Username: Peppermint Mist
Name: Death
Gender: Male
[1]
Mask- Death used to own a mask similar to a historically accurate plague doctor mask, until it became severely outdated, and a terrified soul managed to rip it off his head and destroy it. His new mask was a massive upgrade, it was sleek, with bulbous LED lights as the eyes, which made a nice touch too.
Cape- this one doesn’t need that much explanation; doesn’t everyone know that a cape makes you look powerful? Even Death has high standards when it comes to clothing.
Gloves- ever since Death came into existence there were some problems with his goopy arms, a few souls refused to leave earth just because they didn’t want to touch his hands, when gloves were created Death quickly got himself a pair.
Scythe- a classic trinket of Deaths, as he doesn’t usually reap souls anymore, he has no use for it, and yet he still carries it around with him, for old times sake really.
[2]
Death is cold and unforgiving. He always takes. No exceptions, nothing. Children hear stories of this rancid being forcing a gentle and kind-hearted Life in order to create many followers for him, so that he can lounge about and leave his job to his reapers. He only enters earth to take a few souls to their afterlife just to annoy Life even more. He is arrogant and dismissive of others; his sour words leaving a bitter aftertaste in the mouths of those he speaks to. He governs the reapers with higher roles under strict conditions, never letting them have time to themselves. Life constantly speaks out on Death’s behalf, apologising for his actions, but Death refuses to co-operate. The sour creature always pushes the sweet and kind-hearted Life away. Many fear to cross his path.
That is what the soul knows, because that what she’s always been told. It’s night, a quick glance out of her hospital window showed that it was cloudy, a shame really. The soul couldn’t bear to look at herself, knowing that it would all become too real, she wasn’t supposed to be here, this wasn’t supposed to happen.
“This can’t be happening,” she murmured to herself, feeling the connection to her body start to slowly sever.
“Hello,” a low rumble coming from behind her; the soul span around in surprise. In front of her loomed a figure with a long bird-like mask, the LED lights in the eye sockets glowing gently. The figure had thick gloves and gooey arms. The soul stared in some sort of disgusted wonder as goo dripped from the stranger’s arms and on to the floor, but then disappeared before it made contact with it. The stranger stepped forward, seemingly impatient and the soul noticed her reflection in the scythe held in the stranger’s hand. She felt anger bubble inside of her, of course she’d be this unlucky, she had rather come across any kind of reaper but not him.
“So you’re Death,” she said simply, yet there was an edge of venom to her voice. The being, no matter how much power he had was a bad person. Never caring about the lives he was taking, and how it would affect so many.
“Who else would I be?” he replied calmly, angering the soul further.
“This isn’t fair” she sneered, “I’m not supposed to be here.”
Death nodded “I know that but-”
The soul didn’t seem surprised, “you know, so why are you here?” she interrupted “do you just want to take me away to annoy Life by only doing a tiny bit of your job and leaving the rest to others?” Her mind was racing, she could feel herself losing connection even more now, in only a few minutes she would have no choice but to follow this rotten thing.
“I’m not in control of when someone dies, I am a being of Death, not a being of fate.”
That is not how the stories went, but through her desperation, the soul didn’t manage to notice, “Can you make me live a little longer? You said I’m not supposed to be here right?”
Death stayed silent, now knowing that the soul would interrupt him anyway. The soul’s shoulders drooped “can I at least see the stars one last time?” She asked weakly, turning towards the window, the clouds were blanketed across the sky, there was no star in sight, but she’d be happier if she at least left this world with seeing the stars.
“I can’t do that I can’t-“
“Control the weather?” the soul raised an eyebrow.
“Can’t you do anything? Or do you not want to, because that’s all I hear about Death, because you’re selfish, right? You don’t care and that’s what’s so awful about you.”
There was a long, pregnant pause before Death responded.
“Your death was unfair.” He reached up to unbuckle his mask, removing it, the soul flinched, expecting some horrifying face but what she was met with was something that was almost distinctly human. Death suddenly looked weaker and tired, there were bags under his eyes and his hair was a mess, when he spoke again his voice sounded different, softer and more secretive.
“But, if you had allowed me to tell you this from the beginning you’d already know that I want to strike a deal, lucky for us we have a bit of time.”
In a run-down apartment, a three-headed dog lazed in his bed, his legs twitching in his sleep. Dreaming a very intricate dream of chasing a butterfly through an expansive field when suddenly the sound of the door unlocking jolts him awake just as he was about to catch it. One of the heads growled in annoyance whilst the other sniffed tentatively to see who had entered. Cerberus leapt up when he realised who was at the door.
Death, who had managed to sneak out of his office by wearing some sort of ‘hoodie’ to fit in, chuckled when his pet dog Cerberus suddenly skidded around a corner and jumped right into his arms and licked his face.
“Whoa! You’re way too big for this now buddy!”
Cerberus had a gooey complexion just like Death, and so he struggled to carry his dog and shut the door at the same time without the large canine slipping out of his arms. At last, when Cerberus was sure he had licked every inch of Death’s face he jumped down, he trotted over to the sofa and sat down at the foot of it, yapping excitedly. Death threw his apartment keys into a bowl nodding at the ghost cat that decided to stay in his apartment rather than moving on into its afterlife. He sat down, for what felt like the first time in months, his muscles slowly relaxing, and he out a sigh of relief.
“Hope the dog sitter has been treating you well” he winked at Cerberus.
“These past few months I have just been
drowned in paperwork, I feel like Life does this just to make sure I don’t go out, y’know.” Cerberus flipped onto his back and Death rubbed his belly.
“But I worked so that I could be ahead of schedule and spend some quality time with you!” he grinned as Cerberus barked happily.
“You’ve got to stay quiet though, Life can’t find out about you, remember?”
Life was known for her beauty, her grace and for her everlasting patience. That is, until Death came into existence. He did not know why he came to be and was very disorientated to begin with. He only understood his purpose, to be the bridge for Life’s creations to their new world after they leave hers. Life did not like knowing that she had to let her creations go. And so she honed a specific hatred for her counterpart, any interactions she had with Death were always cut short by a snarky remark on her behalf. Death, on the other hand, was oblivious to this hatred.
Death watched in awe as Life finished creating her newest sunrise, he loved how the clouds stood out boldly against the sky, which was coloured, a soft orange.
“I like the colours you’ve used today” Death praised.
Life merely snorted and strutted away “whatever.”
Death quickened his pace to walk by her side.
“Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?” Life probed, her eyes burning with annoyance.
“Nope not right now” Death beamed “are you going to make something else now? I’d love to see!”
“Only if you don’t touch it, otherwise you’ll ruin it” Life stared pointedly at Death’s feet, the patches of grass he had walked on had started to wilt.
She stalked off into some woodland and sat down on a tree stump elegantly, she took a deep breath and started to create, focusing on shooting energy out in front of her, a ball of bright light glowed brilliantly as it began to take the shape of a gallant creature. Death stepped closer to watch, Life frowned and the energy started to falter morphing into something else entirely. It was puppy-like with three heads, and instead of a proper form, it was entirely made of black goo. The creature opened its eyes and tottered over to Life excitedly. Life looked at the creature like it was some piece of dirt.
“Tsk, I just can’t focus”, she reluctantly picked the creature up before plopping it into Death’s arms, who stared at her blankly.
Life frowned “are you… going to do your job? I don’t want this.”
Death recoiled in surprise “I can’t do that!”
“Yes you can, it’s an order, I don’t want
that near any of my other creations.”
Death looked down at the creature, and then back up at Life, not knowing how to tell her he physically cannot control who and what passes on, he could only be there when it was their time. But this creature did not have an end date. In the end, he simply said “okay.”
Now away from Life, Death held the young dog tight “don’t worry buddy, I’ll find a place for us” the heads just looked at him inquisitively, and listened to his every word.
Death grew slightly wary of Life, unsure what she’d do if she found out that he went against her command. Death began to avoid her more, until one day, when he was softly talking to a soul to make sure they were ready to leave earth, he spotted her watching him, a strange expression on her face. He helped lead the soul away before turning to look at her expectantly.
“Do you want something?” he called, she sauntered over to him, and her face hardened.
“Are you like that with all of the beings you take away?”
“Of course” Death raised an eyebrow.
Life snorted “that simply won't do.”
Death’s stomach sank “what do you mean?”
“Well, if we are counterparts to each other, and we’re both sweet, it doesn’t make sense.”
Death shuffled uncomfortably.
“You need to act differently, you need to act sour.” Death opened his mouth to protest but Life continued.
“Not to mention, no one likes the thought of passing on anyway, if they had someone to blame it on, it might make your job a little easier, you won’t have to be behind on schedule like I heard you’ve been.”
Death stayed silent for a moment, but not wanting to make a fuss he foolishly agreed.
Death never understood why Life had a personal vendetta against him, why she spread rumours about him across the living, but he never said anything about it, and instead just focused on his job. Until he started to notice a surge in Life’s creations, and he just couldn’t keep up, even acting like a sour person to speed up the process just as Life told him to didn’t help him.
One morning Life found Death rushing towards her, begging for some form of help, or to slow down her creation process because he couldn’t cope. Instead, Life gave him reapers, subjects to rule over and help him with his job, at first this was helpful, Death was able to cope with a few helping hands, but Life began to send more and more, pinning it down that Death was ‘forcing’ her to do this. So not only did Death have to make sure everything was running smoothly and all souls were accounted for, but he basically had to run a growing mini kingdom. He no longer had time to himself, having to constantly keep up a sour façade, and it felt like everyone hated him. Many of his reapers were suffering but he had too much on his plate to even fix it, and that thought shattered his heart.
Over time, Death was forced to work out who, when, where and why someone would pass and write it down for a team of reapers, who he felt resented him. They had to then process and disperse to the rest of the reapers. Death only reaped souls a few times a month before returning to an office, and he had a few meetings scattered about in his schedule. He was lucky to have so many reapers to take the weight off, but it made him feel a heavy guilt, which weighed down on his shoulders.
Death thought about his recent reaping, the first one of the month and the month was almost over. Instead of bringing the soul into the afterlife he did something that his past self would have thought unspeakable, he made the soul a reaper and let them live a new life on earth. It was easy really, to destroy the records of the soul’s old life. The soul was willing to let go of her memories to live on without any disruptions, Death couldn’t control fate or when a person passed, but yet he found it unjust when someone’s fate was unfairly changed all of a sudden. Life had been creating so many beings that her world just could not cope, and so good people passed when they really shouldn’t have, just to balance things over. He gave the soul a new identity; he even let her choose her own name. Which was Floss, he liked it.
Death adores and cares about Life’s subjects from afar. Children hear stories of “a rancid being forcing a gentle and kind-hearted Life in order to create many followers for him, so that he can lounge about and leave his job to his reapers. Only entering earth to take a few souls to their afterlife just to annoy Life even more.” But that’s far from the truth, only a few old souls know of his kind-hearted nature, the sweet words he whispered to them so that they weren’t afraid. Life constantly spreads rumours about him to keep him quiet and many fear to cross his path. He wishes they didn’t.