Mother knows best

Continuation ~~~~~~~

Mel tore off a piece of bloody flesh, quickly chewing it and then swallowing with a euphoric sigh. His tongue, which was visible on the corner of his mouth, licked his blood stained lips.

"T...asty." The word moved through his teeth and the shadow behind him seemed to grow darker.

Mel's eye's looked at Lesley's still face, his complexion not even pale after all the blood loss. To anybody else, Lesley looked like he was asleep.

Of course, only if one ignored the blood, the wound on his neck and the zombie holding him like a wisp of precious breath. Mel moved his head to the side and made it so they were facing each other.

"I... eat..." Mel's teeth clattered like an old maid in heels.

His eyes, were vacant of expression except a maddening hunger, so acute, that calling it starvation was not adequate. He wanted to rip Lesley apart, limb from limb, to savor his blood, feast on his innards and chew on every part of his being.

Yet he didn't.

To leave not even a skull behind. Flesh, blood, right down to his very bones, all to feast upon. Lesley's flesh tasted quite good too. Tender, soft and with a rich chew that could make an alcoholic quite liquor. He was delicious, he was perfect. He was his to enjoy.

Yet he was not devouring him.

None could imagine the desire to eat that was filling him. This was worse than anything the zombies outside felt. His bowels seemed to be an echo of a blackhole, empty and craving fulfilment. He had to eat, he'd go crazy if he didn't, why wasn't he eating him completely?

He had to...

He needed to...

He wanted to consume him whole!

Mel opened his mouth, his target Lesley's mouth, where he would rip off the lips. He was curious on how they would taste.

Simple zombie curiosity.

Or maybe it was something else, something distant in the back of his mind. Something so small, vague and unclear it did not register in his thoughts.

It was a voice.

[... kiss me.]

Who's voice and where it came from, or better yet, where he'd heard it was unknown. But it did not matter. Before Mel could get five centimeters near Lesley's face, everything died.

Literally.

The shadow behind him, flew in a flurry of darkness and enveloped everything. From the two beings, to the apartment building and every corpse inside it. Like the grip of the enemy of light, the grim darkness descended with a silent but finite embrace. It was heavy, thick and could choke a whale with one breath.

In an instant, Mel found himself floating in the eternal darkness. There was no place here, no direction and no anything. This was true nothingness, true emptyness, it was absolute.

This was the void. And he was alone.

.............

Nuis sat infront of a flickering flame,on a candle, embedded into black obsidian stone. The boy looked close to ten years old, wearing a blue shirt, green jacket and dark blue sweatpants. His blonde hair was soft looking and he had an air of lightness and brightness, that was pleasing. He would have looked like a normal human boy if it wasn't for his eyes.

They were two burning balls of orange fire.

The ireses were like the sun, the pupil a tardy grey white and yet the most striking thing about Nuis was his frame. He looked like a starved rat, on the brink of death. His skin held onto his body like a skinny suit on a skeleton, his palate was a grim and pale grey.

Ok, he didn't look human at all.

Right then, the mystical son of Death was looking at a human's last moment's. A favourite past time, for one who lived in the underworld. Of course, one could ask what joy is their in watching someone die?, but that person is human and could not, as well as should not, measure Nuis by human standards.

But not to say he was a monster, who enjoyed human suffering. The woman he was watching wasn't even in pain, she was passing away in her sleep. Also he was not a stalker, he only cared about the flickering candle flames, since they were very important.

The blonde boy's eyes glowed brighter as the candle flickered, and just as it was on the verge of going out, he jumped up and ate it. In the human world, the woman drew her last breath and her soul left her body, a small flame that plummeted to the darkness below.

Nuis raised his hand and the flame appeared, in the palm of his hand. With a wave of his hand, it turned to a small bubble of light, that floated away deeper into the dark cave. His eyes looked at it, before turning to where the candle once was, instead now there was an empty spot, waiting for a new candle.

They'd been a lot of those recently.

A cold, dark wind blew across the cave making the candles flicker and a thousand people collapse in a dead faint across the world. Nuis turned around and blinked, then his face flushed as he looked at his clothes. With a wave of his hand, the casual clothes disappeared.

In their place was a brown shirt made of an animal's stomach, pants made from leather and his feet were bare. Then again they were bare to begin with, he couldn't cut his feet on the rocks, that was literally impossible.

The dark wind blew for a moment more before finally, fading away. In the silence, a figure appeared, one of darkness, danger and... it was Death.

But she was very different from before.

Gone was the luminous skin, the shifting shadows that made up her veil and the blue eyes of a lake of frozen souls. In its place was a cloak of tangible darkness, like if night fell on her body and the star's withered with one touch upon her flesh. The skin, once smooth like porcelain had crumbled to dust, like it was deprived of life and nothing had altered more than her eyes. Gone was the lake, it seemed to have been swallowed whole by a darkness that rivalled her own cloak and in their center, two ruby red suns shined like blood eternal.

Nuis quivered when he saw his mother like that. Truth be told this was her real form but she was more fond of the first one she used. The only times she dropped her goddess like appearance, embracing her spectre like visage, was when she was mad.

Very, very mad.

"Mother?" Nuis called her name but Death did not answer, instead, she snapped her fingers. They were just black bones.

Lesley's body appeared from the darkness, floating on air, until he landed on the obsidian floor. Nuis had his eyes wide open as he looked at the body, unsure of what was happening. Death offered no explanation, but moved close and stared down at the body.

"Mother?" Nuis said softly and Death turned her head but did not look at him.

"What happened to Eldest?" Nuis asked,"Did-"

"Nuis," Death said slowly and multiple candles near her, went out in a flash. A man drowned, a woman died in labor, someone blew up, suicides rose up left and right, and an old lady fell down some stairs. Nuis saw it all in an instant and his heart would have sank if he had one.

She is very angry, he thought sadly.

"Go and fish out in the void. I left something there that... had bothered me and I... sought a peaceful resolve to it. When you find it, bring it here but do not show it to me until I am more... aware of mind."

Nuis did not ask who had earned a fate such as being thrown into the darkness eternal but he did as he was told. Exploding into a swarm of star bubbles, of various bright lights, he disappeared from sight.

As soon as he was gone, Death crumbled to her knees. Her face turned back to it's glorious image of the goddess of death, cold beauty and shadows. Black tears, shining like crystals, fell from her eyes as she looked at the dead body infront of her.

"I... failed. My love... I'm sorry. I failed our child. Sob!" Weeping sounds of pain echoed for miles and across the world people paused whatever they were doing.

In their hearts rose a feeling, of loss and pain so profound it was like being kissed by grief. Tears rose in their eyes and a few children started crying for no reason, much to their parents confusion.

Death raised her hand and placed it on Lesley's chest, feeling his lack of a pulse and deep inside... far away in a dark place was an ocean of pure blackness. In the center was a glowing green ball that was as large as a skyscraper but also as small as a soccer ball.

Three faces were looking at the ball; A young man wearing a silky green cloak, a man wearing a golden and green royal cloak and a young nude man in the water, his face turned to the ball.

It was Liv, Lich and Lesley.

The first two looked no different than before when Lesley saw them, but the same could not be said about the human. His incorporeal body was fading into nothingness and Death knew what would happen when he disappeared completely.

It would not be pretty. For her or the world.

She raised her hand and patted Lesley's cheek fondly, not even noticing the blood since it did not dare get on her fingers.

"I wish to do more. I wish more could be done. But this is all I can do... for now." She said and like a rattlesnake, her hand struck. Piercing through his flesh, ribs and grabbing onto a blood stained organ.

It was Lesley's heart.

With one final look at Lesley's face, Death pulled and the red head's chest opened to let her pull his heart out. It was still, not beating at all and that made it truer that Lesley was dead.

But he would not stay like that for long.