Keeper.

Darkness spread across the sky as the first heavy drops of rain fell into dust, distant rumble of thunder a messenger of nature's fury to be unleashed upon the world. It would be mere minutes before everything around was enveloped in a heavy sheet of water, pouring down full force, beating grass and flowers into the ground, chasing what few people there were who settled in this land into their homes to wait out the storm. First spring storm of the year, it came late but brought all the rage it has been harboring on its way here. 
Barely able to contain myself, i sat at the window, watching, waiting, calling the night to come and drape the heavy blanket of black around me, conceal my moving amongst the people so nobody would even suspect my presence until it would be too late and death would claim yet another soul. I am the messenger of eternity, patient and careful, skilled and devoted to preserving the balance. Others will come to replace the ones that went missing without a trace, save for a smear of blood on their pillow i leave behind purposely, just to keep their loved ones wondering and fearing the dark. If only someone would be interested in stories i have to tell as to what goes on through their minds when they discover their loss in the morning. What tales of horror and despair i could tell, of pain and sorrow, tears and mourning. Even insanity at times...
Yet there isn't a single being i could confine in to share my lonely musings, and so time after time i am limited to writing down my stories on paper i stole once from a writer i killed long ago, along with quills and a bottle of ink. I remember every life i took, yet memory of her last breath is the brightest one. She was the only one that embraced me and welcomed the end, willingly, even with passion, some strange longing that i have never expected nor even knew existed. She was the only one i ever took into my arms without waiting for her to fall asleep, i simply stood behind her, watching her write feverishly, reading the words that were escaping from under her quill, fascinated by the world she created right before my eyes out of the deepest dungeons of her mind. To this day i wonder if what she wrote was at least in part real, some memory, or nothing but her imagination. She was the only one whose life i could not bring myself to end the first time i came for her. Or the second and third... I kept returning time after time, hungry to see more and more of perverse beauty of her mind poured out on white sheets in neat black lines that came to life in flickering light of a single candle. She never knew, of course, of my visits, i have never shown myself until the very last night when she could write no more, her mind clouded by a strange illness, as she was laying in her bed delirious, half mad with fever and delusions. Last spark of sanity flickered like the dying light of the candle still burning on the table by the window where she sat every night and brought me hours of joy and emotions i have never felt before when she saw me standing by her bed. 
She extended her arms to me, eager for release, impatient to hold me close as she gave me the only thing she had left to give, last kiss for a lover she never knew she had. 
It was after that night that i have started writing down tales of my own, clumsily at first, but more and more with assuredness of a skilled author, keeper of lives preserved carefully in neat black lines. No names, no dates, only the glimpses of thoughts and minds and images stolen from the grieving families. That is how it all began. 
With time i became impatient, hungry for more, i could control myself less and less as i have waited for the next life i was allowed to take in order to keep the balance of life and death. I no longer had the tolerance for waiting, longing for the next story drove me mad, night after night, until finally i could take it no more, until it drove me out of my hiding in search of a life i could take. It did not matter whose, did not matter if it was their time or not, i could not concern myself with such thoughts anymore, all that went on through my mind was that i needed more to write down, more to claim, overwhelming greed darkened my purpose and drove me mad with lust of creating. 
Life after life, soul after soul, page after page time went on as i became a shadow of my former self, driven to the brink of insanity i took the final step over the border at some point, though when and how i could not remember nor cared to. I was so consumed by my passion that i hardly noticed taking the last life in existence. Realization only came to me fully the next night, when once again i was on a prowl to find more to be my inspiration...
Oh, how i screamed in rage and pain when i realized what i have done, what anger and frustration i spilled upon the now empty world when i saw nothing but dark houses and row after row of graves covering the face of what i made into an endless cemetery. Though nothing changed despite my screams and howling, only echoes were the answer to the curses and pleas as i beat my face with my fists, trying to stop the tears. I even dug up the graves in desperation of hoping to find some spark of memories or thoughts inside the minds that were dead and cold, completely void of anything.
Once the indifference and acceptance settled in, i crawled into a small cave, barely able to squeeze myself into the opening. I crawled in what i hoped would be my own grave, yet by some cruel irony i was the only living thing that could never die. 
I wander the empty world now, alone, searching for a spark of life for all eternity, what little ink i had left turned to dust long ago, paper yellowed and crumbling with age, finding nothing but silence and cold everywhere i go, my very own world of nothingness, the very opposite of what i wanted to create, only remains of beauty left on the millions of pages covered in neat black lines...