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║memento mori ━━━ (CHAPTER ONE)
MEMENTO MORI TUMBLED AWAY FROM DEATH'S PARTING LIPS like a desperate prayer to god from an atheist, words melting in the ears of every human they came across and though it was not heard, the phrase was an unspoken truth to all in mankind.
Remember, you must die.
It was a sickening reminder for them but a sweet reminder for death. They bit the words on their silver tongue, oozing peach and cinnamon, then chewed and spat it out as a saccharine aroma fills the air, stinging the ears of humans with the sharp lingering sweetness of incense.
When death comes for your soul, they come within five metres away from you. Breathe in the stale air and musty scent. They take one step closer. Exhale the ashes from the lungs you set on fire when your thoughts of realisation strike a match and flame a path from alveolus to alveolus. They take one step forward. Shiver as death comes closer and the frost they carry with them kisses your dying pale skin but it believes they melt candle wax. Death will come closer again and then swoop your soul into their palms, tucking it into their pockets. Then they leave behind the cadaver for their frost to eat alive.
Death cannot feel, death cannot discriminate. But death can delay if they are afraid.
And when they were five feet close to her, they stopped. Poor infant. New born, crying, screaming, thrashing about. Out of her mother's womb was she bloody and pink, tied to the umbilical cord, but beautiful as rose and pure as jasmine. She was just a baby, just born. And yet she was in pain because her soul was yearning for death's cold touch.
So death took a step closer. Her cries were louder, screams more violent. Such was normal for a newborn to everyone, but little do they know that she was in pain. From the soul who was too weak to hold on its own.
So death took a step closer. She was pinker, cuter, purer up close. Death almost felt but they had to do their job.
So death had to take another step closer. They didn't.
Instead of the frost biting the infant's skin of rose, they bit death's. They could sense, they could see, another soul entering hers. White and blue. White and blue. White and blue. Two weak souls merging to become a single strong one able to flood tranquility within the baby's mind.
Her wailing ceased, her lungs were clean, and her complexion was far from pale. What she was to be was what death had become that day. Enveloped in fear, cased in its inexplicable rush of anxiety, of the desire to stay away from the baby.
Death took a step back. That soul was no ordinary soul. They thought they've gotten rid of all souls like that long ago, but apparently not. So death took a step back. Good baby, precious baby; cradled in her mother's arms, blessed by her tears of joy, bathing in her father's laughter of extreme happiness. Death took a step back, turned around, and never looked behind.
