Death approached a creature. They were not any life form that would have been recognized as life in the younger universe. Death looked at the creature, it had seen all life forms in the universe, and took them at the end of their lives, this being will be the last. Death hesitated, not knowing what with happen after the creature dies. With out life there can be no death.
Death rarely spoke to anyone. It knew that nothing was unique, the greatest conquerors were a dime a dozen, greatest artists counted in the trillions, the smartest point zero one percent in existence were countless. This was different, this was the last.
“Do you have a name?” Death asked.
“Who is there?” the last being asked in a language where each word lasted longer than many worlds. It was the first voice, other than their own, they heard in a very long time, even for them. They looked around, their movements so slow they would have been imperceptible by the species of the younger universe. Death's voice seemed to come from nowhere yet everywhere. “I thought I was the last.”
“I have many names, but most call me ‘death’.”
“'Death'? You have come to kill me?”
“No, I come at the end of life but I do not kill. It is my role since the first life emerged. You are dying, I can not stop that, I can only do my job.”
“I’m dying? I am the last, what will happen after I am dead? Is there a place for the dead? Do we- did we have souls.”
“I do not know what happens to those who die, that is not my role. I am simply an agent of necessity.”
“Am I truly the last? The universe is big, could there be anyone else out there? Will life survive.”
The creature was silent for eons.
“You did not answer my question, do you have a name?”
“A name? It has been so long, so very long. Once I had a name but I have forgotten it now.” The creature looked at the black sky, “I have forgotten so much. One thing I remember is they said the sky was lit with sparkling lights and a large world. Was it true or a myth? Did the universe truly teem with light and life?”
“It did, the stars all ended.”
“Entropy always grows, entropy ends all. Life needs energy, using energy creates entropy. This can cease or entropy can grow, nothing can last, except maybe entropy itself.”
“The universe was said to be impossibly large.”
“Big, very big. I’ve seen it all," Death looked out at the universe, "and even I can not comprehend how big it is." Looking back at the creature, "but it is still finite, still limited. The energy is almost used up, there is not enough left for life, not even one.”
"Will there be any to remember us? Will you remember us?"
"I do not know what will happen to me, I do not think I will have a place without life."
The creature was silent, then; “I'm not ready. If I die, there will be no one to remember those who lived, those I loved, they would truly be dead. I don’t want them to be dead.”
More silence. “Do not torment me! Just do it.” The creature looked down in.
“I apologize, no torment was intended. With out life there is no death, I am Death, your death is mine as well. I too am not ready.” After a brief hesitation Death reached out to the creature. As it reached, it prayed, “please accept me in what ever here after there is. I did not take you out of malice, I was only an agent of necessity. For new things to come, old things must go. Forgive me, I never meant any harm to any of you.”
The last living thing was dead, Death looked upon their corpse. There was nothing left to die, only fade away, even the gods, long ago, died, yet Death remained. It knew that it was only alive because it had one more thing to do. Death watched the decaying universe, the cooling white dwarfs, the decaying black holes, the planets in moons, now flung far from their original hosts, the near infinite blackness between it all. Death could not take itself, and nothing else lived, that meant one more job, a job Death dreaded even more than it’s own end.
“There is no going back, only a delay of the inevitable,” Death admitted to itself. "It is my job, I should have known." Death procrastinated, watching the white dwarfs cool to black, watching the black holes slowly decay and fizzle out. Trillions of years passed. Even in the blackness of the heat death Death found beauty in the universe. Finally Death did it's last job, it reached through out the universe. All movement stopped, matter instantly decayed, space itself ceased. All that remained was the primordial energy that made it all, the energy that even death could not destroy. Darkness became light and Death became Creation.
Images used in header by Florian Wächter from Pixabay and NASA.
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