I was transfixed by the scene before me, as though watching a tragedy unfold that I had no part in and yet felt deeply connected to. The man—this man I knew, though I couldn't place from where—seemed so small now, his wealth, love, and power reduced to meaningless abstractions. He knelt before Death, his voice hoarse and desperate, pleading as though he could bargain with inevitability.
Death, however, was unmoved. His form was not monstrous or divine, but something worse—completely indifferent. He stood like a figure etched into the stillness, a shadow that no light or time could touch. And yet, when the man asked his final question "why am i here why me", Death's answer came, smooth and implacable, his voice cutting through the silence like the edge of a blade.
"Yes," Death said, his tone devoid of pity, "remember—curiosity kills the cat. You knew enough, but still asked for more. Your greed for answers, your endless hunger to control and understand, brought you here. You are not condemned for ignorance but for defiance. You knew the boundaries, and you crossed them, not out of need but out of arrogance."
The man's face twisted, a grotesque blend of grief and rage. "But what was I supposed to do?" he cried. "I had everything, yes—but it was never enough! There was always something more, something beyond my grasp! Are we not made to strive? Is this not the purpose of man, to reach higher, to seek truth, even at the cost of himself?"
Death tilted his head slightly, as if pondering the question, though his expression remained unreadable. "To seek," he said slowly, "is not sin. To destroy in the seeking—that is where you faltered. In your hunger, you consumed others. You played God with lives that were not yours to toy with. Your sins are not curiosity alone but the pride that made you believe you could devour the world and leave it unscarred."
The man's shoulders shook, and for a moment, I thought he might collapse entirely. But he raised his head, defiant still, his eyes burning with some ember of fury that had not yet died. "Then why grant us the capacity to ask?" he demanded. "Why give us minds that hunger for the infinite and then punish us for reaching beyond our limits? Is this not cruelty? Is this not entrapment?"
At this, Death smiled faintly—though it was not a smile of joy or malice, but one of inevitability, as though the question had been asked a thousand times before.
"Because the infinite is not for you," Death said. "You are creatures of the finite, and your tragedy lies in forgetting that. There is grace in boundaries, in knowing the limits of your existence. But you—" Death leaned closer, his shadow stretching over the man—"you sought to consume the infinite, as if it could be held in your mortal grasp. You sought to become more than human, and now, you are less."
The man shuddered, his defiance crumbling into despair. He slumped forward, his forehead touching the ground, and for a moment, I thought he might weep. But no tears came. He was empty now, his pride and fury drained, leaving only a hollow shell of the man he had once been.
"What happens now?" he whispered, his voice trembling. "Do I burn? Do I fade?"
Death straightened, his presence growing colder, heavier, as though the void itself was closing in. "What happens next," he said, "is what you have chosen. You will linger in the shadow of your questions, drifting in the endless echoes of your own thoughts. You sought answers that were not meant for you, and now you will dwell in them, alone, until they consume what little remains of you."
The man let out a low, guttural sound—a cry, a gasp, a plea that never fully formed. And then, as though the ground beneath him had vanished, he was gone, swallowed into the infinite black.
I stood there, frozen, my breath shallow and uneven. Death turned toward me, his gaze piercing yet strangely calm. He did not speak, but in that moment, I understood the warning his presence carried.
Curiosity kills the cat. I couldn't fathom what he meant by that but when i understood i knew it was my turn.