A shroud of absolute darkness blanketed the realm where no light ever dared to shine.
Within that abyss walked a lone, terrifying figure — neither man nor beast, neither angel nor demon. It moved soundlessly; save for the low hum of the void it cut through. A skeletal form cloaked in shadow, wrapped in long, tattered robes that trailed like smoke. In its hand it carried a scythe—long, curved, and impossibly ancient—crafted not from steel, but something older, colder, and crueler.
As it walked, it cut.
Invisible to the living eye, threads extended from a great cosmic ceiling, thin as silk yet strong as fate — the Strings of Life. Each string was tethered to a soul in the world above: a man reading quietly at his desk; a child asleep in a hospital bed; a woman humming to herself on the train. And as the figure passed beneath their strings in the abyss, its blade moved with silent precision.
Slice.
A life ended.
Slice.
A soul was severed from its mortal coil.
It did not slow, it did not hesitate, and it did not feel. It was Death. And this was its daily routine — if time could even be measured in such a realm. There was no dawn nor dusk in the abyss, only the eternal presence of the unfeeling.
At times, the abyss shifted.
Without warning or movement, the darkness melted away, revealing flashes of the mortal world — the final moments of those whose strings were about to be cut. The walls of a hospital room emerged around it, cold and sterile, where an elderly man lay on a bed hooked to machines. His breath was shallow, and a soft beep counted down his last beats. As Death entered, the man's dull eyes flickered open — and then widened.
But he did not scream. He did not cry.
Instead, the old man smiled.
"So... I guess my time really has come," he said, voice soft as paper. "Well then… I'm ready."
Death said nothing. It never did.
It lifted its gaze slowly. The old man's string glowed faintly above his head, pulsing gently — his final heartbeat echoing through the abyss. With a single, deliberate motion, the scythe sliced through the thread.
Silence.
The room faded.
Another soul passed on.
This happened again. And again.
A woman who clutched a photo of her family as her breathing stopped.
A child whose laughter had just faded into sleep.
Each soul, somehow, seemed to know. Perhaps they couldn't see the abyss or Death clearly — but they could sense it. The end. And many, in their own way, accepted it.
But the abyss never judged. It only cut.
One moment, it was walking through the void — an endless field of darkness littered with glowing threads — and in the next, space shifted again.
But this time… it was different.
A blinding light broke through the dark, flooding the abyss with warmth it had never known. For the first time in countless eons, Death hesitated.
He stood within a radiant hall — the Domain of Life. Ethereal flora pulsed with vibrant energy. Walls of glowing vines moved like breath. The air was thick with creation, vitality and emotion. A place entirely opposite to the abyss.
And at the center, atop a raised platform of woven starlight, sat the Goddess of Life.
She looked down at the skeletal figure in the center of her domain — a creature devoid of warmth, whose presence dimmed the very light around him. Yet she did not recoil. Her smile was soft, radiant, and mischievous.
"Death," she said, her voice like spring wind brushing across water. "You're working too hard."
Death stood silent, scythe in hand, shadows clinging to his form like memories of nothingness.
"They take so long to make," she continued, placing a hand over her chest. "Souls, I mean. Each one… is delicate. Beautiful. Full of dreams. I weave them into the world like songs. And you... you just snip them away without even a moment's pause."
She leaned forward, peering curiously into the empty sockets of his skull.
"Do you even understand what you're taking?"
Death said nothing.
Even if it wanted to respond, it could not. It had no vocal cords, no voice, no breath with which to speak. It was a hollow vessel. An eternal executor. A silent observer to the end of all things.
But it stared at her, unmoving.
Its empty sockets held a message: Take me back. Let me return.
The Goddess of Life giggled softly, as if amused by a child's stubbornness.
"Oh? You want to go so soon? No, no… I don't think so," she teased, her eyes gleaming. "You've done your job for far too long. It's time you understood the other side."
Death's grip on the scythe tightened.
Without a word, it raised the blade and sliced the very fabric of space behind him — creating a jagged tear, a portal back to the abyss. He turned to leave.
But before he could step through, the light of the Goddess surged. With a wave of her hand, the tear sealed shut like a wound being healed.
A sudden invisible force wrapped around Death, pulling him toward her. Life had summoned him — and Life would not be denied.
But Death responded instinctively, violently — severing the unseen bonds with a sharp swing of his scythe.
Then came the aura.
Dark, Dense and Heavy.
The entire room trembled beneath its weight. The radiant vines recoiled. The skies above the domain dimmed. Death's black energy boiled into the space around him like a void hungry to devour creation itself.
He turned his gaze on the Goddess, warning her.
Let me go.
But she simply smiled again.
"That's enough," she said. "You need to learn your place, Death. There is more to your existence than endings."
And with those words, she reached out — not physically, but through the very fabric of reality. Her light touched his being and changed it.
Suddenly, the aura vanished.
Death staggered.
His scythe fell from his hand, clattering onto the shining floor. For the first time… he fell.
And in that fall, he felt.
A spark, no, a beat, actually more of a pulse, it was Life.
Confusion stirred along with Pain and noise. The overwhelming sensation of being — something he'd never known.
He lifted his head, and for the first time, his face showed something more than empty obedience.
Annoyance.
The Goddess of Life knelt beside him, smiling with gentle satisfaction.
"Welcome to life," she whispered. "Now go live it. Learn what it means to feel… to care… to lose."
She extended her hand — not to help him up, but to send him forward.
"I'm sending you where life flourishes and chaos brews: the world of mortals. A place where your powers will be bound. Where your choices will be yours. A place of love, pain, joy… and suffering. You'll hate it, perhaps. But in time, maybe… you'll learn why we create life at all."
Before he could resist, the world shifted again.
And Death was cast down to Earth.