The Choice Death Made

Trigger warning: mentions of suicide and infant death

The world is quiet under night’s dark veil, but nothing could be more silent than my footsteps. It was a trick I’d developed quite expertly over many millennia of passing through whispers and shadows.

Stars flickered solemnly above, as if even those distant shining gods knew I was working tonight. I hated the way they watched me, so full of disappointment and disgust. I’d ruined the prospect of a peaceful night already, and I hadn’t even begun.

No houses had torches burning still. No orange windows pierced the darkness of night, nor did the sounds of voices or owls or wolves. Everything held its breath as I approached.

This wasn’t always the case. Sometimes I entered in a flurry of thrown fists and hurled insults, laced with the stench of ale. Sometimes I swooped down upon a furious clashing of steel as swords struck shields and arrows pelted from the sky. Those days were long and heavy; I often carried so many bodies that I was forced to leave the blood behind. 

Sometimes I entered a room that smelled heavily of rotting breath and infected blood and the humans would be expecting me. They watched as I worked, and sometimes long after I was done. They would weep or rage or stare absently ahead, but they had been expecting me, usually for a long while.

Most other days I was unexpected, and they hated me for it. Always they would yell at the sky as I walked away with their sister, or scream and cry when I came for their father. It was always devastating to take someone’s child; either they would grieve inconsolably for months or years, or they would join soon after and I would have another body to retrieve.

I suppose I never minded my work; I was born with this duty, with these expectations, and I’ve never known anything different. I am aware of the service I am doing to the world: aware of the critical balance I bring to the existence of living things, but it does not make it easier to be hated.

I know they could never hear me, but sometimes I tried to explain. I tried to tell them that I do not kill. I do not impart illness or mortal wounds or drunken bar fights; I merely come when called. It is not my fault, do not blame me.

But they have no one else to blame. 

I came upon the house I was looking for and rode in on the gentle night breeze. Inside, a young girl lay in her bed, soundly sleeping as the moonlight fell across her face. 

I’ve often thought about how I could possibly make my work easier for the humans. How could I help them understand, how could I ease their unbelievable grief? How could I make them not hate me?

They don’t listen when I try to speak, but occasionally there is one who says the words for me. Whether they are consoling a relative or a friend or even themselves, there is one every once in a while who doesn’t blame me. Who knows the truth of the world and doesn’t let it waver at the touch of sorrow. But, more often than not, the adjacent grief is too strong and their words are not heard.

Tonight, I was trying something different. I thought perhaps doing my work under cover of night would ease the realization. Perhaps waking up to a tragedy was better than watching it occur before your eyes.

The girl had a mother and a father somewhere else in the house. And a brother. They all slept as she did, but nothing like me waited for them.

I didn’t even know what called me here tonight; looking over the girl, breathing in her young mortal scent, I could not detect any signs of endangered life. She was not wounded, she was not bitten or poisoned or sick. She was not even frail; she did not appear to be dying.

Very few times this had happened, and I never knew what to make of it. I did my job, just as I always do, but I wondered why. I had no one to ask, of course.

But for this girl, for someone so young…it felt cruel.

Cruel like taking a newborn baby from an exhausted mother’s arms. Cruel like an elderly woman who was just starting to recover from her illness. Cruel like a grief-stricken mother throwing herself from a window as her remaining children came looking for her.

Yes, I knew very well why the humans hated me. Perhaps tonight could be different.

I approached the little girl’s bed, quieter than a breath, and tapped her shoulder.

The touch was barely more than the air on her skin, but she opened her eyes and looked up at me. I do not know what she saw; I knew everyone saw something different on my face, but never did they see my true one. Whatever this girl was looking at did not seem to frighten her.

She sat up in her bed, blinking blearily. “It is still dark,” she murmured, glancing toward the window.

She was sitting up, yes, but her body remained asleep against her pillow. 

“Yes, it is,” I responded, my voice unfamiliar to my own ears. “We have somewhere to go.”

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“Someplace beautiful,” I whispered. “Peaceful, full of laughter and sunlight. You will be happy there.”

Something on the girl’s face changed. “I am not coming back?”

“You will be happy there,” I repeated. It was all I could think to say.

“Why do I have to go?” she asked, her voice trembling a bit.

I swallowed and glanced at her sleeping body. Not sleeping anymore.

“I do not know,” I said truthfully, tipping my head at her.

She looked at me confusedly, then her gaze found the version of her that still lay against her pillow, washed with moonlight. She looked back at me.

“Why am I dead?” she asked. She was quite calm despite the manner of her questions, though I’ve noticed death does that to humans. “I do not think I am sick. I’ve stayed out of the woods, as Mother told me.”

“I do not know what has taken your life,” I whispered. The shadows at my feet swirled like phantoms. “All I know is that I have been called here to lead you away.”

“To this beautiful place?” the girl asked. I nodded. “But it is beautiful here.”

I glanced out the window, at the night-dark hills that rolled into the distance like the spines of mountain cats. The star-splattered sky rose up from behind them.

“Yes it is,” I agreed. “And I do not want to take you from here.”

“Then why must you?” she asked.

I sighed. “It is my job. I have been doing it a long time, and though many hate me for it, I must do it.”

“I know who you are,” the girl murmured. “And I do not hate you.”

Something inside me cracked, just a little. “Even now, knowing that I must take you away? From your family, from your home?”

“I know that you do what is right,” she said. “So I will leave with you, if you believe it is right.”

I looked out the window again, at the distant trees and the cobalt sky and the walls of this little bedroom washed in moonlight. I looked at the little girl who knew what I was and did not hate me for it. I looked at her body lying still in the bed, completely devoid of the smell of death. 

“Thank you,” I said to her, and kissed her forehead. “You can go back to sleep, now.”

I watched her sink back into her unconscious body, watched until her chest resumed rising and falling, and walked away.