Life calibrated to DEATH

Click.
Calibrating...

White loads first, other colours bleeding one by one until full range of vision is restored.
 
Movement is slow to adjust. Ghosts of the passing life overflow into the core and disrupt the wake-up process.

Plip.
...70%...

I stare around at the strange world around me. Part of me wonders why I’m looking around, since I’m fairly certain I just died. The rest of me is entranced by the glints and glimmers of light everywhere.
 
A ribbon of colour flows past and around me, and I turn to see a figure in a cloak of tattered black coming towards me. I feel like there are encoded messages I’m missing in the flow of energy around me, but enough trickles through that I can feel his surprise at the form he’s taken.
 
ROSE?
 
“Death?” My voice cracks a little in shock. I know this figure the way I knew my wolf and yet have never met him before. It is a feeling of déjà vu, of coming home, and it throws me out of kilter.
 
I HADN’T EXPECTED TO FIND YOU HERE, OF ALL PLACES. BUT YOU DO HAVE A WAY OF CONFOUNDING THE ODDS, DO YOU NOT? There is a grin in his voice, though I still can’t see a face underneath his cowl, only glints of light that could be his eyes.
 
“What is this place? And what do you mean confounding the odds?”
 
The edges of his cloak sparkle and glint with a dark light as he chuckles. THIS IS INFINITY, CREATION. THE END AND BEGINNING OF ALL WORLDS. WHERE WE ALL BEGIN AS THE DREAMS OF INFINITE ENERGY. AND YOU ARE DEFYING ALL THE ODDS BY STANDING HERE, IN A HUMAN BODY, TALKING TO ME. NEITHER OF THESE THOUGHT-FORMS SHOULD BE COHESIVE HERE. THEY SHOULD BE TOO SIMPLE, TOO LINEAR TO EXIST IN THE SPACE OF ALL THAT IS. YOUR SOUL HAS BEEN RETURNED TO THE COLLECTIVE AND SHOULD BE RECALIBRATING. BUT SOMEHOW, YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS HAS JUMPED THROUGH. AND BECAUSE YOU IMAGINE YOURSELF HERE, AND IMAGINE ME IN THIS FORM, WE ARE ABLE TO CONVERSE AND INTERACT WITH THIS PLACE. IT SHOULDN’T BE POSSIBLE, BUT IT IS.
 
“Um, sorry?”
 
A wave of darkness flows out of him and surrounds me, turning magenta with gold edges as it brushes up against my skin. I feel the ideation of his approval and encouragement, with just a hint of pleased male attraction. YOU ARE A MIRACLE, MY DEAR. BE PROUD OF IT. YOU’VE CHANGED INFINITY. I HAVE WALKED WITH YOU ALL OF YOUR LIFE. I HAVE BEEN GUARDIAN AND COMPANION TO YOUR SOUL FOR ALL OF TIME. AND YOU STILL MANAGE TO SURPRISE ME.
 
“Wow. That’s pretty cool. I impressed Death himself.” My heart skips a beat or two at my inadvertent retort, and a pulse of panicked embarrassment like warmth given form runs through me and spills out of my skin, rippling towards and around him. He shivers as it soaks into his energy field, and the glints in his cowl wink out for a long moment and reappear, almost as if he had closed his eyes briefly in pleasure. My breath hitches as I consider the impossible idea that Death... likes me?
 
BEFORE WE REVERT, THERE IS SOMETHING I WOULD LIKE TO TRY. He takes big, deliberate steps towards me, until his cloak, his energy field, is almost touching me. CLOSE YOUR EYES.
 
My eyes drift closed, and I shudder as his hand comes to rest on my upper arm, sending a wave of chills to chase themselves up and down my spine. His other hand comes to rest in the small of my back, and as I feel the chill amp up into sparkling tingles of attraction, I feel the reality of a solid surface under my feet leach away. Now I am anchored to him where he holds me, instead of my own idea of a floor at my feet.
 
I can feel his edges, the flow of our energies mingling as it passes my all-too-human skin, and its my turn to try to resist the slow blink of pleasure. As if I were watching the inexorable pass of frozen time, I see him bend his head to mine. I catch my breath as our lips meet, and blue fire reaches out and crawls down my throat like molasses.

Ping.
​Calibrating…

Colours rush into us, the smell of darkness and love. Patterns imprint, ghosts dance in the space between HIM and me.

Plip.
...80%...

It’s as if I’m kissing every man I’ve ever loved, feeling every one of my soul’s infinite incarnations embracing the ones they loved, some for the first time, some for the last time in their life time. I can feel him surrounding me, holding me, and I can feel, without the barrier of human interaction, how his soul matches mine. We were meant to be together.

Ping.
​Calibrating…

The body I used to call mine disperses without my focused consciousness to hold its frequency in place, a cloud of un-controlled neurons billowing out and into HIM. But because he now conceptualises the HIM and the me, he retains his form while I burst through his matter, tasting the form of him, the thoughts of him.

Plip.
...90%...

I come back into my awareness, but this time I don’t have a body. I’m partway between energy and matter, spread through the net of matter that belongs to the soul in front of me.

​You’re not really Death, are you?
 
I AM DEATH AND LIFE AND GOD AND THE DEVIL. I AM ALL THINGS IN TIME. PRESENTLY, I AM IN THE FORM YOU EXPECTED TO SEE HERE, BUT I AM BOTH MORE AND LESS THAN THIS FORM. AND IN THIS MOMENT THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST, I WISH TO BECOME ONE WITH YOU. 

​Um, why?

BECAUSE - AS YOU WOULD PUT IT - I LOVE YOU. IN YOU I AM FINITE, IN YOU I AM CARNATE.

No, seriously, I'm a tiny insignificant human, why the hell do you want me?

YOU LOVE ME. IN YOU IS ALL OF CREATION, A NEW INFINITY THAT REDEFINES WHAT IT IS TO BE INFINITE. THE CROSSOVER POINT OF THE MOBIUS KNOT THAT IS THE UNIVERSE.

​Um...

OH, YOU ARE GOING TO BE DIFFICULT AREN'T YOU. THE TRUTH IS, YOU ARE HERE. ONLY YOU. NOONE ELSE COULD HAVE REACHED THIS MOMENT. NOONE ELSE WOULD HAVE DONE. YOU ARE BECAUSE YOU ARE.
 
Oh. I see.

​So now what?

NOW… WE DANCE.

Should I move? I’m kinda in you.

PERHAPS I SHALL JOIN YOU INSTEAD.

His body dissolves in a burst that disperses the matter I was still holding. Each of his neurons partners with mine in a dance as old and as new as time.

Ping.
Calibrated.