A small thing I've had sitting on the back shelf for a while 
now.

Enjoy.

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Alone in the Night
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  by Nemesis the Feral (NYAR!)



        Darkness.  Solitude.  Agony.
        
        These have become my world.

        A world of blackness, a void of nothing so utterly 
intangible, yet as thick and enveloping as a field of tar.  
Choking, suffocating nothingness.  A place where time has no 
meaning; yesterday, today and tomorrow intermingle as freely as 
beads of mercury in a dish.  How long have I been exiled here?  
Days?  Months?  Years?  Centuries?  Or merely minutes?  There is 
no way to know.
        
        Surely a lesser being would have been driven to madness 
by now.  A lesser being indeed.
        
        I am the mightiest mage the universe has ever seen; my 
self-made ascension to godhood is a tribute to the vastness of my 
power.
        
        And yet I drift alone, helpless...

        Ha.  No doubt there will be those among my people that 
will look upon this minor inconvenience as some sort of foolish 
indication of weakness, and perhaps even some sort of unfitness 
to rule them.  And like those that came before them, I will see 
them driven before me, and their blood shall wash at my feet.  No 
quarter shall be given to such dissidence; if our people are to 
achieve victory over the human destroyers, then we must be united 
in our fight against the extinction of our people.

        There were once those that had questioned our sacred war. 
 Even those among my most trusted advisors.  "But what if your 
vision is ultimately self-fulfilling?" they had asked.  
        
        Their heads adorn the walls of my grand chamber as a 
reminder to all of my infallibility.  I have witnessed the death 
of my people at the hands of the humans.  And I alone will lead 
our people to victory.
        
        This so-called exile is little more than a setback, a 
brief respite from the inevitable.  The cubs of white death 
consider it a victory-- but as I rest, wrapped in the cold 
darkness, my thirst for vengeance goes unquenched, and my hatred 
for all things on that blue world increases in bitter strides.  I 
will be free, there is no doubt of this, and when I am, even 
death will be no escape for those that imprisoned me here.  The 
tortures inflicted upon me are mere irritants compared to those 
that they will suffer for all of eternity.
        
        Once a source of pain, the pendant that was thrust upon 
my chest as I was banished here is now a source of strength.  I 
clutch it in my hand as though the damnable object were a 
precious stone.  It is my only link to physicality; without it, 
there would be only myself and the nothing.  But in my hand, I 
can feel it.  It is solid.  Real.
        
        Although I no longer wear it, aftershocks of the pain it 
once inflicted still wrack my body.  No doubt its creator would 
be shocked to know that the very energies designed to inflict 
endless agony upon me have in fact fueled me.  Drawing the 
pendant's magic into me was an excruciating task, but as the 
waves of pain fade away, they leave only power in their wake.  
Not yet enough to grant me the power to restore my freedom, but 
in this place, devoid of magic, it is enough to stoke the fires 
of my recovery.  Once started, my power will restore itself, in 
due time.

        And when that time comes, I shall tear myself free from 
this vacuous hell and-- what's this?  Though faint, I detect 
another presence.  For the first time in an eternity I am filled 
with an almost alien sense of joy, for I am not alone; yet this 
joy is overshadowed by dread, for I know not what this presence 
is.

        But yet I am drawn to it; for so long I have been alone 
that the prospect of something physical to touch, to feel is 
driving within me.  And so I drift, edging blindly toward it, 
until it is near enough to touch.  My fingers close around it, 
desperate to once again feel something solid in a world of the 
abstract.  The weight is reassuring; the shape, the hilt of a 
sword.  Bladeless.  The shriek of hatred which pierces my mind 
strikes a chord with my soul as I recognize just what it is I 
have discovered.  The Fates have smiled upon me for the first 
time since I was banished here, for I have found the tool of my 
release.

        I am Charn'El, master of Lyra.  I have lived for tens of 
thousands of years, and I shall live to see tens of thousands 
more.

        And I shall be free.




--Nemesis the Feral (NYAR!)
  Evil Overlord of TRES and Aspiring Jihad Dominar
  Jihad 5000 Lord of the Race
  The Corps is Mother. The Corps is Father.
  Trust the Corps.