I try not to kill.

If you've ever watched the movie Final Destination, you would find me a murderer. Another example of a malevolent Death. I normally take people after they die, or set the events of their deaths in motion. But I try not to actually kill people. But it isn't easy. Even Death feels anger.

This thought takes me back to the first time I ever had to actually kill. It was in Egypt. This was where I earned the name Angel of Death. As well as “the Destroyer” and “the Destroying Angel”. I wonder if this was also where my name Azrael originated. Azrael being a mythological archangel of Death residing in the Third Heaven, as well as being the embodiment of evil.

Yes, I do have lovely names, don't I?

Anyway, the time I was orchestrated the most was in Egypt. You may all know the story, I should hope you do. I was the greatest plague. I was the breaking point. And I still look back on the memory with partial disgust.

Humans are powerless against me. Simple fact. Ignoring popular myth and urban legend, I cannot be cheated. I cannot be bribed, tricked, nothing can forestall your end. Simple rule of the world. God knows when you go. And when you do, if need be, I'll come for you.

I remember . . .

I watched the chosen people suffering for so long in the hands of one of the greatest empires the world has ever known. The Egyptians are legendary, as they should be. The first true world power. And I was part of their destruction.

I heard the order on the wind. A powerful whisper that echoed within the confines of time. I knew what it was. I had been watching as the Heavenly Father reigned destruction on the Egyptians, turning their own pagan religion against them. I watched as the greatest false deities they worshiped were sent upon them with holy wrath.

And now, I, Death, in their religion Anubis and Osiris, would come for them. Instructions spoke to me in breaths with the breeze. I melted to my original form. Empty, hollow, frozen black. The cold claw of doom.

I was still invisible, though, and I rose up and soared slowly through the air. A cloud of destruction. I hovered above the massive city for a moment, observing the silence. I could feel the blood on the doors, and I knew that those were to be left alone.

The rest I pitied.

Without another thought I fell.

I swept silently into the streets, like a hunter I felt for the unprotected first-born. I moved mercilessly, carrying out my dark deed. The first person I killed . . the feeling was so foreign to me. I actually ended a life. A sanctioned murderer. An omnipresent force in the world, I now acted with near reckless abandon.

I destroyed the ties of all those who would not heed warning, I ended their union with this world. Effectively damning them all. I could feel them growing cold. Like I was a great wind descending over thousands of candles. And when I had passed, thousands of those lights had been snuffed out.

How cruel, how cold, I had become in that moment. I knew it was part of the Lord's plan, therefore it could not be questioned nor denied, but it still troubled me all the same. Looking back now, I had become what popular horror culture now depicts me as: A mindless, destructive entity with only the drive to kill and to end.

I was a great wave, an invisible tsunami. I crushed all that stood defenseless before me. I had truly become a force of nature. A great, natural cataclysm that suddenly turned unnatural.

I could hear their souls screaming as they came out of their bodies. Some passed almost instantly, but all those that lingered for even a moment cried out to their gods when they saw what I was: The black cloud. A wispy, shadowy nightmare. But all too real.

Finally, when it was over, I traveled with the wind far out into the desert and returned to a humanoid state. Feeling overly horrified by my actions, I collapsed. I lay staring at the sky, then unobstructed by pollution and artificial light, and thought over what I had done.

The twinkling stars far above reminded me of all the people I had killed. I could still hear their screams. I could still feel their lives shattering, their souls breaking free. I think that was when I really changed for the first time. Up until that point, I had prayed often for the souls of the deceased, though I'm sure they meant little. I had valued every life. I saw every breath taken, the beat of every heart, as sacred.

But at that moment I began to see life as trivial. So easily ended. How frail human ties to time and Earth were. How utterly meaningless they all seemed. I looked at human existence and wondered: What was so incredible? They were so weak. So easily killed. When the life of one ended, how often was its impact that great? Truly that important?

Life lost its luster, to say the least.

In the grand scheme of things, I didn't see how humans could matter. They were nothing. Just a waste of an existence. After killing so many, life lost its value. I didn't see the point in worrying over them anymore.

That was when I stopped praying. That was when I began to stop wondering. That was when I stopped caring. And after thousands of years of seeing it happen over and over again, I began to question even the need for Azrael, the infamous Angel of Death.