War after Death

After Life, peace. After Death, war. For in one, there is the other, and in the other, there is one.

Sweet, quiet and humble; the embrace of Death enlightens us all. It frees us, allowing us to go beyond the limits of mortality and the physical vessel. After Death, we are lost in the joy of our blissful freedom, after a period of sadness for the life we have lost and the people we have left behind. The joy can go on for years and years, decades or even centuries. But the second it ends, do you know what happens?

We go to war.

The sudden transition from freedom to war is rather unexpected, is it not? I was caught off guard too when I found myself on the side of hundreds of human souls, each armed and craving for vengeance. But the thing about Death is, quite unlike life, what you can do is only limited by your imagination - do you understand what the implies? You can be armed with anything; you can do anything.

Imagine the chaos of a battlefield, men armed with swords, spears, bows, burning oil, ballistae and every other horrifying creation of war you could imagine. Now imagine the same amount of men, but in a plane without limitations - do you understand? You cannot imagine it - don't even try - but I'm sure you at least understand. Every man can have strength beyond Hercules - there are no limits. If you imagine a sword in your hand, it is there. If you imagine spiritual RDX taped to the head of every other person out there and the trigger in your hand, it is there.

By the same token, if you imagine a force-field around you keeping everything at bay, it is there. Thus, battles rage on until the end of time, and they are all sparked by old feuds and thirsts of vengeance upon those who have died before you. Often a person seeks their enemy and attacks, and if they are smarter then their enemy flees and comes back with a group. Then the former person leaves and comes back with another group, then the enemy leaves and... well, you get the picture.

You do not die in death; if your essence is rent, you fade away in the Void, only to come back once the passage of time has healed you whereupon your foes or allies find you again and you are thrust into the unending rage of war for another time. There is no mental or physical exhaustion - your mind is always crystal-clear and the Void feeds us eternally with energy.

Death is both the freedom we crave and the chaos we fear; it is both the cure and the disease, it is both the ice and the fire. Death and life; both are different yet both are the same.

Reviews

[Master K-tops]

First of all,I like the overall writing. It is impressive,I like the imagery you created at some point there. But I do not understand the moral of the story. You talk about death like you've ever experienced it. Or that your story about was inspired by a particular myth or something. Or is it just your own philosophy? At first I thought death was just a metaphor,symbolising nirvana. Where we can choose to become numb and resistant to pain and anything that holds us back and then we are strong enough to achieve anything we imagine,but I later noticed that death was the key aspect of the writing.
I like the way this piece ois written,I just don't understand the message in it.

[Grand Scribe]

The entire story was meant to be a metaphor, that death is life; in the beginning, we are carefree and bliss. As time passes, however, the evils of life find their way to us and we are caught in an unending struggle that goes on for the majority of our existence. Death, being infinite, must be on a larger scale than life - that we experience centuries of bliss (in death) as opposed to the few years a human gets in childhood (during life). Then, we experience eternal struggle, as a human would experience growing into/through adulthood. In the end it is stated, "Death and life; both are different yet both are the same."

I can't explain it to you any clearer than that (forgive me, because I know my explanation was probably very obscure) and I cannot really explain how/why I wrote this - I get random bursts that eventually spin out into stories like this.

[Master K-tops]

You don't need to explain further,I get it. I'm sorry I made you explain,it's just that I felt like the writing is saying more that I first thought. So I had too ask. It felt too important for me not grasp its underlying meaning.

[Grand Scribe]

No worries :D I enjoy responding to people's comments and reviews.