He had thought that throwing himself off of the side of the Well of Souls to help redeem his brother had been mentally challenging.

He had thought that dragging himself out of the Well of Souls feeling emptier than what he had in a long, long time would be bad enough.

He had thought that losing his mask would be even worst.

Well, the Horseman might have been old (old for human ages anyway) but not even he had known what he would have been facing not only three hours afterwards. Dust, his black crow, had been tapping at his now showing nose gently to try and get him awake when Death had felt a wave wash over him that left his insides crawling painfully. He had bent upwards, his face twisting in pain while he gave a soundless scream. With a caw, Dust left him and landed back down beside him, hopping nervously and looking at him with concern.

"The.... Seventh Seal... calling... me..." Death panted, struggling to move his hand. "Have... to... get... to War!" Death felt a surge of strength run through him as he finally regained his control over his own body, slinging his arm around as he mentally forced a portal through the universe to Earth.

He summoned his horse as he stood with difficultly, Dust cawing as he took flight to circle the top of the glowing portal in front of him. A nicker echoed about them as Despair, all in his rotting and decayed self reared out of the stones beside the Horseman, tossing his mane about as he grunted. Despair was the eldest of the horses that the Horsemen owned; just like how Death was the oldest in his family. His mane and tail flickered with glowing green embers of fire that sparked and popped as he moved. Flames that licked the ground sprouted from his hooves whenever pressure was put on them. Teeth and saddle clacked as Despair bounced about Death, his nostrils flaring as he smelt familiar and strange scents all over his master. In a way, this worried the horse. Despair knew that Death would go to extreme lengths to save any of his younger siblings, just as Despair would for his; even if that meant losing a limb at the same time.

What have you done to yourself? Despair nickered, nudging Death and allowing the Nephilim to grab ahold of his bridle as he almost tumbled over. You're weaker. Something's bothering you two. The Seventh Seal though?

"Gone," Death answered, holding onto his side as he thought about how he was going to hop onto his horse. Already he could feel the mental bridge that he had created to Earth starting to slip away through his grasp. "I can feel War's signal to us too. He needs our help- for once." Death finally pulled himself up and groaned when the pain seemed to stay in his arms.

Despair shook himself, once again sending pain flying through Death's body, even as he allowed Dust to settle onto his shoulder. Great. Can the boy not get himself in trouble for once? It might be rather nice, if you know what I mean.

"I know. But then he wouldn't be War."

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The second that Despair’s hooves hit Earth’s charred surface, Death slid right off onto the ground and the portal that had been so strongly opening a path a minute ago crashed, the boom echoing for miles around. Death landed hard onto his face, and he barely knowledge Despair’s hooves as they slammed into the ground just centimeters from his head. His horse nickered as Dust came and bolted to his side, pulling at his hair to try and get him moving again. Neither one was used to seeing him like this.

“Damn…” He muttered.

Are you okay? Despair whinnied as he nudged Death onto his back, his hot breath making Death cringe away from him.

“Hell no, you idiot!” He felt like shouting his head off at the horse, but he knew that taking his anger out on Despair always resulted badly; Despair was gentle, but he didn’t like taking much snot from anyone. If anything, Dust took being screamed at better than what Despair did…

Death groaned again and continued to lay there; panting heavily as he slowly closed his eyes. The setting sun’s heat felt good upon his dead skin and he cherished the feeling as it seemed to heat him inside out even when it had sunk over a hill. He had lost track of time and hadn’t been paying any attention to when Despair announced that he was going somewhere and that Dust was to stay put. He clearly hadn’t heard when the horse trotted off, muttering to himself as he stayed on a track to look for help.

He was barely aware when the night creatures began to creep out. Death was completely gone. Too much had happened for him to keep a straight personality and then go to beat the crap out of something that he didn’t see any point of beating. Death, for once in his life, was completely worn out.

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“What the hell?”

Despair yanked again on the human’s short dark hair that he had found, ignoring the shout of pain that she cried out when he hopped away, carrying a few strands of her hair with him. The flaming green horse trotted out of her reach, pausing to turn around to make sure that she was still following him. He nickered at her. Aren’t you coming already, Anna?

Anna, the human female, glared at him as she silently trudged behind the horse as his tail swished in behind him before he picked up pace. She was a skinny human with small arms and thin legs but with enough strength to beat a lot of people in running and then she was smart. Anna fingered the pistols that was bouncing along with her slim hip and was preparing herself to use it. You never knew what the hell would be walking around this time of night. Her tank top was torn a little at the bottom; revealing her rock hard abs; and her jacket hung about her arms loosely even after she had rolled up her sleeves. Her boots were well worn down and she enjoyed them as her best pair, some of the others that she had tried to wear were too new on her feet. Shorts that just brushed her fingertips if she held her arms straight down showed off her well-tanned legs and scarred ones.

“Lead on, Despair. I’m coming on as fast as I can. What do you want me to do again?” Anna tripped a little on the unstable ground and then corrected herself as she continued to jog behind Despair. She had figured out the hard way that he could talk.

Despair paused for a minute before he answered unsurely. It’s just my master, Death. He got wounded after a few things… like… beating people up.

Anna shrugged. “I do that now, big man. Nothing can really surprise me.”

Again, the pause from Despair. Then you haven’t met Death yet, madam.

“Don’t call me that. I’m a lot of things but I’m not old enough to be called something that you might call an old lady, which now that we’re on that topic; is it strange to say that I’ve stayed the same age for about one hundred years now? I mean, humans are only supposed to live that long but I’ve remained… you know, I don’t even remember how old that I am. You forget when damn demons and angels are trying to rip you apart. I had to learn how to use this pistol of mine pretty fast or otherwise I would be dead by now.”

It is definitely rough out there. As for your question of staying alive that long… I would say that you are either now completely human or some sort of magical spell landed upon you when the End War happened. For some reason, you don’t seem to fit either one.

“I was fine as a human. I didn’t have any traits that really set me apart from the other people. If I was something other than a human, would I have like inhuman strength or something?”

Despair snorted as he started to slow down now, letting his head drop down low. First off, if you were something that were not human, then I’m sure that you would not have the same strength level of a human. You do know how to heal things, right?

“Yeah, of course. I’ve had to patch myself up more than once with the shit that’s been running around lately. I have had to stop poison a few times.”

That’s great…

Anna could hear that Despair was in some other far off place as he stopped over a ridge, snorting in fury before he just simply charged down the hill in a screaming fit of neighs. She was confused at first; horses just don’t toss themselves over the side of something and expect to find something good.

When she glanced over, she wasn’t the bit surprised to find that there were some angels down there. What did surprise her though was the dead like man that was limping everywhere, stumbling to lift up a massive scythe to block and then scramble away, holding onto his side as if it pained him. She removed her pistol and then double checked to see if there was ammo in it before she clicked the barrel in the right spot and took aim at the angel that was about to sling his blade at the man.

Death was just rising up Harvester to try and save his life when three bullets came out of nowhere in rapid repetition that came and ripped through him. Blood and skin soared past the Horseman as the bullets broke through the angel like it was nothing; leaving behind scorched skin and boring wounds that bleed. He froze, reaching out toward the wounds. Another round of three bullets came and tore through the rest of him, leaving him a pile of blood red feathers that came and hit Death across the face a little. He looked up in the general direction of where the bullets had come from to see a human sliding down a hill, her arms out to keep her balance as her feet kicked up dust. He leaned hard up against Harvester as Despair came up to him, nudging him gently and Dust landing on his shoulder, yanking at his hair.

“I suppose that you’re Death?” the human asked him, slinging the pistol around like she knew how to use it. Death glanced at Despair curiously.

She was all that I could find.

“Yes,” Death sighed, letting his black hair curtain around his face. “I am Death. Who are you?”

“Anna.”

Death snorted and glanced back over at Despair again but then thought better of it. He knew nothing about his past all the way, and that was how he wanted to keep it; keeping his biggest weaknesses to himself while he revealed the other things that were more important. “So? What are you supposed to do?”

She glared at him, brushing back her dark hair gently before she pointed the pistol back at him again. “I was told by Despair that you were hurt and that I had to heal you.”

I did. Death, you do need help on this one. I mean, look at you. You can barely even stand without needing the help of something.

Again Death sighed and then glared back at Anna, looking her up and down for a minute. He noticed how she squirmed under his gaze. “Fine,” he said, waving a hand in the air as he sat down hard, ignoring the jolt of pain that ran up his side. “Do as you wish. Just don’t kill me because I will come back to haunt you in your dreams.”

Anna snorted as she slowly walked up to him, taking note of the areas that he seemed to be having pain problems in. Chest. Arms. Ribs. All of his upper region. What the hell had he done to do this much damage to himself? Jump off of a cliff? She kneed down beside him to remove the satchel that was around her shoulder, slipping it off as she opened it up at the same time. Death studied it as she pulled things that probably shouldn’t be in there out with ease and then set them out beside of him. “Some of this,” she warned as she began to rip up some of her long sleeves on her jacket. “Might sting just a tad bit. Like the alcohol.”

“Alcohol?” Death questioned just as she pressed one of the strips against his chest. He had to admit, he yelped a little.