Shadows

The massive immortal being most commonly known as Death, was bored. Eras of doing his job had left him with more memories than the mortal lives he had taken. He was an emotionless being, one which watched and relieved others of their lives. He could take any form he desired, and did so as it pleased him. He was as ancient as the Time and was as certain as Life.

He, in his eternal boredom watched worlds, and waited for the one day that he would meet someone before their time. The other gods wanted him to find an avatar so that their games of worlds could commence. He took his time as always, and the others complained as always. It was as if his very existence was to try and annoy them. That wasn’t boring at least.

All the other gods had told him about the ultimate solution to being bored. They said that they did it often. He could barely believe it. They willingly wiped themselves? Years of memory down the drain? But Time himself had confided in him that he had done it many times. He trusted Time.

After a long time of pondering, and relieving pain, Death came to his decision. Cold, dark Death would be no more. There would be a new Death. A brighter, happier Death. Death concentrated and then suddenly the eras started to slip away. He felt himself splitting up, each part becoming a ruler of death and becoming Death themselves. They quickly found unoccupied places and settled in their dimensions. The original Death stayed, and with himself wiped of his immense experience, settled in the place he had watched.

Well, that was interesting, He thought. Wait? He thought? He didn’t think, he knew. This was indeed interesting. He found himself at a loss as he tried to reach for memories which weren’t there.

What was I doing? He wondered, and gazed upon the globe that represented this dimension's sole interesting planet. As he stared at the globe, he waited for the day to change. It took forever! Was this impatience? He hadn’t felt impatience in so long. He couldn’t remember when he had felt it.

He found himself watching this small world. All of the beings in this world were so… vivid. He truly lacked words to describe it. And it was shielded. He could only view, he could not touch. He got his power by the certainty of his power, and here it wasn’t so certain. Here souls were recycled? He didn’t understand. It was so new, so incomprehensible. He could barely establish a connection to the world. But establish he did. He began to ease the suffering of the world. It had been long without it.

Of all the things that truly shocked him about this place, the biggest one was that there were beings here that rivaled him in sheer power. He was so taken by this world. He barely struggled when they took his connection to the outside. He was now the Death for this dimension chain.

He was happy? He hadn’t been anything but bored for some time. He was happy with his new position. He felt that he should find his avatar. Everything was so new here. His power had been stripped down to almost nothing in comparison with his previous self, and he couldn’t bring himself to care. He was now something new. He was no longer Death the absolute. He was just the Death now. He was the original, but that no longer seemed important.

He gazed upon his new domain, shocked at how simple it was. There were barely 5 billion souls here, and very few of them died in a given day. He had a list and if their name was on the list, he showed up at the time and took them. There were so many different races here; the ponies: unicorns, pegasi, earth; there were dragons, and gryphons and dogs and buffalo and far more than he believed himself to be used to. He had to remember each cultures Death figure and show up accordingly.

He met with the other gods of this reality, there was Celestia, who gave light, there was Time who actual resided in at least 8 different forms at the same time, and there was Luna who was sealed in the moon. She had apparently gone insane because no one had worshiped her, and the resulting lack of power had made her desperate. She became something that was feared and thus people worshiped her again, if not for the wrong reason.

Celestia was trying to find an avatar at the moment, she was scouring her kingdoms in search for a notable living thing to devote her teachings to. He should find an avatar to, he supposed. Time didn’t need to have an avatar, he being his own avatar. He didn’t pry into Time that much, it wasn’t his domain.

He settled into his new routine and took a few souls a day. The monotony that he had avoided for so long had started to settle in.

It was in this environment that something entirely unexpected happened. Something so spectacularly unlikely that it had most probably never happened before.

There was a breach.