Dormant

17

We're killing strangers,
So we don't kill the ones that we love.
We pack demolition,
We can't pack emotion,
Dynamite? We just might...
So blow us a kiss,
blow us a kiss,
Blow us a kiss,
We'll blow you to pieces.

-Killing Strangers, Marilyn Manson

17

Death woke to the sound of voices.

He was really sick now. Last night had apparently been a short spark of energy before it fizzled and died; he couldn't even lift his hands and he was struggling to just breathe. A pain in his chest was beginning to grow and crater there while a numbness formed in the rest of his body as his insides felt like they were pinching together.

Insanity was closing in slowly. Most of his thoughts were strange and confused. At one point he had believed he had saw Absalom standing over him when it had been Jessica instead. Another time he thought he saws demon huddled in the corner, its loose bottom jaw dripping with drool as a spiked tail whipped back and forth behind it -that demon turned out to be chicken that was sitting in the opened living room window. The food Jessica had tried to get him to eat looked like a pulsing heart, still pumping blood from small red tubes. If he dozed off, sick, whispering voices plagued his mind, telling him to give him and welcome them.

Before this he had been okay with the oncoming doom Jessica had explained. Crazy thoughts? Mind splintering pain in his chest? Annoying voices trying to convince him to fail? He had been through tougher. He had just simply shrugged, reassuring Jessica that he had been through worse and that he would okay by the time that War and Abbygail returned with Mama.

At the moment, he was eating his own words.

Truthfully, the thought of death didn't scare him. Hell, he was Death. What scared him the most was leaving his siblings. Who cares about death? Actually dying seemed like a blessing at the moment as the pain pulled at his chest and insanity just crept closer. But he couldn't leave them. What kind of brother would he be, leaving his sister and brothers alone?

If he left Fury, she might never be found again at his disappearance. As far as he knew, he was the only one who encouraged to study every subject that she ever became interested in. He had convinced her in the beginning that she could be an amazing warrior despite popular belief of her lack in size. She used him as a buoy, a person that she could depend on to be believe that she could be the best that she could possibly be.

If he left Strife, no one would be to keep the man in line. Strife needed someone to make rules for him to break; he enjoyed being the rebel and knowing that someone cared about his wellbeing. As much as he fought, bit, and threatened Death, he knew that he had someone to trust. Someone that loves him with all of his mistakes, edges, and scars. The disagreeing was what kept Strife sane. While arrogant and confident in his abilities, Strife needed someone to tell him that not everything was his fault.

And War, damn it, he couldn't leave War. War had been the last generation of Nephilim that had been created by Lilith by hand, not by a male or female. The first time that Death had seen War, he was a small, puny little babe wailing at the top of its lungs that was being held out to him in confusion. "A mistake," he had been told. "This one wasn't supposed to happen... There hadn't been enough energy to create an adult. He's just a mistake. He shares the same demon gene as you; Absalom said you are to raise him." A mistake. That's what he had believed War had been for a long time. It was hard to see any good in the small bundle of fat that was more concerned about when his next meal was with his pearl-white hair he kept trying to eat and his large ice-blue eyes. Out of all the Firstborn (which wasn't many), Death had been the one to get stuck with the first baby Nephilim.