It was cold tonight, the wind shivering as the world grew cooler, quieter.

The moon hid tonight, slithering behind bloated clouds filled with rain.

The earth retreated tonight, against the unnatural feet that stalked across it, feet that held a body that held no blood.

The woman hunted.

Leather pants heating up as she leaped with a speed that was far from human, the rough bark of trees sliding against her feet before they met solid ground again. The sky fled from her, nature retracting its hands from the world as its abomination took flight.

Eyes that saw through blinding darkness, caught the fluttered movement of squirrels and shot towards them, catching fur and tail between incisor-like teeth.

Blood slid between her fangs, the dark red liquid flooding her body with warmth, however fleeting.

She stopped suddenly, the wind itself bending backwards to avoid her presence. A leaf floated against a stolen gust of wind, its purple surface catching a fleeting glimmer of the moon; turning the world a deep purple.

He was here.

Attaire stiffened.

“What brings such a breathtaking immortal to my forests,” laughed a voice as soft as snow. The voice knew full well that no one, not even an immortal, could ignore Death’s sweet call.

Something flickered in the shadows, and Attaire laughed to cover the fear that flooded her senses.

“King of the dead, Reaper of souls. If you’re so powerful why hide in the shadows like a coward?” she snarled, masquerading her fear with anger.

A figure broke away from the darkness, the only evidence of its movement a faint glimmer.

Death.

“So, the legends are true then,” Attaire replied, fear making her voice catch. Death paused in his stride, a smile transforming his shadowy face, hidden from view.

“Are you afraid…to die?” Death asked, a question he never tired of asking, even after millenniums.

Attaire, body shivering with adrenaline and anger, screamed; a high pitched wail that broke branches, their echoed falls cascading through the eerily quiet night.

“I’m an immortal,” she roared, as if assuring herself of the fact. “Death can’t touch me!” she exclaimed, chiseled body contorting as she leapt for Death, the only thing standing in the way of her eternal life.

Something shot towards her flickering figure, moving too quickly for even her inhumane eyes to follow. Mid leap she collapsed, what felt like burning ice tearing through her flesh, shooting towards her heart.

She cried out and dropped to the ground. Withering in pain and grabbing at her throat her lungs searched desperately for oxygen.

She hadn’t taken a breath for over a century . . .

She hadn’t need to—until now.

“It’s a terrible thing, to end a life so beautiful,” Death sighed, his face slowly coming into focus. Attaire watched, frozen, as Death’s shadowy form slowly took shape, once unrecognizable features becoming sharply defined, noxiously beautiful.

A sound, like crying violins, floated through her mind, carrying with it the promise of an end to the endless pain of eternal damnation. The world—the human world—took on a fuzzy quality, Attaires’ senses, the ones she’d always relied on, the ones that made her immortal, quickly drifting away from her.

“It really quite easy . . .  to let go,” Death whispered, his voice rising and falling like waves against a shore. Attaire’s eyes grew heavy, and she panicked, suddenly afraid of the unknown.

What would happen now . . . ?

“Now . . .” Death replied. “. . . You sleep.”

Attaire struggled one final time as her eyes lost their sight, muscles relaxing as her mind slowly . . .  let . . .  go . . . and with a tired sigh, she stopped breathing, and disappeared.

-Short Story written by Jae Lei Nyght

©2013JaeLeiNyght