Death dying

Death had existed for thousands of years, watching over the earth and leading away its victims one after the other, giving them safe passage from this existence to the next. Willing or not, he took them by the hand and showed them the path to the afterlife, after which he never saw them again. Countless numbers of people, animals, and even plants and bacteria. If there was death, he was there.

In all his years of service, this was something he had never quite experienced.

Not everyone was prepared to die. Some died before their time, while others were destined to die but felt that they had not complete everything that they wanted to do. Many argued, pleaded, begged and cried, and there were a fair share who physically fought with death to stay in the mortal world. But it was their ties to mortality that prevented them from ever standing a chance, for mortality had abandoned them, and had never once touched him. They came at him with swords, arrows, and guns, but their blows passed through him without harm as he approached to take them by the hand.

But this man had something that he should not have had. Something that Death had never witnessed before, for he himself had never been past the gates to heaven and hell. He didn't even have the words to express its presence - he suspected that there were no mortal words that could. But it was evident where it had come from, and that in some way this mortal had learned to wield it, for he brandished in Death's direction as he approached. And what was Death to do? He had been created for the express purpose of guiding onward the dead and dying. How could he stop now? Death allowed no exceptions.

He tried to be reasonable. To explain the situation as he approached, that it wasn't personal, that he was only doing his job. The man clearly did not care. He had obtained a way to fight Death, and he intended to use it. Death knew not if this was a good or bad man - it was not his place to judge. Regardless of what benefits his life may have given, the man must move on.

But Death could not lay a finger on the man, before his weapon was thrust forward. It was burning fire in Death's chest, spreading. Was this pain? Was this what so many had complained of? He could understand why, now.