DISCLAIMER: Nothing but headcanon and plot belongs to me. All characters are credited to Atsushi Ōkubo.
.:oOo:.
The absence of light — that was darkness, was it not? Blackness, nothing, void — it was supposed to be quiet, and cold; stillness.
So why was it blinding?
Something had been stolen from the air, sharp realization like shards of glass beneath bare feet and knees, the heels of palms and tips of bloodied fingers as they curled on tiled floors. Wide, jagged holes had split his chest, scattered his ribs and torn them away from their bases, everything that they protected left out and the open and far from whole.
The absence of light…
That realization was bitter, the greedy fangs of snakes and vicious clutch of bear traps burying their teeth deep along every inch of sickly, tepid skin, and every vein beneath. Every nerve.
It drooled over the reaper's bones, like sludge, and blood, and venom.
Not by any stretch of the imagination was it possible that this was an illusion that he could claw himself out of, or blink away. His subconscious was not kind enough to be so wicked.
The reaper knew by now that any nightmare he found himself sinking in, was real.
As real as the canyon in his soul, and the shudders that seized the pieces. As real as the difference between night and day, black and white—
Life, and him.
It was as real as the completion of stark, colorless rings in sleek, inky hair that marked the day of names losing their meaning, and gaining new ones. The day of rankings changing, and fragile humanity slipping through thin, pale fingers.
The day that he became nothing — nothing, but a fatherless entity.
This realization was cruel. Constricting, like icy hands to wrap around his throat and slice with tattered nails. Dragging limply carried blades to leave coils of crumpled veneer, folding his armor like paper and swallowing his screams as they turned to ash in the air around him.
Bright white was truly the heaviest of shadows, and the darkest of shades to don Death.
.:oOo:.