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Alcrah surveyed the battlefield. As the Sfiltian embodiment of death, he had parts of himself all over the galaxy, everywhere a Sfilta was dying. But here, a battle in a territorial war, was where he was needed most. As he watched the battle, he saw the bipedal horse-like creatures fighting, dying, and killing. They were up against another race called humans, a similar race. It was nearing the end of the battle, which itself was near the end of an ultimately unimportant war. Alcrah felt pieces of himself guiding the souls of the Sfilta who didn’t make it.
The battle wore on. Advancements were made, ground was lost, soldiers on both sides were killed. Surrender was considered, offered, and eventually accepted. It did not matter to Alcrah who won, what mattered was that the death was ending, and his greater form would slip away, until the next battle, or perhaps a plague.
There were fewer bodies left than usual for a battle of this size. But all that meant to Alcrah was that he would linger less. But as he released the last soul his form stayed. And without the distraction of his job, he felt why. There was still work to be done. Not his work, but work nonetheless. Alcrah moved towards the human side, looking for their Death. As he passed human bodies, he noticed that while most of them were dead, their souls were still there. They hung around like mist attached to the bodies
He scanned the horizon, and his four eyes fell upon a cloaked figure hovering at the end of the battlefield. It held a scythe in its hands and seemed to be looking over the battlefield, but made no move to clear the souls. Alcrah noted the human Death seemed to be a farmer, which made its actions, or lack thereof, even more confusing. Alcrah was a Filthoth, a lion-like beast with six legs that used to be a predator of the deer-like Sfiltian. Even though filthoths hadn't been a threat to Sfiiltians for thousands of years, they still represented the end of life for the prey species.
A farmer, and a human one at that, meant that humans were used to dying in large numbers, often at their own hands. Alcrah had seen tools like the scythe before, they were used to gather plants, and in the hands of a god of death, souls, in large quantities. Alcrah could imagine it sweeping across the battlefield, releasing the souls that still lingered. And yet it remained still, like its master.
As Alcrah came closer, he noticed something shocking. Inside the hood of the farmer, was a bare, grinning skull. He remembered the look from when members of his own pantheon began to fade away as belief in them had diminished. But death? Every species believed in death. It was an inevitable part of life. The certainty of it was the reason Alcrah himself was still around. Death was the last god of every species. And yet before him stood a withered god of death.
Alcrah moved towards the farmer. “What is the meaning of all these souls you’ve ignored?” he rumbled. The farmer turned his head and breathed a long raspy breath. Then he turned and pointed his scythe to the Human battlefield headquarters, a large collection of tents and shelters. Alcrah noticed figures moving towards the battlefield. As they came closer, Alcrah noticed that they were medics. He wondered what they were doing in a field of so many dead.
His question was soon answered as they tended to each body. Some of them, they simply took back, probably for burial. As each of these passed the farmer, he reached out with his scythe and cut the connection between the soul and the body. But for many of the corpses, the medics procured medical devices, and, to Alcrah’s amazement, brought the dead to life.
He stood there in awe looking at the miracles happening all around him. And yet, to each of the medics, this seemed so mundane. As Alcrah watched, he turned to the farmer. A slight tremble in his bassy voice, he said “I see. The Humans simply no longer believe in death.” The souls gone, his form started to dissipate. But before his consciousness was gone, he wondered if this attitude would spread. If he too, would end up like the withered farmer standing alone in a battlefield.