him at least.

He was the shell of what she understood a man to be. He was blue, for one, and transparent. From what she knew of them, humans came in all sorts of colors but not blue, and they certainly weren’t meant to be seen through. The only part of him she couldn’t see through was the nasty, black roiling mass in the center of his chest.

“It’s a soul,” the guide said, answering her unasked question. “One unwilling to pass on.” It was only then that she took notice of the very solid but mangled body lying lifeless at the soul’s feet. “Most unwilling souls have met their end in unexpected and, in most cases, unnatural way.”

She glanced up, coming to the conclusion that he must have fallen over the cliff just behind him. Or perhaps he’d thrown himself off… Or was pushed off. Either way, certainly unexpected and definitely unnatural.

“I SAID GET AWAY!” The soul screamed again, swatting at -.

“What. Is. That?” She asked in quiet horror.

The creature turned to look at her with empty sockets, its neck crunching, cracking, and oozing black goo.

It was tall - seven or eight feet - and all bones. Stretched paper-thin over each point and angle was charcoal grey skin that looked like it would tear with the slightest movement. It had no lips but it had teeth; thin needle-like teeth that she was positive could render flesh to shreds in a matter of seconds. She assumed the claws on its grizzly hands could do the same.

“Azriel.” Her guide greeted it for her. “Mistress, this is Azriel, a Reaper of Nihility.”

‘A reaper?’ She thought, believing it safer to think the question rather than to speak it so as not to draw any more attention to herself.

The guiding entity beside her hummed. “Reapers gather souls and help them to pass on. Your role,” it emphasized, sensing her impending interruption, “is to assist those that refuse to go with them.”

She wondered how she could convince a soul to move on when the horror before her couldn’t, but something within her told her to simply go up and touch the man. All she had to do was just touch him… Touch him and he’d go away. And if he went away then perhaps all of this would go away. Compelled by this feeling, she slowly strode forward, ignoring Azriel as it stepped back, and reached out. And then the soul looked at her, meeting her eyes.

They screamed.

Through his eyes, she could see herself; see the grotesque creature that she was. Her skeletal figure, shrouded in a ratty black cloak, loomed over the soul, staring at him with sunken white eyes. The hand she held out to him was ugly and rotting and oozing some pustulous liquid that smelled absolutely foul. This hand, it just couldn’t be her own, and yet, the fingers curled when she moved her own. She turned her head to the left then to the right and the horrific creature mirrored her, its neck crackling and crunching.

No matter how or which way she moved, it followed her, and she was disgusted. She was disgusting! A thing of decaying flesh and death.

The sound that fell from her lipless face was that of a wounded animal and the soul before her screamed. Panicked she snatched the man by his neck. Stop. She wanted this to stop! She wanted it all to just go away! But no. No, it wouldn’t stop for the moment she touched the soul she was swept away in a rush of memories and emotions that felt like her own but were not.

Young, naive happiness. Confusion. Hurt. Pain. Bitterness. Rage. Fear. It coursed through her veins as sharp pains radiated all up and down her body, leaving her breathless. And suddenly, there was a brief instance of nothingness before sheer terror settled deep in the center of her being.

A coldness swept up her arm then, before slamming into her chest and sending her stumbling back a few steps. Just as quickly as the emotions and memories had assaulted her they were gone. She was left shaking and staring down at her nothing-hands once more, the human soul nowhere to be found.

What. Was. That?

“An unfortunate side-effect of assisting a soul,” the guide answered from behind her. “The sharing of memories from beginning to end.”

She shook her head slowly. “Is it like this every time?” she tremulously asked.

It was silent for a moment before the guide said, “From what previous Masters have told me, it shall get easier over time.” That did not comfort her in the slightest.

Unable to stop herself from asking, she hissed, “Why me?”

Her only answer was, “It is as it should be and so it shall be.”

And so it was.

For no one, not even she, could escape Death.

“I’m sorry. You don’t know what for yet but you will. I hope you can forgive me one day.”

Those words. Those damned words!

She’d never forget them and they’d never be forgiven. Not for this - this harrowing existence she now lived amongst the shadows. In the cold. On this plane between the something and the nothing. As the thing most feared by humans.