Death, you see, could not exist without life—specifically, the end of life. The scientists would have called it the conservation of something, or the something constant. Since this was conceptual, and nothing to do with science, the philosophers got involved—cravatted, pipe-smoking types who would debate it endlessly instead of getting a real job. They did little more than talk about it, though. But no one was expecting them to. And that’s their secret. Death, however, was unconcerned with what it was. It was more than happy just being, for millennia of millennia, existing only to be the ultimate foil for life. The bags of proteins evolved legs, arms, aerobic respiration, and eventually, language. Not content merely to expire by running out of food, dying of old age, or killing each other, they began to tell one another stories of how mighty, eternal beings had created them from dust, ribs, or clay. The logical conclusion they drew? There had to be more than just death at the end of a life. From the fervent prayers and questions of these believers, the gods were born. They regarded death with suspicion, jealous of its reach, longevity, and supreme power. They begged, bullied, and bribed it to divulge its secrets. Yet it remained implacable, immovable, impervious to their imploring. Death just… was. Until, one high summer’s night in ancient Sumer, a gaggle of gullible idiots—the sum of whose fingers and toes far exceeded their collective IQ—succeeded where the gods had failed. Beyond all comprehension and expectation, they captured the essence of death in a human vessel, intent on bending it to their will. And, oh my gods, did she make them wish they hadn’t. Death had become Karen, Destroyer of Worlds.
Cover of Karen, Destroyer of Worlds, by Christian Blackwell, featuring Death herself, standing in the molten crater that delivered her to us. The sun rises in the background.
DId you feel that? The universe just... sighed.
Unleashed Winter2025 - Karen, Destroyer of Worlds
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