“Do you know what death sounds like?”
“You might think sounds like pleadin’, beggin’, cryin’.”
“All the lil people with tears streamin’ down their faces. ‘Don’t kill my husband!’ this and ‘Please, leave my family alone!’ that.”
“Screamin’ until their voices go hoarse and all you’re left with is the hackin’, coughin’, and pitiful little wheezes that they can squeak outta their sore throat.”
“It’s true, you know.”
“When you’re killin’ someone, skinnin’ them alive for your dinner? The sounds of a dyin’ man is all you’ll be able to hear. I’d call it music to my ears but in reality it kinda starts to grate on me. It’s loud, it’s pitiful, it’s even a lil sad.”
“But it ain’t the sound of death.”
“See, the sound death makes comes after the screamin’ stops. It comes when you plunge your knife into their heart, when you cave in their skull.”
“The sound of death, in the end, is silence.”
“A life no longer lived.”
“A corpse layin’ quietly on your meat hook without a single shout left in its lungs.”
“The screams, the song, it’s just a precursor to the silence that follows.”
“You know the sounds of the dyin’, don’t ya, Muerte?”
“See, you and I ain’t too different, right?”
“With practiced hands we both go about playin’ the sounds of the dyin’. You with your guitar, and me in my kitchen.”
“The difference is? You like to believe that your song is what death truly sounds like, don’t you?”
“When people hear you playin’, those fucked up tunes they know someone is goin’ to bite the bullet soon. There’s gonna be a corpse in the depths of Arcadia somewhere who heard his final requiem and the silence followed. But while you may play the tune, there’s something missin’.”
“It ain’t you who brings about the silence.”
“While you may eventually stop strummin’ your strings, it’s not because you brought a life to an end, is it?”
“Nah.”
“It’s because someone else brought upon the silence that followed. You play until the body goes cold, you build up to the sound of demise as it finally comes about.”
“But you don’t cause the silence.”
“No matter what you do, Muerte, all you’re known for is what comes before.”
“Like the screams of my victims or the wails of a dyin’ man, you just warn us of the end. Your song echoes off of the walls and fills the ears! But that ain’t the sound of death.”
“At Olympus? I’m gonna show you exactly what death sounds like.”
“And it won’t be the sound of your guitar.”
“Not the screamin’ as it burns your throat and leaves you hoarse.”
“It’ll be the silence of your corpse.”
“The deafening sound of nothin’ as you lay motionless there on the mat.”
“And in the silence, I’m gonna play me another tune, Muerte.”
“One of pure, unmatched joy.”
“The tune that always brings a smile to my face.”
“Because I’m gonna ring that dinner bell.”