Walter Barnes

Walter appreciates the inherent irony in being an Angel of Death. Just another indication of the Lord’s ineffability, giving power over mortality to a being that would never experience it. Despite the conundrum, he took his work seriously. Thousands of years shepherding soul upon soul across the barrier between life and death, however, gradually brought him to the realization that his feelings towards his purpose were somewhat out of step with other angels of his calling. He felt curiosity instead of compassion. He was fascinated by the mechanism of life, rather than the meaning of it. He was similarly obsessed with the extraction of it.

After all these millennia, he still finds a peculiar satisfaction in stilling the breath, slowing the heart, and easing the light out of a creature’s eyes. Perhaps that’s a sort of benevolence. Perhaps it’s simply a facet of the mercy with which he was created–-the touch of the divine working its way out of him and back into the world. From dust to dust.