Death

He was running through the forest for what felt like an eternity. The night sky was empty of stars, so he had no way of knowing which way he was headed. All he knew was that he had to get away. Escape was all he could think about. He wasn’t even sure he knew what he was running from. Something had just appeared in front of him in his house. He didn’t waste any time, he bolted out his front door and though he couldn’t see whatever it was anymore, he knew it was right behind him.

“God, no,” He whispered as a he ran. There was a thick fog rolling in and it was making it hard to see the ground. And in this terrain, he really needed to be able to see where he was going. He knew he would trip, it was only a matter of when. And how close whoever, or whatever, was chasing him was when it happened. Unfortunately for him, death was always close behind.

Just as he predicted, the fog got too thick and his foot got caught under a branch and he crashed to the ground. He felt his skin cut and scrape against the foliage on the ground but ignored the pain. Before he could climb to his feet again however, the one chasing him appeared in front of him. It was a large figure, in an all-black cloak. It loomed over him like a predator studying its prey. The man sobbed quietly, an immense fear taking over him. He wasn’t sure how he knew, but looking at the figure, what he had thought it was the first time he saw him in his house was somehow confirmed. This figure was death. And he was there to take his life.

“Please, I beg you,” He spoke through his sobs as he pulled himself onto his knees. He bent forward and bowed to the creature in a desperate attempt to beg for his own life.

“Don’t kill me.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Death said as he watched the man sob. “That’s not what I do.” Deaths voice was surprisingly soft. There was no harshness to it, no sense of urgency, nothing that would have given any hint of the situation that the man found himself in.

“You won’t kill me?” The man was confused as he lifted his head. He looked up at the hooded figure, trying to see underneath the hood, but all that was there was a black mass. He watched Death reach a hand into his cloak and pull out a scroll. He unrolled it and studied it for a few moments in silence.

“Though, according to this, it seems the loss of your life is perhaps not the most terrible of things. You have quite the record of evil doings, young man.” Death chided and clicked his tongue. “So much evil in one little human. How can you possible live with yourself? Though, I suppose, you have at least not taken a life.”

“I haven’t done anything, I swear.” A cold shiver ran through his body and he knew it had nothing to do with the frigid temperatures.

“Oh? Well, says here you had some very questionable moral judgments with a young lady named Marina. Done some pretty unforgiving acts to her, it seems.”

“No, I was never charged.” He cried. His money and privilege had made sure of that.

“Oh, I care nothing about your human trials.” The man sobbed some more, knowing he was not going to walk away alive, no matter what this creature said. “I believe I am right on time,” Death commented to himself. He pulled the scroll down a little and looked over it at the desperate man. “It should happen at any moment now.”

And with that a shot rung out.

It hit the man directly in the heart. He didn’t even have time to comprehend what had happened before he fell forward and hit the ground in a heap. Blood pooling out onto the forest floor and soaking into his shirt. Death stared down at him, not a shred of sadness inside him. He watched as a group of hunters hurried over to what they thought was a deer. In the night, with the fog, they couldn’t tell the difference between a kneeling man and a deer. Why would there be a lone man so far into hunting territory anyways? So, when they arrived, and found the man shot through the heart, they weren’t sure how to act. But Death knew exactly what to do.

He reached down to the now dead man of evil and pulled out his rotting soul. A small ball of light meant to be pure white, but he found it tainted with black, a result of the many evil doings the man had committed. A fine edition to the realms of hell, he thought and crushed the ball in his hands, releasing a dark puff of smoke that disappeared into the ground.

Death never felt sorry for the things he does. He only goes after those evil human beings anyways. This man had been a small fry in the world of evil, unfortunately, but he found they all behaved in similar ways at the end. The begging, the crying, it was all so overrated. But he could leave this man dead in the woods and know that the human world had been made ever so slightly safer for those good souls. And he could rest assured knowing those good souls remain the majority. He would reap as much evil from the world as he could.

Death stayed around long enough to watch the hunting party panic. He was sometimes curious about the way they reacted to death. He always found it surprising how easily complete strangers would cry over someone’s death without knowing anything about the deceased. This man, for example, was a horrible person, and yet the hunting party still mourned him. That was the kind of good he was trying to protect. But he had more souls to take, more evil to rid the world of, so with one last glance at the dead man, he moved on to his next assignment.