A Dance with Death

I was never meant to lay my eyes on nor tamper with the living, yet I watched her. I knew she took two years before she stopped flinching at the sound of a match striking, the sound of embers crackling in warm hearths. I knew the slender shape of her body, the slight furrow of her brow and the soft plump of her lips. How could I not, when it was her youthful face that engulfed my thoughts like wildfire, clinging to all my thoughts? I couldn’t help but wonder what a diabolical sense of humor the universe had, cursing her with a name that meant the one thing she had come to fear: Seraphina – the burning one. I still shuddered whenever I thought about the violent jerk Seraphina’s body gave when she first heard someone strike match a couple of days after her parents’ death in that cursed fire.

I loathed myself for being grateful in some sick, twisted way for the incident that caused her parents’ death, for it was the incident that presented not just myself, but my entire body, heart and soul to the exquisite Seraphina Cessair. I had sensed the death of her parents that damned night how I had always sensed death: a gentle tug on an invisible string, coaxing me to the location of the dead. As I came to claim their souls to the afterworld, I had caught sight of her, covered in ash. She was hovering precariously on the line between the dead and the living, her throat closing up with smoke, her eyes closed, lashes fanned across her brown skin. It was well within my power as the embodiment of death to give her a tranquil passing, if only to relieve her of her pain. But I knew, somewhere in the depths of my soul, that I would be doing it for myself, for my own selfish reasons. For I had wanted her, wanted to spend the entirety of my immortal, miserable life with her by my side in the afterworld. A beacon of light – flame – to my darkness, a youthful soul to my old withered one.

Born from the ashes of my decimated heart, a new feeling arose. It was burning hot, some primal force even older than myself. I can’t explain what it felt like; it burned with the same intensity of hate – but it felt different, the opposite even. That primitive feeling honed itself into a weapon I knew had the power to destroy even me. The feeling echoed in me most when I thought about Seraphina – the only living mortal I happened to lay my eyes upon in that one moment when she was so close to death that I could see her. That weapon, white-hot with desire, drove me mad. It was the fact that Seraphina could never behold me in her mortal living state that ate away at me day by day for the past two years.

Of course, we could be united at last if her soul was no longer alive nor mortal…

I pushed the selfish thought out of my head, no primordial being was supposed to use their ability to cater to their self-serving reasons.

Interestingly enough, I had never witnessed another being desert their post nor break their rules. The Mother breathed life into human lungs every day, I claimed souls every day. It gave everyone a sense of normalcy and balance. Every being had a counterpart: the Mother to myself – Death, the Sun to the Moon, the Earth to the Sky. Only one being had no counterpart: Fate. Fate was such a dangerous thing, it had no gender, body or emotions. It rewarded the conforming and punished the rebellious. Beings like myself existed to uphold the cycle of life, not to take what we wanted or tamper with human lives. Playing a game with Fate meant you wished to cease to exist. No being ever dared to go against Fate by deserting their post or meddling in human affairs, for the odds were stacked against them in every way possible.

***

I watched the breeze ruffle Seraphina’s white skirt, heard the soft padding of her sandals on the sand and smelled the balmy summer air. I studied the slope of her nose, the confident gait that served as a façade to hide the broken girl inside, to keep the inquiring gazes of the townsfolk at bay. They had always treated her like some wounded animal after her house burned down with her parents inside. It did not faze me that I knew all these things about her, watching over her had gradually started to make the feeling inside me – the one that opposed hate – grow so much it often felt my heart was about to leap out of my chest. As I watched, mesmerized by her magnificence, she shed a tear that cracked the façade of the unaffected girl, the crack in the mask was almost as audible as her slight whimpers and sniffles. She fell to her knees, sandaled feet sinking into the sand and wept. Seraphina started trembling, then to my utter bewilderment started singing.

 “For you I am eternally grateful Mother,” she sang, her voice almost inaudible over the sounds of the waves lapping against the shore.

 “May your tender soul watch over me forever,” I was in a trance. Her voice was like a clear stream, utterly holy and clear.

 “I beg of you to watch over me, even in Death,” That was my undoing: my name on her lips.

Somewhere beyond the increasingly rapid sound of waves, Seraphina continued praising the Mother and begging her for a long and fruitful life unlike that of her parents. But I could barely hear her over the churning of the sea and distant rumbling of the mountains. The primal feeling in my heart scorched. One word echoed in the chambers of my mind: Death. Sung by Seraphina herself.

I lost control.

The last sound I remember hearing was the final crescendo of the sea.

The last thing I saw were the waves rising to impossible heights, swallowing Seraphina.

The last thing I felt was the primitive feeling honed into a weapon stabbing me. Repeatedly.

I was about to be united with Seraphina at last.

I had cut her young mortal life short, but she would end up with me in the afterworld.

Except I wasn’t in the afterworld, I was still on the beach, unable to transport to my dwelling. That was when Seraphina appeared again on the shore. My thoughts were suspended in a pool of confusion – this must be some twisted perception of reality. I was about to try to transport myself to the afterworld again when the sea swallowed Seraphina.

Again.

And again.

And Again.

 Reality crashed in on me, I had meddled in mortal affairs. I had cut a young mortal girl’s life short for my own selfish needs. I wept, for Seraphina who was stuck in the afterworld without me. I wept for her kind soul that deserved a tranquil life on Earth. Most of all I wept for my selfishness that now left the world unbalanced, devoid of Death. I had broken the cycle of life, and now I lay there on that cursed beach, watching Seraphina Cessair dying over and over again.

Leaving chaos ensuing in my wake.