a destiny of jealousy.
a short story by turquoiseember.
~
Death's grip on the metal blade grew tighter by the second, every second that Life ran, carefree through the woods, through the streams, through the open fields, through the world that could've been his.
Her light hair, like the sun itself, was always burning a trail behind her, prompted by the wind. Her lips, like roses fair, were always slightly apart in a smile. Her eyes, like the luscious green treetops and emeralds of the deep earth, were always bright and shining.
Death scowled at the image of her sheer perfection, and then contrasted it against himself, whose features were too angular to be handsome. Too harsh was his nose, which was wide at the beginning, but chiseled into a sharp point, strained from being turned up at others. Too severe were his eyes, like deep, bottomless pits, the distance between them a bit too far. Too weak was his jaw, which was tired of being most always clenched in the mask of hatred that he wore every day.
His thoughts were interrupted by a laugh that tinkled and chimed like bells. The laughter was the summer rain and the birdsong too, chirping a song of never-ending paradise. Death grit his teeth. It would be ended today.
The clinking sound grew louder and louder, and with it came the most delicate set of footsteps that Death had ever heard. Accompanying the two was an even more captivating sound. A voice, calling as the summer music of a brook, as musical as the whistle of birds, like the harmony of angels.
"Are you lost?" The voice asked sweetly, as Death craned his neck around the leafy green bush to see the rightful owner.
Life.
He firmly pushed the dagger back in the sheath, then pulled his dark hood over to conceal his homely appearance.
"I am merely taking something that was lost from me. Though I have never felt it, or tasted it, or held it, I have dreamt of it." His voice, brittle as the first frost of autumn, husked.
Life nodded. "Dreams are powerful things. In dreams, you can feel, taste, and hold. Why have you not?"
Under the hood, Death smiled, slowly edging his hand close to the sheath on his waist. "It was not intended for me. Yet the owner treats it with such childlike carelessness."
Her eyes widened, graced by curiosity. "What may this thing be?"
Death's grin grew wider, as his bony hand reached and gripped the dagger. In a flash, the dagger was inside Life's heart, twisting and bending and contorting. Taking away her very right of existing. It brought her down, her tinkling voice crying for help and losing hope, her hand pressed firmly against the ground on where she had frolicked before. And suddenly, in a flash, everything went silent. The birds' lulling songs were forced silent, for they had stopped in midair flight. The leaves that were trampled by the playful squirrels were also muted, for the squirrels were frozen with their acorns in their paws. And even the elusive wind whistling its jingle of freedom fell quiet, with no purpose of blowing. Why should it, anyways? Life was dying.
"It is everything, my dear Life. It is all those moments that you spent running in the sun while I brooded in the cold moonlight. It is all the animals that you chortle with while skeletons must suffice for me. It is all those lives that you harbor and giggle and play and enjoy with, while I.."
Death's voice grew quieter as the blood began to flow freely, staining Life's corn-like hair the color of the reddest rose.
"I have no one."
She lurched upwards, and without a single word, pulled the dagger out of her chest and stabbed it into Death. The blood willed her to come back down, where she inhaled sharply and tasted what would be her last breath, everything that could have been and would be, if not for the jealousy that had twisted Death prior.
Life's leaf-green eyes stared up at the pristine blue skies, her delicate arms crossing her chest over her red-soaked, formerly silver dress. Her shell-pink lips parted once more, as if she were about to say something about a compromise, but instead her blinding white teeth showed, as faint as the whispers of the wind that pushed Death away gently, who was now also on the cold, hard earth, on a bed of soft flowers as crimson as blood, his new grave a shame to his former dark glory.
And they both died with a smile on their face.
