Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2014 12:38:27 GMT -5
Pale Death
beats equally at the poor man's gate and the palaces of kings
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Fingers curled around the leaf-imprint of his staff, the band of his ring moving against the metal with every step he took. Winding through the crowd, Death's ears shut out all the noise, the screams and sounds of excitement against the music that looped in the background, emanating from the rides themselves. People stood around in large parties, or ran along the dirt paths, chasing after each other as they shouted at each other, the smiles of children as they skipped along with sticky fingers from cotton candy. Death observed all that went on around him, the type of crowd that a county fair drew in. As a child bumped into Death, the deity paused for a moment, his face wrinkling into a scowl as the child swerved around him to continue her quest to seek out whatever it was she wanted. Shaking his head, Death took a step forward back into the crowd as his form disappeared from sight, hidden from even the most gifted of eyes.
Moving beyond the rides and games, Death found himself walking along a path of food carts, selling everything from a turkey leg on a stick to deep-fried butter. It was repulsive, but what was worse were the humans shoveling the food into their faces. Sitting alone at a picnic table was a woman who looked almost too large to even stand up by herself, surrounded by enough food to feed a family or a small country. Death stopped to observe the woman, waiting for her family to come join her, to share in the multiple grease-filled plates that took up residence on the table. As time ticked by, no one came to join the woman, though Death was not surprised.
Stepping up to the table, Death passed by the woman and reached out, lightly touching her shoulder as he moved on, hearing the body slump and fall to the ground as people nearby shrieked. Some continued on their way, others rushed to the woman to help her, but she was beyond any help, at least by mortals. Appearing in front of Death was a tall man in a dark suit, his face stoic and void of any emotion as he stepped beyond the deity, reaching out to the woman to take her with him. The commotion grew as paramedics arrived to offer their assistance, followed closely by local police. This wasn't the first death at the fair, there had been five previous lives taken within the week that the fair had been opened. It was unusual, though all appeared to have died of natural causes and offered no reason to shut down the fair.
Walking off to the side of the food path, Death turned to look back at the scene, where the reaper was working on the woman's soul, who wept over her body. Planting the end of his cane into the dirt, Death placed one hand over the other on the head of the cane and leaned against it. No longer invisible to the eyes of all around him, Death appeared as just a man watching the scene, his dark suit standing out against the casual clothing of the rest of the crowd.
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TAG: open WORDS: 533
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