[𝐁𝐋] 𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐃𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄

EXORDIUM

𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐚 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐞

Life could be filled with prosperity and delightful dreams,

but suddenly it could be blocked with hopelessness and nightmares.

Of course, not everything was grim. There were moments when light would shine through an ominous cloud, pampering the world with promise and opportunity. People constantly lived through obstacles. They laughed and cried. They learned from the worst and how to handle the dreadful times to better themselves.

Life was always like an evolving butterfly.

Through its first stages, the caterpillar would travel around, encounter unique situations, and feed itself with leaves to help itself grow. Then, on one fateful day when the caterpillar would have its full, it will appoint a spot to transform itself permanently.

No one is the same—but everyone is similar. We have hearts, minds, and feelings. Some smile, some don't, but we can all do that well.

But yet, there was this one man.

Since young, this one particular boy would carry death everywhere he went.

First was his mother, who died conceiving him. Then his father, who killed himself out of sorrow for his deceased lover, leaving behind young Azrail alone with his sole surviving relatives; his grandparents. His grandparents then died when he was just five years old due to a car crash, leaving them scorched and beyond recognition; and by then everyone saw him for what he believed he was: a death magnet.

At seven, he was chosen into a loving and kind family. They then died once Azrail was eighteen years old, their lives being taken too early from that world in a fire calamity.

Azrail continued explaining to himself that he no longer had any more tears to shed—but with every death, further tears seemed to emerge from a foreign corner in his heart.

One day when Azrail was out on a camping trip with five of his friends, an unanticipated rain shower occurred, leaving all five of his friends ambushed in a mudslide, asphyxiating them to death.

In every death—in every last breath—Azrail could always feel the cold, lurking awareness of death breathing against his neck as if motivating him to curse at him.

But he never did. How could he when it was never death's fault, but his own?

Even with the unceasing tears, Azrail's only burning light was a dream—the dream of becoming a surgeon.

And so Azrail went to medical school for five lengthy years before gaining his bachelor's degree at the age of 24. Afterwards, he worked inside of an institution, granting another five long years to saving others and learning everything he could to better himself.

But the devotion he had for his profession wasn't enough.

After eleven failed operations, Azrail ultimately had nothing else to live for. Everything he clung to was now gone.

So, with death's eyes trained on him since birth, he finally let go of his last breath.

But why was death so fixated on him?

Well, for an unusually good reason.

Azrail was elected to become the next God of Death—and it seems that other gods had also thought the same things as the current God of Death.

Now five humans are being moved through the lives of being a god and its burdens, while also interweaving with one another, getting closer and closer as the days go by.

While Azrail finds these men refreshing to be around, the other four men's emotions start to change.

They want more than Azrail is providing them.

The fact that he is also applying his consideration to each other, but not just one of them, is too aggravating for one another to handle.

Perhaps there can only be two gods in the outcome.

Forever.