New Feelings

Faces of Death

Death, Ripper, The Scythe Man, Anubis, Samael, Azrail, Kritanta, Lefu, Mrithun, Kalaraja. So many names. All of them were acquired through time. For some, I am the end itself. For others, I am merely a herald towards their destination. Sometimes I am a god.

Aeon upon aeon I have done my job diligently, without questioning it. When it began... I don't remember. When it will end... A mystery even for myself.

The only knowledge I possess is that I woke up millennia, centuries ago in my form. I look, I function, I breathe, I live as them. How would I be able to pass unrecognised through the ages among them? The only change in my appearance was always my features. My face and body shift according to the culture and look of the places I find myself in, yet everything functions the same. I understand everything, yet I leave nothing in my wake.

My touch... Liberation. Liberation of their physical form, bringing them into my ethereal realm. We talk, debate, and justify. Each and every human being want to know what's happening. Grieving, fear, relief, and acceptance. A concoction of emotions nobody is saved from. Not even myself. Sadness... the most challenging of them all. All the time spent with them. Ability to see and understand their potential. It feeds that emotion. I often found myself crying on those I had to guide too soon; on those dearly loved; on the brilliant minds that gave so much to humanity; on those that could have been saviours but never achieved it; even the sinners, the disturbed - their fear of nothingness, eternal damnation, of lack of control.

Everyone matters in their final moment. Besides their life, I show them the alternatives... the present... the future...

Some would call it cruel. Seeing what could have been, who misses them, and what they will be missing. I call it my job. Most of them enjoy the distraction, the talking, and the thoughts. Self-reflection makes the transition easier. Sometimes it changes the place of their arrival.

One wave...

A door...

What is behind it, that I do not know, for all I see is emptiness, while they see what they are meant to.

Curiosity sometimes got the better of me. I often created these doors and walked through them, yet found nothing. Who made me, where we go, and what is my final purpose? Those were questions outside my sphere. All answer-seeking was always blank. Nothing I was meant to know. So I did my job. Time after time. No rest, no thought. Not years, aeons - for time is such a loose concept for one such as I, eternal, indestructible, knowing. In my spare time, I often spent time reading, observing, and learning; for what else can I do in the meantime?

I am myself, an individual, yet I am everywhere and nowhere. My human form is merely a shell for my ethereal shape. I can be anyone, anywhere. A single being, or multiple ones at the same time. All the people, all the knowledge, always come back to my form. My little way of entertaining myself.

As mentioned, I continued this for years. I saw humans of different shapes, sizes, thoughts, mentalities, toughness...

Until one day...