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I love life.
Why, I love life so very much that the only one in this entire world who can take it, is me. Some people would think I hate those who live, or those who have yet to meet their end at my blade, but in truth, above all else... I love life.
Life is constant, evolution, change, beauty. Death is merely the end, it is easy, death is. There is no art, no brilliance, nothing comes from death besides more life... and I suppose that's what makes it beautiful.
My job is not beautiful, my job is the opposite of that. My job is easy, compared to life, she... She crafts these lives with such careful caution, while I? I only exist to take them beyond this plane, to stifle the creation she worked so hard for.
Lo Siento...
But it is a task I embrace, and always will embrace. For those who mock life know death's rancor, to insult life is to insult everything that is good, everything that is not me. Puss in Boots was not the first I targeted for this crime, and he will most certainly not be the last.
Jack Horner was next on my list.
I recall stopping, a macabre grin appearing on my canine maw when I heard that greedy gluttonous chuckle.
So I turn around, the pink flame around me dispelling— I whistle, leaving Puss and his two newfound friends to live their life from here on out. My sickles scrape against the ground as I almost lazily edge towards the entity crawling out of his bottomless bag of magic— the first thing he sees when his face exits is my cold beady red eyes, and as soon as he does, that bravado he carries turns to something else.
Fear
I've followed Jack Horner for a very long time, a child of a man born from luxury and wealth both of which he'd inherit. Of course the fragility of mortals is to never realize what they have until they've lost it, a sort of complacency. They take everything for granted, their status, their wealth, their family, their friends. And of course, life itself.
And of course, they lack the ability to value other lives as well. I was there for every single death upon this mystical journey, built from dreams of escapism. Every, single, frivolous, end.
A mockery of life, and had I not been focused on another, Jack Horner would certainly be my next target. The issue was I could never make the man fear death, not until now.
Not until he saw into my red eyes and saw all that was of his life tinted in red macabre, of course.
It was a short matter. Jack tries to crush me beneath his large and bulbous fist, but as death, no mortal could ever hope to match me in any competition of might. I hold back his fist from crushing me with my forearm, he is weak. Chuckling deviously as the fear of death ran up through his body, I could smell the fear smoldering inside of him.
Fear makes mortals fight harder, Jack tries his hardest to land a blow with his other fist but I merely flip over it, running my sickle over the veins in his arm and reveling on the crimson life that erupted from his wound. I land on the well tailored fabric covering his arm and much like a chilling wind, I rush towards him with my teeth bared.
I leap into the air and become a pirouette of blades, cutting through his abdomen and up his chest. The man roars in agony as I run my sickles into his body, he tries to swat me out of the air like a fly but I merely sever through his hand and use it like a springboard to reach his heel.
I slide beneath him and cut the tendons in his foot, the giant man can only scream as he slowly falls to his knees. In a blink of thunder, I appear standing on his face staring at him as my clawed soles run deeply into his cheeks.
Raising two claws into the sky, I press them together before pointing towards my victim. "Burlarse de la vida, es burlarse de la muerte, ahora descansa." I say, pressing my claws against his forehead and watching the pain ebb from his vision. His life is gone, his death is mine.
The fate of all, who commit this crime.
My avatar is gone before Jack's body hits the ground, I do not dare look back to see if they make a wish or not. It is not my job to care what the mortals do in life, merely what they do that leads to me. But even I cannot hold back while they mock life, to mock life, to mock death, it is the same as mocking both. To those who cannot value life, who thinks themselves arrogantly above it and above the limitations of mortality. I will be there, watching, waiting, you will know that I am there for you.
And to the same who respect life, who respect death. You will know it is me, but my whistle will be lighter, and my visage will be less frightening. You need not fear death, I am but the end of your journey that you've fought for and to acknowledge the beauty of such will give you peace when you see me.
Jack Horner did not respect life.
And so I took his before it was time, he did not feel peace in his last moments.
I regret to say that I bend the rules time from time, when I meet men who disgrace life.
But I do not regret it, just like you should not regret the fear of death, of something unknown. Embrace that feeling, let it be your own.
Because I?
I love life, and that is the only claim to feeling I have.