Learn English – Word to describe a sensation of death coming over your entire body

connotationnounssingle-word-requestsword-choiceword-usage

This is the context where I want to use the word:

He closed his eyes. The living did not come to mind, neither friend,
nor family—only the dance of death, plain to see. The dancing figures
of death were beckoning him. How could he not end his life? The
sense of death already enveloped him.
His body grew cold and he felt stiff like lead.

What words can be used here? Can 'aura' be used here? Doesn't your body have an 'aura' intrinsically?

The sense of death already enveloped him.

The aura of death already enveloped him.

The OED definitions I found are:

Sense
noun

1 a faculty by which the body perceives an external stimulus; one of the faculties of sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch::the bear has a keen sense of smell that enables it to hunt at dusk

2 a feeling that something is the case:: she had the sense of being a political outsider

  • an awareness or feeling that one is in a specified state:: you can improve your general health and sense of well-being

  • (sense of) a keen intuitive awareness of or sensitivity to the presence or importance of something:: she had a fine sense of comic timing

Aura
noun (plural auras)
[usually in singular]

1 the distinctive atmosphere or quality that seems to surround and be generated by a person, thing, or place:
the ceremony retains an aura of mystery

2 a supposed emanation surrounding the body of a living creature, viewed by mystics, spiritualists, and some practitioners of complementary medicine as the essence of the individual, and allegedly discernible by people with special sensibilities.
any invisible emanation, especially a scent or odor:
there was a faint aura of disinfectant

Best Answer

The dancing figures of death were beckoning him.

In purple prose:

"He could feel the beat of that apoptotic dance spreading through his fingers and toes, up his arms, his legs, beckoning even the innermost core of his being into paroxysms of sweet, sweet nothingness."

The root word here is apoptosis. It refers to the programmed, or predestined if you will, death of cells.