Chapter 0

The girl stood before me. I did not know it at this moment, but she was indeed Death.

Death has, time and time again, been shown in multiple, often different, forms: The Grim Reaper, the thirteenth card of the major Arcana, a white horseman or just a simple skeleton.

This girl, however, was nothing but the like. She wore a black, frilly and western dress, small golden skulls etched onto it. On her hat was a black and tall cylinder, a white band strapped across it.

Her eyes were thoroughly dark and her hair was well-kept, long and white. The girl looked out of the ordinary, but I did not think twice of it.

I did not think twice of anything, to be quite honest.

We were in the middle of a village. Ancient temples were destroyed, bodies were thrown on the ground, the smell of blood and pure violence lay in the air.

Yet she stood there, calm and unimpressed.

I? I was not able to even register it. I did not look at the destruction around me. I did not even understand what happened. The only thing I saw, the only thing I registered… was the girl in front of me.

“Is it not strange? Humans cling to their life. They look at their friends and try to keep them alive. They look at their temples and pray to their gods. They cling to their structures and governments and try to follow them.

Yet, at the very end of their life, they cannot look at anything but their impending doom. They desperately cling to their own life, ignoring everything around them.

I ask of you, last survivor, if I were to give you a choice:

Would you throw away your life if it meant to save the lives of the civilians? Would you throw away your life if it meant to rebuild the empty temples? To reclaim the promised glory of structures?”

I did not answer. Maybe I did not have a tongue. Maybe I did not have an answer. Maybe I did not have enough energy to speak. Maybe I did not have the courage to accept the answer I’d utter.

Her pure black eyes stared into the deepest part of my soul.

“Very well. Keep quiet, oh simple human. For silence is brushing off any kind of responsibility you could possibly have. You might be calling yourself innocent, if you were asked. You may call yourself unable to choose and thus happily live on. For you stayed silent. For you did not actively choose the death of your people, your gods and your system.

You managed to survive the events that happened on this very day. And you simply loved your own life. There is nothing immoral about not giving away your own life. It is human, through and through.”

The woman smiles. She has aged. After all, time is constantly passing.

“Just as time will proceed to pass, you humans shall continue to live. And so you will live on. You survived the present day. You survived the meeting with Lady Death herself. You may believe yourself to be immortal, and you are free to think what you want. After all, thoughts are meant to be your own and should not - at least in my opinion - ever be restricted.

You are the survivor. Disaster has struck and everything in this area has ended. Yet you still are.

Your meeting with me has marked you. You shall act as one of my children.

Isuri Bankoku. You shall be a child of death, for you are the survivor of today.”

With these words, the lady vanished. The wind simply made her disappear thoroughly, just like that. She had turned into black dust, which has spread all around the world yet again. The black dust, which lies atop everything, the one you only notice once you actively see it. It has also laid itself upon the very sword I hold. The very sword I have grasped in order to protect and fight. The very sword that I once called my dearest companion. The very sword that was once the only thing that came close to humans for me. The very sword that is now the only thing I have left.

In my mind, I heard it speaking.

“Interpret it as you want; Did I mean to spare you? Did you cheat death? Were you blessed, were you smart, were you strong, were you anything that helped you to survive? Was there a reason why you survived? Was there anything at all?

The answer is not important. Not to me, that is. One day, I shall come back. I shall claim you as my own and force you into my domain, whether you’d like to or not. After all, I am Lady Death. And I will never stop being Death. For everything will end one day. And I shall be the last one to ever end. Only once all of my brothers and sisters have perished, only once everything and everyone has ended, will I lay down. And I will certainly end.

Thus, every single thing must die.

Memento Mori - Remember that you must die.”