One-shot book

The Origin of Death

This was a story I wrote for a music project where we had to write a story about the creation of something/why something happens, a bit like an Australian Aboriginal dream time story. We then had to compose a piece of music which would tell the story. The music itself had to be reasonably short and therefore so did the story.

I walk through a door and enter a bustling street, cars race by and merrily chatting people amble their ways towards unknown destinations. Looking up, the first person I see is a small child standing on a window ledge seven stories up. I lock my target and shadows immediately fill the space before me, the child being the only thing in the light. I guide them to step from the ledge and control their fall towards the ground, I make their bones shattering to splitters on impact, a shard of rib is guided right into the child's heart and their lungs come to a stop. They instantly drain of colour, turning black and white as their life leaves them.

"Hi," I project, my arm extending towards them for a hand shake. The child stands up and looks around, confusion filling their face, before taking my hand and giving it a timid shake.

"Where am I?" they ask.

"You're in the place between living and death," I reply. "But don't worry, you won't be here for long."

"Where am I going then?"

"You're not going anywhere, you leave this place and go into oblivion, you will no longer be a person, your mind will disappear and you as a person will be no more than a memory held by those who have known you."

"I don't understand."

"You don't need to, you're leaving now." I reach up my hand and wave them away. The child drops back into the position they fell into and the shadows envelope them.

The shadows retreat, people crowd around the child's body, I just continue walking.

The universe began as burning gas, this gas formed into worlds, created planets, and arranged solar systems. Along with these came life. Living beings which roamed the universe eating, sleeping and living in both harmony and dispute. Along with these living beings I was brought into the world, the bringer of death.

I've always had control over death, I choose when someone is ready to die, I decide how it finally ends for them and if I want I can snuff people out before their time is up. So much creativity can go into a single death, someone's entire existence is wiped out forever in a single instance, it's beautiful. But that power is dangerous and corrosive, it has to be handled in the right way because every creature has a different ending. Death is an inevitability, and everything eventually dies. This has always been so and always will be, everything needs to die, live too long and they realise how pointless it all is. Live too long and they want it to stop, live too long and they run out of things to do, live too long and that is the end.