We Are Eternal…

…all this pain is an illusion.

Crescendo. A vast rising of voices unlike any symphony or orchestra. No tempo, nor Mozart, sounded like this.

Around him, fires lit up the sky as beacons, rising upwards in unison of monotony, monochrome of gold and red. His own joined it, slithering from the yawn pit of black that was his eye sockets.

Bylah stood rooted, listening. It was not oft he heard this song, this glorious masterpiece that came all too infrequently. It reminded him of his youth, braggart wild, when all young things think they are immortal, perfect. How could one kill a perfect youth, doing it’s job to the utmost, living day to day as a machine of glorious, well-oiled operation?

Oh, but how the mighty fall – yet Lucifer, brightest star–

An ear flicked, slinging offal to the ground; in it’s wake, plants died, lives snuffed out with the finality of mausoleum doors slamming shut. That is the sound of the end, a bang, never a whimper. Nothing dies with a whimper – not in the end, after the graveyards have their say.

In between the licks of fire, the crescendo swelled again, a mighty call of screaming, of agony; one gets a fine grasp of the healing power of fire, when listening to the songs it made.

Death is the greatest equalizer. It knows no pity or remorse. It cannot be bartered with, nor bargained. Eventually, it comes for everyone.

As he listened to the last of the screams die down, the opera over, snuffed out by burning heat, Bylah considered death. Death considered him back.

At the end of the day, they shook hands and strode in their respective directions. A job well done, they might have mused, as only the working can.

Bylah’s business was doing quite well.