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In death, there's nothing.
No pain. No peace. There's just nothing.
That's it. That's what you are when you die. A drop in the endless ocean of non-existence.
That's what he was until he got brought back.
First thing he felt was horrible, agonizing pain. It turned his body inside out, it turned his first breaths into screams. A cry of a reborn.
But the longer he was back there, at the land of the living, the more obvious it was that nothingness didn't leave him - it simply was inside him now. Not lived, wasn't able to. But it was there.
His powers were tinted by it, devoid of their usual brightness, decadent in a way that felt sickening.
Apocalypse truly thought he could contain it. Contain him. Control him, even. What a foolish thought, to control Death.
He stepped outside, a mingled, dried-out corpse left behind, and the night air caressed his face, ruffled his hair. Death paused for a moment, trying to feel it. In his head, in those faraway memories, the man he used to be loved the feeling of night air embracing him. He found it comforting and familiar.
Death stood there, eyes staring nowhere, and felt nothing.
He walked. The pain still buzzed under his skin. He found he missed it when it was gone.
He brought devastation wherever he went without trying. It was simply how he was built now. Any air was stale for him, no heat could warm him up, no pleas could reach his heart for he had none.
The nothingness sat deep in his bones. It unnerved him. He sought out ways of burning it out, but his own powers couldn't work. He turned to what was left of the memories of his previous life.
Burning coals were a poor substitute for cayenne. But it burned his tongue and he reached for more.
He let terrified people shoot at him, his coat now littered with bullet holes, because the sharp sting of lead piercing his muscle felt like a drug. He never liked it before. He did now.
Once, he found a pack of cigarettes abandoned on the street where he walked. He picked them up. His body remembered the ritual before he could try and find the memory in the vast nothingness.
Smoke dragged down his throat and filled his lungs. He held it there for a bit. It burned. Death opened his mouth, letting it escape, smoke leaking through his nose too, a cloud around his head. His eyes welled up. He went for another drag right away.
His body buzzed. For a moment, he saw burning red skies and green light. The night he died. The night the nothingness claimed him and never let go.
Death exhaled again, tilting his head as he looked up to the stars.
The man he used to be would've found them beautiful. He just saw bleak dots in the ocean of black.
Another memory flicked up to life like a light at the end of his cigarette.
A woman by his side. Bright smile. A striking white in her auburn hair. His heart fluttering in his chest not with terror but something else.
Death thought. His body seemed to hold a sharp pain in his gut whenever he thought about her. He found he wanted to think about her more.
And when her name surfaced, he walked again, another cigarette in his mouth, the smoke being his constant companion. Breathing hurt.
Death preferred pain over nothingness.