Microfictions, Week 11: Pale Horse and Death

Preface:

If you haven't already, you should check out the previous installments in the series: 

Part 1:
White Horse and Pestilence  

Part 2:

Red Horse and War

Part 3: 

Black Horse and Famine

CW: graphic descriptions, death

Pale Horse:

The haunting silence was much welcome after hours of hungry screams. Eren dismounted her horse and felt the ground for the first time this wretched night. She shook out her legs and stretched, ridding her body of the tension. As she placed her feet back on the ground, she noticed that the soil beneath her felt very unusual. It almost felt... more fertile? 

Before she could so much as take a breath, a bony arm sprung out from the ground and grabbed her fleshy thigh. Eren could feel herself slipping, so she grabbed her dagger and sliced away at the arm. The bone was uncharacteristically tough, and her blade met its match with the stringy sinew around it. The arm continued to drag her down into the Earth. She strained to look upwards and saw that her horse was spooked and fleeing in a hurry. After some effort, she turned her head and saw just what had spooked her horse. Death and his pale green horse stood before her, patiently waiting for her to notice. 

"You are the last one of this town, Eren," Death spoke in a low and gravelly voice. "But, that doesn't matter any more. The rest of your village has been dealt with, and you are soon to follow."

He placed his index and middle finger on Eren's forehead, and then drove his arm through her skull. His hand effortlessly ripped through her bones, her brain, her tissue. All of her dreams, memories, achievments... gone without so much as a word. His hand surged through her body until he reached her heart and ripped it out with his cold fingers. Eren's soul left her body with a lifeless whimper. 

Eren had braced herself and was preparing for the worst, but she could still see. She was very shocked by this, but realized that Death literally removed her soul from her body. She could still see the body that was once so familiar to her slipping into the Earth. As her body was swallowed into the ground, her soul swirled around her heart, which Death held in his steady hand. "Any last words?" Death asked with a grin on his face. 

Eren tried to speak, but she quickly realized that she was not in control of any bodily functions. She looked back at Death, just to see him cackle and shove her soul into a flask. Once inside the flask, she could see that he still held her heart in his cold, pale hand. He smiled, revealing rows on rows of sharp and gleaming fangs. He ghoulishly cackled and screamed "Oh GOODY, dessert! This should be awfully SWEET!" 

With that, Eren watched as he devoured her heart in one bite and severed her last mortal tether. She was no more. 

Death:

Death came, licking his lips of lurid blue

Earth reclaim'd the town, its rest long o'erdue

Author's Note:

I thought that it would be really cool to do a series on the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, so I decided to make this a four part series, and I started with Pestilence, the Rider of the White Horse. The next one in the cycle is War, the Rider of the Red Horse. The one after that is Famine, the Rider of the Black Horse. This one is Death, the Rider of the Pale Horse. I decided to write the first story as a 100 word story, and then the second as a more traditional couplet (in iambic pentameter). As the story between the four installations got more in-depth, the first story got longer and longer, but I hope that you still find it enjoyable. 

(Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse - Image Credit: Boris Vallejo - Flickr)