The postulations that death is a void of senses are correct. That being said, the postulations that you don’t remain conscious are wrong. The first of those with a soul who passed must have been terrified, likely experiencing the pain of their body failing as all senses faded to black, all sensation left them, and as they died.
But, through seamless transition they sunk into the void. At first they may have even been at peace. Until they realised that they themselves were not fading. An empty abyss, a void of all things except the awareness of being awake and the awareness that this was endless.
And so they screamed. The echo absent. No material to bounce off of like a bat’s screech. No water to ripple and resonate with the “sound” as it passed through the no-air. They screamed until the next one joined them. That one screamed too, neither of them completely certain if what they heard was them, or someone else.
Slowly, death became the loudest and most torturous experience, as every soul screamed without interruption for the need to breathe, for anything, really, that helped regulate rather than distill the conscious mind. As the wars passed, the famine increased, overdoses, serial murders, assassinations, natural disasters, nuclear weaponry, nerve gas, disease, homelessness, suicide….. The screams have been building to a fever pitch. They’ve become audible to the not-yet-deceased.
As the pressure builds it tears at the seams. As the seams separate the void is beginning to spill. The one-hundred billion and counting abyss-poisoned beings, those denied their senses for eons. Those driven to madness and distilled into their purest form. One horrifying note harmonizing as the veil tears and they spew forth into the realm of the living, All glass shattering with the force of the oppressive sound, all light dimming as they blot out the sun denying the living of their needs as “The Ones Who Scream” were denied theirs. After the pressure from within the abyss lessened… you could hear moaning. A moaning like the combination of pleasure and pain. A moaning that came from “The One Who Quivers”… And so , “The Ones Who Scream” descended on the people, ravaging and raping every living thing in their path.
Next… came a foul, acrid stench that engulfed the planet. The sound of teeth violently gnashing together, the stench of bile and flesh mixed as though the thing was eating itself. Through the seams came “The One Who Devours All”, and as such, “Those Who Scream and Ravage”, began to Devour. They consumed everything.
Echoing from a bit further into the abyss was the sound of metal pieces being ground continuously and the gaping maw that screamed such an unnatural screech emerged. There were faces and hands clawing to detach themselves from the inside of its mouth, but they soon sunk into the molten nickel, gold, silver, copper that it drooled in a trail behind it. Any who got free quickly joined “The Ones Who Scream” up above, only for the mass to descend once again. They tore the clothes off the remaining living, they emptied the museums, the banks, every store with material luxuries, and they consumed the items. “The one that Desires” has arrived, ravenous for what it could never have.
Then… silence. The abyss almost appeared to breathe in, and then as if to exhale, a presence flooded out from the void and all the seams tore. It sucked the sound out of the air, it sucked the last shreds of love out of the living, and slowly it coalesced. An undulating mass of hands and eyes, and somehow a dead silent air that oppressed light and choked out voices. “The One That Hates” had begun its infection.
Following the silence came the grinding and cracking of bones, as an impossibly tall, slender being broke its bones under its own horrible weight… Then its head split into a mouth that screamed obscene, disgusting things and before any of those left alive began to bleed as the Stigmata carved itself upside down into their skin. “The One Who Blasphemes” was again on this Earth.
Then came the sounds of a legion, but what came trampling out was an amorphous mound of adrenaline-crazed faces, whose screams altered the already incessant, harmonious cacophony from “The Ones Who Blot The Sun”. Everything stood still, as this one dove with all faces gnashing , with arms bursting out of the mouths and eyes it began to run, and it began to tear apart “The One That Quivers”. The twisted moans of ecstasy and the thrilled screams coalescing… “The One That Inflicts” was born.
The eighth thing to fall out of the abyss looked like an emaciated child. Although its face consisted of an impossible amount of mouths, some overlapped as if occupying the same space. Every single mouth babbling, and any who heard the chatter immediately became enthralled. Unable to leave the fugue state, they would have given everything to “The One Who Deceives” in exchange for suffering.
And finally, the Ninth thing to crawl its way out of the abyss was something of unnatural beauty. With skin and body like marble, and of such a size that it tore the abyss open ever further, He came forth. The First-Born Evil, The Love of God themself, The True Embodiment of Pride, Deceit, Lust, Gluttony, Violence, Hatred… and treachery. The Great Deceiver Himself, The First Heretic, The Wearer of the Apocryphal Crown of Death, King of the Bottomless Pit; Abaddon, Lucifer, The Serpent.
With one undecipherable word, he commanded all of the seams to tear, and they did.
Then everything fell in, With Him looking down upon it all… Then He turned to face the sun And He Screamed.