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And the Lord created the Man in His own image.
And the Lord gave him land, animals, plants, water.
And the Lord gave him Life.
The human, however, didn't see Life and didn't feel her. But she saw Adam perfectly and was terribly in love with her Father's creation.
Life quickly settled in the Paradise Garden, equipping it with all the comforts for the human. Being God's daughter, she could create everything she had enough imagination for, and therefore she continued the work of her Parent and made even more herbs and beasts for Adam for any of his needs.
She was always there for the man. And then, when God gave him a woman, and then, when the flame of feelings was lit in people, and they knew the first love in the world.
From such harmony, flowers literally bloomed all over Life's body; she created gifts to her people without stopping so that this bliss wouldn't stop. She raised the fields, filled the lakes and sang endlessly with the birds, praising the Father's magnum opus — the Human.
But just at the moment when the Serpent tempted Eve, Life was not there. She suspected something was wrong only when the woman had already handed the forbidden fruit to the man, and they were ashamed of their appearance. Seeing this, the singing Life coughed, and an unknown black bird suddenly landed on the nearest tree, cawing in a terrifying voice.
And then Life realized that people would no longer have harmony. God drove them out of Paradise, and she, not knowing what to do in the Garden of Eden now, went after them.
And she never went to the Heavenly Yard again.
Life grieved bitterly for her Father and her old home, feeling sorry for people, because she saw nothing wrong in the fact that they ate this unfortunate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Despite the fact that she constantly showered them with gifts, she perfectly saw and understood the fact that Adam and Eve were bored in Paradise. However, she still felt guilty for allowing them to disobey the Creator.
On Earth, everything was as unusual for people as for Life herself. So, she decided to comfort them by giving them something more substantial than a fruit tree or a flower bush: she gave them children.
Happiness came back to Life again: people appreciated her present and began to live together in love and well-being. Until one incident.
Adam's sons, Cain and Abel, often worried Life by not finding mutual understanding with each other. And one day, when she, distracted, turned away from the elder Cain again for a couple of moments, the unimaginable happened. Hot blood splashed onto her beautiful ivy-covered back and burned it. The pain pierced Life, and the wounds bloomed on the skin instead of wonderful buds. The first murder on Earth took place.
Life didn't know what it was. But she was really scared, and besides, in a lot of pain. Falling to her knees, she bent over the paling Abel, not understanding how she could fix everything.
Someone was approaching them. Before Life had time to recover, something flashed in the air in front of her, and at the same second Abel suddenly came to his senses, getting up from the ground.
They looked at each other in bewilderment, but Cain didn't seem to notice his brother's resurrection.
And then Life saw a dark tall figure with a huge iron scythe behind the younger son. This was the one who was rushing to them so desperately.
“Howdy!” suddenly spoke up this someone in a black robe and even waved his hand. It turned out that there was no flesh on the exposed bones at all.
Life didn't understand who it was. But there was something very familiar about him, as if this someone was of the same origin as herself. Obviously, this was so, because the murderer didn't see the person who came up, just as he didn't see Life with the ghostly Abel.
“Thank you very much!”
“For what?..”
It seemed like the stranger was looking intently at Life only, but she couldn't see his face, because it was hidden under the hood. She was quite surprised that he decided to talk to her at all. For so many years, only the Creator himself has talked to her.
“For what? For what you did, of course. Abel is a lovely creature.”
“Thanks…”
Burning tears were coming to her eyes. The stranger came closer to her, putting a bony palm on her shoulder, stroking it:
“Hey, why are you crying? I'm going to take him to Heaven. There's not a single sin behind his soul, so your Father is already waiting for him.”
Life was roused by hearing such a statement. Heaven? Then there really is no need to cry. Her dear son will really be fine there. Much better than on Earth.
But for some reason she still wanted to cry. This whole incident deeply affected Life.
“I'm sorry, but who are you? What... just happened?” she finally asked, wiping her tears and trying to look under the hood.
The stranger was silent. Unexpectedly, the cloth lifted, and his face finally opened up to Life: it was not even a face, but a bare skull with glowing eye sockets.
“Peace,” he replied, and Life could have sworn that he, in some incomprehensible way, smiled at her without lips: “Death.”
It wasn't immediately that Life realized that he had introduced himself to her in this way. But immediately after that answer, she felt something inside. The thought came by itself that they would definitely meet again.
The age of mortals has begun.
***
After that sad incident, Life left Cain, who was cursed even by God himself, and went her own way. Probably, trying to recover from the shock, she began to create more and more humans, ruthlessly tearing off pieces of her own body from which she wove threads and with which she connected people's souls and bodies.
At one point she realized what she had done, but it was too late already. There have become catastrophically many people on Earth. And all of them endlessly hurt Life. She couldn't turn to face everyone, and therefore her back continued to be covered with sores from human sins. Instead of ivy, thorns began to grow there.
When it became unbearable to endure it, Life burst into tears. Her tears flowed and flowed in torrents until they revealed the Great Flood that destroyed many of her creations. But humans survived even after this. God, not too pleased with what had happened, scolded his daughter and promised mortals that he wouldn't allow this to happen again, but they also need to better monitor their antics from now on. Of course, they didn't learn the lesson and continued to sin anyway, albeit a little less, fearing repeated punishment.
The remnants of tears settled in the water and turned many previously beautiful reservoirs into swamps. Animals born after the Flood became hardened and often began to attack humans. In some herbs and even pretty flowers, watered by rains from these very tears, poison suddenly began to accumulate. In a word, Life took great offense at people, but, bound by the promise of her Father, she could no longer punish them on such a large scale.
***
“You have really complicated our life, Life.”
One good night she was sitting on a high cliff and looking down. At the humans, as always. Life was thinking how to stop all this.
She made a mistake. It was worth admitting failure and populating the Earth with only animals and flowers, no longer trying to imitate the Lord in the creation of mortals. That was a lot of guilt for such an ideal being as she was.
Driven by an unknown impulse, she headed for the precipice, but someone managed to stop her exactly at the moment when she had already lifted her foot over the abyss.
Death again.
The entities silently looked at each other for several minutes, and then both sat down on the edge of the cliff and stared at the same direction — down.
“Why can't you take me with you the same way you take all of them?”
She looked helplessly at the interlocutor, but for some reason he was very cheerful. This was expressed not only by the permanently frozen grin on the skull, but also by something else that only one Life could see or feel.
“What are you talking about? I was just kidding. It's good that you've created so many mortals. Sure, it's very hard to work with them, but at least it's not boring. Sometimes, it's even funny.”
“No, it's not funny at all. I'm so sorry I did that.”
“But you mustn't be sorry! Because it's all part of the plan! We must exist, which means that our human wards must also exist. That's what your Father created the Earth for.”
“And why do we need this? It causes so much inconvenience to both of us.”
Life sighed heavily, turning away. Over time, she really became more and more disappointed in people. She didn't foresee such a scenario of events when she sang odes to the first human in the Paradise Garden.
The Grim Reaper chuckled faintly.
“Not all the humans are so hopeless. After all, the line for Paradise hasn't yet come to an end.”
Well, this couldn't but rejoice. However...
“Tell me anyway: why can't you take me with you too?” Life abruptly changed the topic, repeating her old question.
Death was silent again.
“Because I myself can't live without you,” he answered after a while, completely discouraging his interlocutor.
***
Life is used to constant pain and wounds on her back. Many of them have even already healed, leaving the deep scars. She also changed her attitude towards mortals: she became more condescending, but also more skeptical, realizing that humans are far from perfect and weren't even close to her or her Father. Maybe Adam and Eve ate the fruit of forbidden knowledge, but they didn't become much smarter, like all their descendants. Why didn't the Serpent persuade Eve and her husband to eat at least two fruits? Or to eat all the available ones at once. Maybe then everything wouldn't be so bad, and people would be able to recreate their own Heaven on Earth.
She didn't want to think about it as often as before. Life just continued to do her job, giving offspring to mortals and helping those who were initially drawn to her. She no longer wasted her strength on those who didn't take her seriously or didn't even try to listen to her — she no longer felt sorry for her disfigured back, as well as for humans who didn't value their Life.
But all the old feelings were still stored somewhere in her. One day, accompanying a man taking his family by cart to a neighboring town, Life realized that something was wrong with him, but when she got closer, she only managed to see how Death had already cut off his thread connecting soul with body.
When he saw his acquaintance, he waved to her happily, as always. Death already knew that Life no longer grieved over the death of each her ward, having accepted his work, but she suddenly protested and burst into tears, covering her face with her hands.
“What's up with you?” the Reaper asked worriedly.
“This mortal didn't deserve to die so early,” Life sobbed. “He was a very nice guy. He was also the only one really honest person in his entire village. And his family isn't bad either. Now they will perish without him...”
“All of them?”
“Indeed. Look at how fragile his wife is. She won't be able to work in the field like him. She won't afford to feed herself or her children, and you'll have to take them all away too. In about three months, if I'm not mistaken, and maybe even earlier.”
Death thought so deeply for the first time. The scythe glistened menacingly in the sun. It looks like he decided not to wait for three months.
Life has already prepared that her precious threads will now be stretched and will be cut off once again. Death has never brought dead people back to the world of the living. But the Reaper suddenly just shrugged.
“Well, if that's what you're asking... then, perhaps, we can count it once for my mistake.”
In disbelief, Life looked at Death, not understanding where his jokes ended and the truth began. But he was serious and even gave way to her, releasing the hand of the recently deceased.
Still at a loss, she tore off a piece of herself and quickly began to work with her fingers, twisting a thread from her vital fibers. After that, she carefully tied it to the man's soul and returned it back to the body. He opened his eyes with a deep breath, waking up among his shocked wife and kids.
The entities watched the human fuss for a while longer and how, after hugging and crying, they climbed back onto the cart and continued on their way. But soon Life noticed that the Reaper wasn't looking at them all the time, but at her. There was nothing but pity in his look.
“Ma poor gal…” he said, looking at her tortured body.
Life responded to this only with a downcast gaze.
“It's nothing. I'll recover,” she smiled.
***
Little by little, Death and Life became more and more befriended, although they understood that their destinies were mirror-opposite. However, Death wasn't at all the cruel sadist that humans imagined him to be. To be honest, their thoughts about him amused him very much. And generally, he was often lazy to do his own work, Life knew that for sure. And he didn't kill anyone personally. People did a great job with it themselves.
And Life, in turn, was even partly glad that humans had become mortals. It was boring to see the same faces, besides, listening to their complaints about Life herself wasn't very pleasant to her, so Death didn't bother her at all, but on the contrary, rendered a great service by taking the particularly meticulous ones to Heaven or Hell. Well, or to Purgatory.
Moments when no one was born or died were rare, but still there were. And these moments were enough for the friends. They often walked the Earth hand in hand, talking about pressing matters.
“It seems to me that Father is up to something,” Life once shared her concern with the comrade. “I recently looked in on him for a while. And he was sculpting something again. Well, you know how it was with people. But them he made out of the ground, and now, for some reason, he works with fire.”
“I hope he doesn't create immortals there,” Death chuckled. “I'm too busy with ordinary mortals to think about what to do with someones who refuse to die.”
Life didn't share the companion's fun. From her gloomy thoughts, a gray cloud suddenly thickened over them, threatening to rain down on the couple.
“Well, he won't drive us into the grave, right,” the Reaper tried to save the situation. “He definetly understands that we are already working at the limit of our capabilities. If he spawns something that lives for more than a few hundred years, then I really will have to settle somewhere in the afterlife, and at the same time take you away, as you wanted. We'll play backgammon and drink gin with devils.”
Life pushed her bud in the elbow:
“You're such an oaf, ya know.”
***
Who would have known that with his fleeting joke, Death would predict the future of the whole Earth as accurately as possible.
Life wasn't worried for nothing. She made another huge mistake, and the punishment was not long in coming.
She gave people faith. Trying to open mortals' eyes to who they should look up to in order to achieve a better world after death than their current one, instead, she accidentally opened an abyss from which three came out.
Pestilence, War and Famine.
That's who her Father so painstakingly created, wanting to send trials to humans so that only the most worthy ones would be eliminated to Paradise.
These beings were indeed chthonic and eternal, as were Life with Death. From now on, they tortured and tormented mortals, pushing them around like puppets, and didn't listen at all to the requests of Life to stop all this.
As if in the old days, she looked at the devastation taking place in the world with despair and a lump in her throat. And only Death was still not discouraged, trying to cheer up his friend as well.
“Just look at that! Now people will start thinking with their heads, they will progress, and they will even stop burning girls at the stake, after all.”
“Yeah, but what is the price?!”
“The price is prohibitively high, but necessary. The price is you yourself. Their life. They will finally learn to respect you, dear.”
And the cold bone again lay on the shoulder of the Creatrix, who, swallowing tears, called out to the Lord, asking him to recall the bloodthirsty critters, but he didn't respond.
“Besides, don't forget the main thing: you gave them faith. They'll handle everything, you'll see.”
***
Life and Death had to work hard for those years, dealing with the consequences of the labors of three of their new "colleagues". But people really coped with everything. It took them a lot of time, but in the end they were able to get out of all the scrapes and, indeed, as Death predicted, they followed the path of development by leaps and bounds.
The immortals, meanwhile, had a big fight with each other. Everyone insisted that it was he who should cooperate with Life, thereby setting the world history. But three such scenarios out of four weren't at all attractive either for humans or for Life herself. According to them, mankind was expected either eternal Pestilence, or endless Famine, or incessant War. For the first time, Life felt so significant and realized what power it actually had in its hands from the very beginning. She ran everything. Not even the Father, but she herself.
So she had to make the only right decision.
***
Another client has arrived at the "Apocalypse" Inc.. Death gave him a bored look and pointed in the direction of the Paradise elevator. Nodding gratefully, the man, or rather, his ghostly copy, headed in the right direction and disappeared somewhere above, carried away by a powerful device straight to the gates of Eden.
A new face appeared at the table. The Reaper was about to wave his hand when he suddenly realized who had visited him, and immediately brightened:
“What wind brought you here, ma old gal?”
“Hello to you, too, toddler,” Life grinned.
Quite recently, people have calculated how long they have already approximately existed on Earth. These digits amused Death, who himself was only slightly younger than Life, and forced them both to reward each other with new nicknames.
“Sit down, please, it must be so hard for you to stand on your ol' legs,” the Reaper jokingly suggested to the guest.
“What a polite young man I see in front of me! Well, if you insist,” Life answered him in the same manner with a half-smile and sat down on the offered chair. “I've been thinking about our project here and decided that it can't go on like this. I can't do your job anymore. After all, you are the Death, not me. No matter how angry or offended I am at mortals, I still can't take away from them what I gave myself. At least not in such quantities.”
“I know exactly what you're going through. In any case, these were only temporary measures. I'm ready to return to my duties, but who will distribute the souls?”
“I talked to Father, and he agrees to help me with one idea. Do you think a thousand employees will be enough for you not to be distracted from your business anymore?”
Death's eye sockets seemed to widen.
“Wh-... Wha? How many employees did you say???”
“A thousand so far. And then there will be more.”
“Well, if we install customer counters for all of them, assign shifts and make them work seven days a week...”
“Great, I'll ask to add more perseverance for them.”
There was a slight hitch.
“That is so... generous,” Death rubbed the top of his head.
“Ah, don't mention it. Since I started this whole organization thing, then I should be the one who responsible for the technical component.”
The guest smiled faintly.
A few centuries ago, wanting to put an end to the quarrel between the immortals, Life still decided to admit not only to herself, but to everyone else that she would never work with anyone but Death. Hearing this, the other three debaters were ready to launch a new attack on humanity, but Life decided otherwise.
She signed her own sentence. Or rather, a document stating that at the end of time she will go into oblivion, allowing Famine, War and Plague to begin the End of the world. When Armageddon is accomplished, Death will fulfill his destiny, taking the last mortal, and will leave after the others. But until then, she will cooperate only with Death in order to give humans time to prepare for this day, and not plunge them into eternal suffering, which was already prepared for them in the distant (but maybe not so distant) future. And so the "Apocalypse" Inc. appeared, and the immortals received new titles, becoming the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. (They were promised horses at the beginning of this event.)
The Horsemen came to a flimsy peace, having transformed from "enemies" into "competitors". Now they had to coordinate all their plans with Death, and Death, in turn, consulted Life about everything, finding out where she needed a small pandemic or a military conflict to maintain balance.
But Death couldn't work as a conductor and distributor at the same time, so Life took responsibility for completely new beings that she hadn't yet created. Not alive, but not dead, not good, but not bad. She created the Reapers, naming them after her dear friend's former title.
***
Friendship can't last forever. Even if you yourself are something forever. Sooner or later, friendship either collapses, crumbling into dust, or grows into something new, strengthening the roots. Life once again was looking longingly at the world, standing on the roof of a skyscraper, and thinking about their relationship with Death.
He had long been much dearer and closer to her than just a friend. Although she was sometimes annoyed by his foolishness, strange for a being of his age and status, but still she couldn't imagine a day without it anymore.
After all, he was the only one with her from the very beginning. Literally. They logically complemented each other, not allowing the efforts of both to devalue. Perhaps she felt it even then. And, speaking in human language, she fell in love with him as soon as he, in his manner, told her his name. He did it so unusual and funny. "Peace, Death." Such an oaf.
She was young, and she didn't understand everything in time. And now... it's too late. It's scary to admit everything to him.
A soft rustle of fabric was heard behind her. A painfully familiar sound. But Life didn't turn around.
“How's life?” the Horseman immediately began the conversation with a gag.
“Living the life, thinking when you finally propose to me...”
Immersed in her thoughts, Life didn't immediately realize what she had just blurted out. And when she realized, she wasn't even embarrassed. It seems that Death has infected her after all with his impenetrable fun bordering on impudence.
“Propose?”
“Yea, like people. They came up with an interesting thing. "Marriage". However, they didn't learn how to use it normally,” Life smiled sadly, without raising her eyes to the interlocutor.
But Death, unexpectedly, became quite interested in this.
“And why do we need this?”
“Dunno. At least in order to be called by the proud word "spouses" and make it clear to everyone that we belong only to each other.”
In fact, they really didn't need any marriage. It's purely human entertainment. No one has tried to marry them anyway. Life clenched her fists, feeling a surge of shame. Why is she even talking to him here?.. This is so stupid, so-
“Well, I agree. And what do we need to do to be called your proud word?”
And then Life looked at him.
In her eyes he saw that true old Life, which had only recently left the Heavenly Yard. Just as lost, a little scared, but full of hope.
“Are ya serious?” she said on an exhale, flying closer. “I was just ki-”
“I told you from the first days of acquaintance that I can't live without you. It took you a long time to make up your mind,” the Horseman's hand suddenly rested on the cheek of Life instead of her shoulder.
And she remembered.
“I thought you meant something else!!! Why didn't you-...”
Sighing, she shook her head.
“Fine, forget the past and lose an ey-...” the gaze of Life fell on the empty eye sockets of Death just in time not to finish the very end of the sentence. “... I-i-i have a wedding present for you, ah-huh.”
Without any hesitation, she opened her chest with her bare hands and pulled out her heart. It was golden and sparkling, and it was dripping with a dazzling white liquid that was her blood.
“How will you be without a heart yourself?”
“Don't worry, I'm the Life, nothing will happen, even if my heart's separate from me. Moreover, I entrust it to the most reliable hands. Ribs,” she corrected herself and smiled.
With surprise, Death looked at how his newly minted wife carefully turned the edges of his mantle and put the heart where it should be, at least in humans.
“How does it feel?”
“I've tasted life, what can surpass it?” the Horseman replied, and they both laughed. “Well, then I give to you this.”
And he handed her his scythe.
“How will you do without it?”
“I'll get a new one. But I've been with this one since the beginning of time, it's very valuable. And it will be very useful to you.”
“In what way?”
Instead of answering, Death brought the scythe to the hair of Life and cut off a small strand. It lit up with a flame in his palm, after which it flew up in form of a butterfly.
“Never hurt yourself again for the sake of mortals. Do you think I haven't seen what's going on with your back? They did all this to you, and you still spent for them so many your-”
Life hugged Death tightly, not letting him finish.
“Thank you,” she whispered, and her body covered with poppies.
Through the thin layer of fabric, she could feel her own heart beating in someone else's chest. No, not else's. Her husband's chest. Her dear husband's.
***
“It's all very interesting, madam Life. But why did you start reviving humans with fire instead of threads?”
Life looked with a sly squint at Reaper, to whom she dropped in to chat at lunchtime.
In recent days, she couldn't face Death in any way, so she was hoping that he would personally drop by his best employee, and they would finally be able to talk. In the meantime, she brightened up the wait with intimate conversations with her, let's be honest, child. It's a pity that later she will have to erase his memory of this whole story, because the less he knows, the easier it will be for him to live, but now, it was possible to lift the veil of secrecy a little.
“Think, kiddo. With a thread I tied people's souls to their bodies so that they could live. But now... there was nothing left to tie. Mortals no longer have souls.”
The intern choked.
“Then how does the boss get them?”
“It's a matter of Life and Death, Reaper.”
The woman laughed, suddenly coming up with a pun.
“No, really, how?” the judge didn't appreciate the joke, continuing to pry out the sacred secret.
“Honestly, dunno myself. He just does it somehow.”
The clerk wasn't satisfied with this answer, and he looked at his watch with displeasure.
“My shift is ending,” he informed the guest.
“You're lucky one, ma boy,” she sighed, as always, with a smile.