There is a chasm. And then there are two people.

One of them is a child; no older than six, maybe. His face is lined with grime and dirt, soot and burns, and a large bruise on the side of his cheek. There is no knowing if he understands what position they’re in, but it’s apparent that he has lost hope.

The other is older. She is a warm, comforting presence, even on the cold rock floor. The child leans into her torn clothes, clinging to her rags, because the walls are smooth and there are no footholds other than those you care about.

“Mama,” the child says, and though his voice is quiet, it echoes.

“Yes?”

“I’ve heard about… death.”

He is much too young, thinks the mother— and another side, it is better he knows, and another facet, conception of age is never constant in the ever-fluctuating influence that is society.

“Yes, dear. What about death?”

“Where do we go when we die?”

The woman hums. Then she looks up over the cliff’s edge, to the stars, to someplace that isn’t at the bottom of a chasm. “You go to a better place.”

“I don’t think there’s anywhere better than here.”

“You’d be surprised,” the woman says, and she realizes that knowledge of concepts does not mean you completely comprehend their purposes.

“But you didn’t say much,” the child points out. “You didn’t tell me anything. Where do we go, Mama?”

I wouldn’t know, the mother thinks, trailing her metaphorical finger over her scythe. “Someplace better. Where you can be free.”

The child does not speak. It is quiet in the chasm.

And then he is hunched over a desk. And he is scribbling away at the pages; he looks like an average child who got their hands on colored crayons, but his hands are gnarled and veiny with age. He is no longer a child, but he is an artist, and artists do not ever grow old.

“Mama,” he calls, voice light. He drops the charcoal pencil he’s holding to stare at a looming figure above him.

“Yes?” Says his mother, who is dark and distorted in the shadows.

“Where do we go when we die?”

“You go to someplace better,” she affirms, like she always has.

“Hm.” The artist resumes drawing. He is painting a skull; a skull and a snake. And an apple.

It’s silent for a while; there is the golden sunlight like butter on the tiles, there is the scratching of pencil like the ambient patter of rain, and there is the steady breathing of one person working diligently at something they intend to complete. There is also the flutter of wings— but that is unimportant when there is creation.

“Mama,” the child calls.

“Why do I love the people that hurt me?”

And then the mother is there. She has her black wings above her head; her eyes are red, and her robes are the glistening noir of the night sky. She is terrifying and she is warm, and the child leans into the scythe she wields.

“Because you trust.” The mother pauses. This is not her child; but he is about to be. When you die you are born of death, after all. “Because you hope for that better life.”

And the child is reported to die at age ninety-one due to a long withheld heart attack; his skull was found with a thin scar that was nowhere near fatal but still mysterious nonetheless, and his hands were covered in soot, speckles of blood, charcoal, and graphite.

The mother of billions stands over her newborn son’s drawing. It is of her.

“It is not the pain, but the purpose that makes a martyr,” she hums, and then she is gone.