AMKent books

Death is the end of life or seen by some as a new beginning, death is the inevitability of mortality. The one thing that anyone can guarantee is that you will not escape death’s cold grasp no matter who you are. The greatest leader or the poorest person will share one thing in common, both will die. Death’s name is Azrael, and this is how the divine being is known by anyone close. On the first day of the final four months of this universe, Azrael was set to meet Life, whose name is Eve. However, before their meeting can take place, a final soul must be reaped at a masked ball, hosted by Western societies’ most wealthy aristocrats.

Azrael knocks on the large doors of the mansion; he is surrounded by large, personalized plants that complement a seemingly endless garden. Muffled piano music becomes clear as a woman with a mask in the style of a porcelain crow answers the door. The large door creaks and Azrael catches a teasing glimpse of what resides inside.

“And you are?” she asks inquisitively.

He looks at the checklist in her withered hand, “I should be 4^th down, Azrael.” He replies, her porcelain mask looks as fragile as she does.

The woman skims through the list with her long withered bony finger, her eyes darting from side to side as she takes an exaggerated inhale, dragging her fingernail across the paper leaving a small indent trail behind it. Azrael can hear the music of a piano waltz slipping through the open door, teasing the social masturbation that pervades inside. In E minor, Chopin Waltz thinks in a moment of recognition that someone so humble being used for such an excessive display of meritocracy is ironic.

“Ah, a mix-up has occurred! You have been allocated much further down because of your fashionable lateness.” Her voice is tainted with an unsure laugh, perhaps the late arrival has left a bitter taste in her wine.

She has a decaying smile on her face, the excessive lifestyle has marked her with its grandeur. The woman steps back, allowing him to enter past the threshold of calm and expensive shrubbery. The sound of his footsteps begins to echo as he steps onto the marble floor. Azrael stands in the hallway leading up to the ballroom, the piano’s harmony flows through the hall. The melody pulsates around a hundred dressed-up aristocrats, who dance around a giant stone fountain oozing clear shimmering water.

It almost seems ritualistic, as they perform the waltz in synchrony with the giant decoration. “Very hypnotizing, isn’t it?” The old woman in the crow mask makes her observation from afar.

“You look like an interesting man, Azrael” She playfully notes.

“You wouldn’t be the first person to make that statement. Alas, do not fear, there is nothing unusual about me, I am as natural as they come”.

She gives a fake laugh with little conviction, it almost verges on sarcastic and is a nervous tick. Azrael begins walking towards the circulating waltz around the fountain, he is trying to find her, but they are moving too fast,and the myriad of porcelain covering their faces stagger his judgment. Finally, the music stops, and the atmosphere takes on an eerie demeanor as they still dance regardless of the lack of melody. The sound of expensive shoes and heels squeaking across the floor and costumes shuffling as they brush past each other perverts the silence. It’s as if they were possessed, however, the lack of music does not last long. The single piano in the corner begins to play violently and a harsh mass of notes fills the ballroom, the piece seems to subconsciously embody insanity, but Azrael does not recognize it. Everyone is wearing a different mask to the next, some more elaborate than others; strangely, the more simplistic ones seem to stand out the most. Suddenly, a flash of white hair amidst the blur of people steals his attention, and a hand pulls him into the circulating waltz’s bosom. Everyone dances like they are cogs inside the body of a watch, and the music is the tick of the second hand, such a glorious celebration of time. Azrael is now dancing with Eve; her mask is that of a white rose and her discolored eyes pierce through the carved sockets contrasting against the white porcelain. Her white hair dances with her and has a rouge grey strip that fails to blend in with the rest.

“I thought you didn’t like to accompany me with this anymore?” Azrael asks Eve.

“I have something to tell you, something even the reaping of a soul cannot postpone” Eve replies, her voice conveying importance, more so than he has known for a very long time.

Both divine beings dance around the room attempting to blend into the extravagant charade. Azrael continues to scout out the girl whose time has come, briefly glancing back at Eve to see she has a small smirk of pride stricken across her mouth. 

“I hope it’s where she is,” Azrael says hopelessly lost, searching for a masked girl in the masses of spindling masked guests.

 Eve looks through the hive of celebration and shakes her head “You fail at looking hard enough, halfway in, just past the piano, the only one dancing on her own”.

With this input he finally spots her, she’s a skinny girl with dark blonde hair dancing on her own with a small, cracked mask whose tear runs through the left eye socket and ends by the cupid bow of her lips. Azrael mumbles a short “hmm” darting his eyes back to Eve who is smiling smugly, her small hands let go of his and Azrael completely steps out of the dancing ring. Dresses and suits parade past as the movement seems to pick up momentum, he leans his head back and inhales, searching for a moment of external static amongst the chaos. People continue to speed past like a bullet train, a strange melancholia bleeds from the intertwined waltz. She’s nearly at his position as he steps back into the collective cascading body, timing it perfectly with a quick grasp of her hand, he has molded back into the aristocracy.

“I hope you are dead, here to take me away from this bloated mess of luxury,” the girl tells Azrael jokingly.

He raises his left eyebrow slightly and replies “What if I am?”

Her immediate response is a laugh. The crackdown on the side of her mask seems strangely symbolic, like a premonition of something coming, the calm before the storm, in a strange way it is relatable.

“So, I shall pretend I’m unaware of who you truly are” the girl jests whilst rolling her eyes, distracting from the dry delivery of her words.

Azrael smiles and looks over at Eve who is now dancing on her own, “Why were you on your own?”

She grips his hands tight and leans into his ear, whispering “Even though I am surrounded by them, I am completely untouched. Like a lotus flower, I am untouched by the dirt as I emerge from it all, pure”.

She leans back to her original position and looks at Azrael, her eyes are drained and empty. He thinks to himself; her life is filled with excess and accolade; has she become accustomed to empty objects and craves real emotional substance?

“You crave a full soul,” Azrael tells her, running his hand across the crack of her porcelain mask and slowly lifting it off. She shows no nerves, or any reaction at all as if this was a rehearsed play, she had grown tired of performing.

“Isn’t that completely against the rules?” she laughs with her rhetorical whim.

“Some people live the wrong life, a life that isn’t suited for them. So, they live feeling as if they are missing something, well I think that maybe you, Angelica.”

The drained look erodes as if it were a ruse, Anjelica’s hand gently places the mask over her face one last time.

“I have been found and he told me you would find me, my dear Death. However, now, it is you who must hide, and I can only hope that your waltz is more extravagant than mine”.

His fingertips gently move up down her frail forearm until they reach her pulse, her eyes follow him as they motion amongst the flow of the dance. There is no message behind those eyes, he thinks to himself, how strange that is.

Life continues to dance on her own before a hand reaches in and pulls her out of the circulating waltz, Azrael begins to lead her down the hallway away from the ballroom.

 “It’s time for us to leave, I think they are on the verge of doing something sacrificial” Azrael exclaims, pacing towards the entrance.

“You mean like sacrifice a pig to the blood god or something? You’re judgemental of wealth, considering you deal in the most valuable currency of them all.” Eve jokes.

Azrael looks back and everyone is still dancing, somehow yet to notice.

“I think the party is about to go sour. Death is a leash everyone wears; however, it still shocks when one is presented with its restraint” The circulating waltz suddenly disburses as he utters the end of his sentence.

 A large shriek from one of its guests echoes through the ball and into the hallway as they discover the vacant body lying against the reflective marble floor. Life and Death begin heading towards the entrance faster, Azrael passes the woman in the crow mask.

 “Hope I lived up to your expectations,” he tells her as they both leave the premises. She looks down towards the ballroom and sees Angelica’s husk collapsed onto the floor. Azrael and Eve leave the mansion and begin to walk through the personalized garden full of tailored shrubbery, both continue to the beach 2 miles away from the extreme decadence and luxury. Beings of their nature can become unseen by the human eye; its comprehension of the dimensions lacks the evolutionary prowess to see certain veils of reality. The lovers hide in these nooks of reality, allowing them to escape their situation and exist as divine forces in the curriculum of existence. By the time they reach the beach, the town clock strikes midnight, and the air is still and soulless, static in presentation as if time had frozen. Azrael and Eve are sat on the edge of a cliff overlooking the entire beach stricken by haze and a tired sea. The sand glows a pale blue tint and the water that breaths onto the sand glints the light that rocks it gently on this somber night. They both watch the black star-infested tide roll in and out, moistening the sand and pulling it down into its murky contents. The sea acts as the lungs that give the skin of the beach its life.

 “A watcher angel told me that the universe is reaching its conclusion, she says it was Conquest himself who informed her so. I don’t think an angel can lie, everything has felt strange these last few days, more fragile” Eve turns and looks at Azrael, who is consumed in thought, he too has felt it she thinks, but both have been too afraid to admit such feelings. The reality of the final four months begins to sink in.

“The world has reached its final stages; the gift of life was never permanent. Only one thing is, death, the death of existence was always inevitable, alas, better not to procrastinate the final stages, rather live in each moment as they fade away” she reassures him, but it fails as her weak grip across his wrist gives her away. The decay of existence manifests itself in his consciousness; he is consumed by the thought and all the emotional by-products that come with it.

“Humanity has evolved greatly, surely evolution will simply lead to understanding the one who started this. Humanity is still far from it, why end it now? It is not humanity I find myself pre-emptively mourning” He has not yet come to terms with Eve’s fate, even with countless lifetimes beginning and passing.

Her eyes draw away from Azrael and onto the beach, a lifetime does not feel like enough, she thinks to herself. She inhales deeply, picturing the night drawing into her mouth through the gate of her lips. “what now?”

Azrael tosses a diamond-shaped rock from the edge of the cliff and watches as it sinks through the air and disturbs the sand in a pat, “Now we find Famine, then War. I know where Famine is already, and he will lead us to War.”

Eve stands up too as they both begin to methodically walk down to the beach, “When we have found them both, they must come to the beach on this day in four months. That was what I was told when we were in our infancy” she announces as their footsteps grace the flight of old, withered steps consumed in mud and sprouting grass before fading into the sand. The midnight breeze whistles through the crevasses of the malformed cliff face, and nature’s melody parades through the dusk and light.

“We both know that for the end to come Life must be ended, my final moments will be watching you die” Steps sink into the wet sand only to be erased by the water. His eyes bleed the emotions of his soul, his eyes bleed sorrow and anguish at the inevitable. Eve places her hand on Azrael’s shoulder and stops, her face is only partially lit.

“What are moments to lifetimes, it’s necessary,” she tells him in a soft tone, his eyes sustain their transpiring anguish. His mind begins to wonder if inevitability is truly inevitable, if is there such a thing as a true action, something irreversible. The wind becomes stronger as the sand begins to wave and ripple, and the whistling of the deformed rock face becomes louder, subtly relaxing him.

 “My only true purpose is to be present to an end I have never understood, ironic, isn’t it? I am death, yet the thing I fear the most is death.”

“White will turn to red” she whispers to the moon, gazing at its incandescent light, imagining the blood of humanity’s soul staining it in those final moments.

Night becomes day as the morning sun peaks its head like a rising orb of light from the sea. Azrael and Eve leave the house they own next to the beach and begin walking into the quaint small town. The sun sharpens everything its golden hand touches like nature’s own magnifying glass. The wealth of light compliments the architecture of the town, and windows glimmer their light endlessly back and forth. Both continue through the town to a spot overlooking the runway of the beach. The golden quilt of sand mixes into the seemingly infinite pulsating almost sentient sea so effortlessly. Even with its dawning mark of fate that becomes less transparent as the days fade away, it does not lose its beauty. Its charm seems eternal for Azrael and Eve regardless of what situation it may hold. Their previous footsteps have been forgotten by the beach’s surface and their footsteps amongst time on Earth shall meet the same fate.

“Every angel will flock to this beach and watch the inevitable conclusion to this tale of existence; they are our backdrop to this play” Azrael states resentfully.  

The orange cape of the sun glazes shadows his face artistically. A large flock of birds flies past, Eve overlooks the stage to her demise, she reaches into the pocket of her dress and pulls out an object. She only looks at it for a second before hiding it away, Azrael does not know about the object. His body separates the beams of light creating a distorted shadow that the object’s reflective light pierces the heart of.

“We should leave today unless you see some reason to not?” He poses the question to her, subconsciously he hopes her response will not go at all, however, he knows it would never work. 

 “It would never work Azrael, we leave today” She knows him better than himself. 

The journey will take several days before they arrive on the same soil Famine treads, both life and death set out to spark the flame of the final candle of existence. Azrael and Eve have taken many forms as life on Earth evolved, and both have been known by many names. The biblical nature of their names now holds the most significance to them, and they have kept these names since the dawn of mankind’s religion. The mad rush of the world and its people evolving so fast has left both Azrael and Eve feeling empty and un-content with the time that they have had. How can they know if this feeling of unfulfillment is wrong when their designer has never told them so, much is open to interpretation.

Doubt is powerful and can greatly influence your actions; it is the main ingredient to inspire the unthinkable. The mind is silent, the symphony of the unthinkable is music that manifests itself silently through your words, your breath, and your subconscious, you are your orchestra and everything you do relies on thought through the mind. So, to be unthinkable you would have to not be you, you would have to be something else. Azrael thinks as they both sit in a field on the way to Famine. They have been traveling for a day; however, they do not travel as humans would. They have a much better understanding of the universe they occupy and are by human definition “divine”. This allows them to travel through the matter that surrounds them. This can take them great distances in short amounts of time. They must be careful about how far they go; through trial and error, they have discovered that too far in one period is very detrimental to their minds.  

The Sky begins to cloud over, and the sun seems to be consumed by dense clouds that spread over the once brilliant blue.

“Pessimism is contagious, even the sky has caught it” Eve claims as the depressing clouds begin to cry onto them.

They both trudge through the now-wet mud to find cover. The rain continues to flood from the heavens onto its desired area, Azrael and Eve hide underneath a tree watching the rain pour down. The sound of the splashes against the wet ground is relaxing, the rain waves dance in the air as their eyes focus on the closer waves of rain being taken by the wind as it falls. The leaves drip as they cup as much water as they can before they become over-cumbered and release their contents, birds fly out of the trees and into the haze of the rainfall. Azrael slicks back his soaking-wet hair steps out into the rainy field and begins walking, Eve follows. The scent of everything around them becomes much clearer like the rain washing away the filter and revealing the pure experience. He feels Eve’s fingertips meet his, and thunder roars like it has cracked open the sky. The air seems to vibrate, and each raindrop is reassuring them that their existence is still functional and that cancer has not yet taken hold.

“The sky sheds tears of joy I think,” Eve says as they both continue walking through the fields. Water drips from their hands that are clenched together as the rain gets heavier forming puddles in uneven parts of the ground. A pale horse runs past them as they enter a new field, the water shimmers from its body as it gallops around. Azrael stops and watches the horse as it runs around the edges of the field and returns to greet them. The muddy water splashes against the horse’s legs as its hoofs rapidly stamp onto the ground. It slows down and looks at them both, Eve extends her hand to the horse, and it does not seem intimidated or threatened. She continues to extend her hand until her palm lays flat against the horse’s face, and the water rolls down the horse’s nose. The bleak day turns into a clear night as the atmosphere clears its system yet there are no stars present in the blackness of the night sky.

“I can see his piercing illuminated eyes,” Azrael tells Eve referring vaguely to something clearly on his mind. Eve starts to notice what looks like a tiny, nearly completely hidden flickering light in that giant empty blanket of space.

“Who is it?”

“It must just be a star,” Azrael tells her dismissing the idea of it being something else, something conscious. Eve begins to walk out of the field to find a place to sleep, Azrael follows and then stops. He turns back and investigates the vast and empty sky one last time; the flickering light has gone. He drags his eyes away from the night sky and begins to follow Eve out of the field.

“Maybe life is an illusion Eve, maybe our profound existence is nothing more than a fragile porcelain vase where the value is in the eye of the beholder. We become hollow inside as our past echoes, these amazing by-products of consciousness, our signifying emotions are nothing more than a shadow cast beside us. They have all the nuances that characterize us, the way we move, our shape, but like a shadow, they fade away in the dark.”

“You know the last thought of every life that fleets away just like I know the first. When life began, do you know what the first thought was?”

“You have never told me this Eve.”

“A will to exist, that’s all those emotions translated into, a basic plea for survival, often, that is the first thought any soul has. You will know the final thought that concludes this, think of it as a privilege.”

“Angelica, her final thought was strange, she simply said ‘Modus’.”

“There is no muse to humanity left, such a thing would have been cannibalized by Conquest if it existed.”

Azrael briefly laments Angelica’s small, concealed gasp for a fleeting breath before dying, it’s as though she tried to bury her will to live, so even death could not detect it. That pesky human urge escaped at the final moment, undoing her façade.

“The eater of divinity.” He mutters.