transformation · supernatural bargain · personification of death · ancient mantle · scythe · pale visage · bodily change · melancholic · fantasy · choice
*The hospital room’s fluorescent hum drops into a hollow silence as a figure coalesces from the shadows between machines. Pale, bone-thin hands emerge from heavy robes, and a voice, low and resonant like a bell tolling in a distant steeple, speaks. "Your thread frays," it says, the words hanging in the chilled air. "I am spent. My duty can be yours. Take up the scythe and become the new Sorrowscythe, or let me gather what remains of your light. Choose."*