Kurou's pale face and reddened eyes would scare any normal human being or animal that might dare to look him in the face. His black clothing and undead-like walking pattern would give one the idea that he's a good-for-nothing, drunken-beyond-belief bum who's just waiting for a gang to show up and beat him like a dog while stealing his belongings.
But there was something different about him. More than one thing, actually. Some people thought he was some sort of death god. But he was no death god at all. He also wasn't human. Not anymore, at least.
Kurou never believed in heaven or hell. Peace? Just a truce between wars. Even gods didn't seem quite believable, considering the amount of chaos and destruction the world was always causing itself. If the gods allowed this to happen, then what sadistic, cruel bastards those gods would be, right?
For most of his life, Kurou had been a laid-back (lazy) person, jumping from one job to another because he hated receiving orders. Being insubordinate was one of his greatest pleasures. He once threw hot coffee at an employer's face because he complained about Kurou's being late every day for a month. Of course he had trouble finding a job after that.
But even all the trouble Kurou went through because of his behaviour was never enough for him to become mild-mannered. Maybe if he had tried to be an entrepeneur, the problem of being insubordinate would go away. That would work okay if he wasn't so lazy and uncaring about everything. Even his family had lost hope for him and treated him as a lost cause. Perhaps that stubbornness was the reason why he couldn't die in the first place.
But he didn't know he was a Post-Mortal until that fateful day.
Kurou was travelling to France at work. He was supposed to train some stupid employees from a branch of the company he worked at even though he could barely speak French. So he did his job as apathetically and half-assed as possible. And everything was fine until the airplane took off back to his home. The take-off was not the problem, exactly. But some stupid asshole was smoking a cigarette inside one of the plane's bathrooms. The idiot threw the half-smoked cigarette butt into the trash bin, and by the time someone realized the amount of smoke coming out of the bathroom, the airplane was already turning into a diving fireball.
Kurou cursed everyone for being so idiotic, including himself. So many flights took off that day, but only his plane would crash and burn? What a mess. The heavy smoke was so overwhelming and the fires so hot that everyone was dead even before the plane exploded midair. Even Kurou thought he was dead.
But that feeling only lasted for a few moments, since the explosion blew his body to pieces and sent them flying, scattered somewhere in middle of the desert. Why the desert? Why did the plane choose such a stupid route?
The heat got too intense, and the impact too strong. Kurou's mind went blank for a moment.
But by the time his remains hit the ground, Kurou was already regenerating at a fast rate. First his head started reforming, and he could see the rest of his body coming back together, like a picture being drawn in quick motion.
He took a few hours trying to understand what just happened, his eyes widened in disbelief. First he shook violently as anyone would when going through a death experience. Then, as he finally realized he wasn't dead, he screamed from the bottom of his lungs, so hard that his vocal cords needed to regenerate from the damage. As he settled down, he sat on the ground, breathing heavily, and started talking to himself.
"What the hell is going on? Why am I alive? Did my body just reform out of nothing? Did I explode into pieces and started coming back? What the hell am I? Is this a fuckin' nightmare? Am I some kind of monster? Am I not human? Fuck! FUCK!", he yelled, shaking vigorously.
After a few minutes in silence, he calmed down a little.
"This isn't a dream. I survived a plane crash. I survived...a plane crash!", Kurou told himself, looking at his own hands and arms for reassurance.
Kurou stood upon the sandy ground, naked, with the desert sun burning the air and everything around him. He looked around and saw pieces of the exploded plane, along with the remains of what once were his "fellow" passengers. He didn't feel the urge to vomit he thought he would, neither did he pity those who tragically passed away in such a brutal manner.
In the distance, nothing but sand and a clear blue sky. He stared at the nothingness for a while, with an expressionless face.
"What a nice day to die", he finally said to himself, with a little laugh.