I am the being with which most never come to terms. My existence necessarily denotes grief and pain and suffering and dismay. My purpose is interlinked with human despair, barring only psychopaths and the most wretched. I am the hand that robbed you of your sons and daughters, the stray bullet that demolished your infant’s skull and the blade that will someday be at your windpipe. My sins encompass that of all humankind and then much more.

It used to be I was utterly convinced I’d be eternally exempt from comeuppance. I unwittingly believed my deeds were outside the scope of punishment and retribution would never be had. Millennia of stoically swinging my heavy scythe, sharpened to a razor’s edge, in range of men, women and children, all with hopes and dreams and fears and loved ones, had clouded my mind. Through disease, war, famine, brutality, natural disasters, agony and gruesomeness does the blood of all drip from my steady hand. I considered the blood-curdling screeches to be the inescapable fate of humans, and I never once questioned my own.

I sit here lonely. I am empty being. Comfort is some foreign idea I’ve only ever witnessed in the loved ones of those I take. I don’t know who created me and for what purpose, but I know that creature must surely be more cruel than I am to give me emotions — or perhaps ingenious. Maybe this creature knew I’d someday grow to envy the humans and continue killing them out of sheer miserable spite, satisfying its wishes. Maybe this is the comeuppance I was so slow to recognize and understand. My penance to humanity is the knowledge that I’ll never be able to dole out a fate as luckless as my own. I’m a loveless, hapless creator of tragedy and I’ve never known a warm embrace. Those who fear death should know that I achingly yearn for it.