[ WP ] What if Death found a reason to live ?

A young woman lay on a bed, eyes closed but not really closed. To the family surrounding her, she was asleep; her husband sat with a hand in hers, face haggard. 
 
 A young boy lay curled up next to her, nestled in close and making the hospital gown on her rustle every time he shifted. He had refused to leave. 
 
 Marie looked asleep to them, but her other eyes were on Him. They had been chatting a fair while now. 
 
 `` I am the oldest God.'' 
 
 She had asked him if he was God. To her, he looked like a tall, middle-aged man with silver streaks in his otherwise dark hair. He wore plainclothes. 
 
 `` I am also the simplest of them all.'' 
 
 `` The story I want to tell you, Marie, harkens back to my first days. By the time I'm finished I'll give you a choice I offer once or twice every few generations.'' 
 
 -- -- -- -- -- -- 
 
 I knew from the moment of my birth, that I was not like my parents. My eyes first opened to soot and blackness, and a guttering, spitting orange-yellow light. I knew I was something new, and I could feel brothers and sisters like myself waking for the first time as well. It is one of my strongest memories. 
 
 In short order it was clear to me that my creators could sense me, but chose to shut me out from their sight. It was part of my being. They had no choice but to make me from their fears and new emotions and feelings. What I'm talking about is cave men. I realized I was the first God. They always looked to me first, out of fear. 
 
 Of course as soon as I realized that, I felt hungry, and driven. I was compelled, bidden; to be wherever death must be. But only for them. Cave men. It was n't as if the animals had created me. It was this peculiar creature, caveman. 
 
 At first I was sloppy. I was in many places at once, but in each place individually too. Each woman or man dying for whatever reason - I did n't care, I did n't know how to care - was but a compulsion to reap. I would look into their eyes and take whatever it was they had collectively used to create me. It did n't give me power. What it did give me was satisfaction. Like a job well done. I was real, and I knew it every time I reaped. I had to feel real. This was, for me, life. 
 
 At first I did not interact with my fellow Gods. I was the strongest, the oldest, but the most aloof. I felt when the others first reached out to one another. I felt them watching me. I never had to drive them off - they never approached me. It was an unspoken rule that I stood alone. 
 
 As generations passed and we began to understand the world around us, and understand our creators, we assumed our mantles with a more regal posture. Well, they did. I was more sensible with my duties. They played, I worked. I was above them and always would be. 
 
 After all, it was n't long before I would come for a God or two individually, as our progenitors grew in their capacity for imagination. Gods could die, now, apparently. There were few constants in their imaginations and world, but I was one of them. Even the immortality they imagined, was always brought low by death. 
 
 I began to feel myself changing, subtly. My birth moment began to feel primal, compared to the more complex thoughts that my creators were assigning me. I was allowed to be... compassionate, ironic, playful and sinister. I would employ these over time. 
 
 Until the cave men began to disappear. When I was born there were many, but it was not long before they either began to change or simply gave way to another kind of man. I was afraid that this meant I too would give over to other Gods. Many of the others already had, while other, foreign Gods joined the world pantheon behind me, not made by the cave men. I wondered if they would be different, and maybe spend time with me. 
 
 Alas, it seemed the same rules that bound me and mine also bound the lines between the foreign, new Gods of men from me. 
 
 I was created by cave men. But the minds of'modern' men respected my authority, my reign. They adopted me easily. I felt freer, too, from the bounds of my compulsion to reap. I occasionally let someone slip me by for a handful of years, just to test my tolerance for it. It was a game I would play every now and then. I'd always win. 
 
 I've watched my progenitors fade, and I've dutifully minded my existence for my adoptive family, you humans. You have killed, and been killed, and savaged and been savage. More so than the cave men. You've given me work for many life times. I've never asked for anything, ever. Except I began to ask, each of the ones I'd let slip me by a few years, if they'd play a game with me. 
 
 A little test. A challenge. 
 
 The first I asked, if he would maybe live a little longer. Well, he does n't remember me asking. Your minds are so fragile, so fearful of me like the cave men. You contrive little stories after we've talked, to make sense of it all so you do n't break down. 
 
 Anyway, he agreed, that one. He was from a village on the shore of a sea and a great desert. He lived a while longer, a fair while actually; but in the end his mind broke and he remembered me, and he begged for me to visit him. 
 
 And so it is, every time. You give in to me. Just as you created me, you obey my existence, my task. 
 
 -- -- -- -- -- -- 
 
 `` So, Marie, would you like to accept my challenge?'' 
 
 The woman tried to sit up, but realized that was silly. She was n't really awake. Or was she? She wondered. 
 
 `` Do I have a choice?'' 
 
 Death smiled at her in a friendly way. He meant it to be comforting. 
 
 `` Of course you do. Many of your kind believe one or other of us Gods gave you the free capacity for choice. I do n't know anything about that, just that I'm not going to force you to accept my offer. But you should know. You will die tonight if you do not.'' 
 
 She wrinkled her nose, at least she thought she did. Death smiled at her and it gave her chills right through and through her. 
 
 `` That's not much of a choice, now is it?'' 
 
 Death sighed. 
 
 `` I did n't mean it like that. It's not a threat or anything. Statement of fact, pure and simple. I would reap you tonight, soon, if you opt out. And for the record, I do n't actually DO anything. Dying is dying. I ca n't defy nature.'' 
 
 Marie, the mother of the little boy nestled against her body and wife to the husband so fearful of her leaving him with a young boy and empty bed, laughed. 
 
 `` You're not making any sense. If you do n't actually do anything, then how can you offer me a chance to avoid dying.'' 
 
 Death nodded cheerily. 
 
 `` Aah, you are a bright one. Well, who am I, Marie?'' 
 
 `` You say you're Death.'' 
 
 `` Can Death die, Marie?'' 
 
 `` Well, I imagine not...'' 
 
 `` I'll walk with you a while, as long as you want. I'll be elsewhere too, but I'll live with you. Really live. I ca n't stop you from dying, but I can walk with you as long as you want.'' 
 
 Her mouth opened a little, and a little sound came out. She looked like she was thinking intensely. 
 
 Death's mouth twisted to the side, pondering her expression and wondering how long he'd have to wait for her reply.
