Warnings: Death (more mentioned than descriptive)
The previous Death was nothing but a great Bastard, with a capital B.
He had, after several millennia of watching over the Earth’s inhabitants and their souls, given three of his treasures to three brothers. The brothers Peverell had taken the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and the Elder Wand, and brought them into the world.
Years would pass before any of the items would come close to each other again, and as the tale of the Three Brothers told the world, when united, one would become the Master of Death.
And here’s the kicker. Instead of being nothing more than a fancy title to throw around at parties, or becoming an immortal to wander around the Earth, Death had just a bit more fun with the one Wizard that ended up owning all three of his treasures. By accident at that.
For there was no such thing as becoming the Master of Death. Death, after all, was finite. Death came to everyone eventually, and Death’s only equal was life. Such an entity was not able to be Mastered, not by anyone. To gain the treasures of Death, to hold all three of them, even if you did not want them, meant to become Death.
After his many years of watching the souls of the people pass on, guiding the lost souls to the river of Styx, Death had become bored. However, Death could not simply pass on. The Earth would become overrun with both humans and lost souls, destroying the balance Death was tasked with to keep. If one were to destroy the balance, they would feel as if they were sat afire by the Eternal Flame. Death was no exception.
So it was with great reluctance that Death kept doing his job after millions of years of doing the same. Until his treasures were finally united. It did not, like the creation of this universe, come about with a great bang. One moment the treasures were apart, the other they were united. And Death could do nothing but smile when his body became human, and withered away in a mere second.
And so, the next Death as tasked with taking the mantle. For him, it was strange. Just moments ago, he had been a boy hero, heralded by his people for taking down one of the darkest Wizards of all time. Before suddenly he wasn’t. He became an entity, unseen by others, only in contact with his Reapers. Not that they were great company either.
They did not have a mouth, so the conversation in the In Between was not aplenty. The ghosts that dwell the Earth could see him and could hypothetically speak to him. If only they did not float away screaming as soon as they saw him. They were afraid of him. Ghosts were created because the soul was afraid to die. Lost souls, that’s what the previous Death had called them. The new one just kept calling them ghosts, before they were forced to pass on.
Whenever Death felt in a mood to catch them anyways. Sometimes, he just did not want to bother.
It took but a couple of hundred years for him to adapt to his role as Death, and soon his existence became as dull and stagnant as it did for the previous Death. Sure, in the first decades, Death watched the wars the ant-like humans participated in like one would an ant being burned by reflected sunlight. But even that became boring.
Sure, there was this one moment, in the beginning, where he interfered with the world and allowed the Americans to finally track down Osama bin Laden, however he couldn’t keep interfering in every little thing he did not agree with. If he did, the balance would disappear. For if there was good, there had to be bad.
But even the balance can be dangerous. It was now the year 6529, and Death had just watched the last animal die of dehydration. The humans had long since died out, their own pollution catching up with them in the worst ways possible. It was as if the old Egypt plagues had swept over the lands of the Earth and taken just the humans with them.
Death had watching with a morbid fascination as the humans screamed in their beds and floor as their bodies killed them from inside out. Their organs failing on them. The babies and elderly were first to go, their immune system the weakest. The poor followed, and slowly the middle-class were also succumbing. The last person alive had been Death’s experiment, infusing souls in the man’s body just to see how long the man would survive.
Ten days.
He survived ten days of continuous dying and being forcibly revived again, only to die of the same illness not minutes later. In the end, the madness that had taken over the man’s mind had made even Death unable to place a soul in the body, as rotten away as it was already.
The man had died, leaving behind a destroyed planet where the last animals that were alive were continuously fighting each other, fighting for a scrap of food, fighting to keep alive. But the plagues had gotten to them too. The rats, the bringers of the Black Death, had been the first to bring the plague to the animal kingdom.
And ironically enough, they were one of the last species to survive. Cockroaches held out a year longer than them, not that it surprised Death in any way, of course.
With a sigh, Death turned around in the In Between, and walked slowly towards his personal domain, the Underworld. It was a fancy name for a great empty place where the soul inhabited the walls. The religions used to brag about their specific versions of Hell, of the Underworld, of Purgatory. They talked about the great fires that were never-ending, they talked about the Demons that inhabited the place, they talked about the endless torture.
But it was just a mansion with no furniture. After all, Death did not eat, Death did not sleep, Death did nothing other than stare at the world with empty but all-knowing eyes. With just the Reapers and the Ferrylady for company.
Turning towards his mansion, Death walked towards the river that would carry him into the underworld when a drop of water fell on the back of his hand. Tilting his head upwards slightly, Death stared silently as cloudless skies started pouring water over his head. It seems that the time had come, finally.
Walking towards the silent figure standing besides the river, a slight smile twitched on Death’s face. There she stood, the one link to his once human life. The Moon that kept him a relatively sane being. The one person that had always stood with one foot in the real world, and one foot in the In Between.
“It seems the time has come, Mister Death.”
Her voice was still soft and dreamy, carried carefully by the winds. Her white dress dragged through the mud that was forming at her feet, the lantern that she used to guide souls in her hands, now being obsolete.
“Indeed it has, Lady Moon. This world has come to an end. The next world will have to start. Are you prepared to die, my lady?”
The young lady looked up, bright blue eyes staring at his still glowing green ones.
“I have been ready to die for centuries, Mister Death. But this is not the end for us yet.”
Death sighed, but placed his hand on top of the Ferrylady’s shoulder.
“It never is. Come along then, dear lady, our next adventure awaits.”
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