This is preview of my next work. I don't plan on officially starting it until I'm finished with what I'm working on now, so that will be a while. Of course, it's for the "Bad Guy".
The room is cold and dark. The dampness creeps, competing against my inherent furnace. One bare light bulb swings disconsolately in the hallway on the other side of the steel door, not so much producing light as shifting shadows, sending them rolling into the corners with each pass, only to return again with the pendulum swing. Like a tide of radiance that ebbs and flows with the almost clockwork consistency, it reminds me of all that I am now missing, all that I have left outside in my long incarceration. Why would I allow myself to be here, one might ask. Why would I allow myself, once one of the foremost villains that Paragon City has ever seen, to be held captive in a small cell in the Ziggurat penitentiary? Well, the answer is simple; I dont have a choice.
Im strapped to a bed, incapable of feeling anything around me, incapable of moving, incapable of stretching or shifting my position. The white linens on which my hospital gown bedecked form is lying are grey with frequent soilings and even less frequent washings. The only movement of which I am capable is the movement of my eyes, my only entertainment is the play of the shadows on the wall and my only company are the rats that circle and scurry about on their daily quest for snippets and scraps of leftover food, dropped by the nurses who feed me daily and medicate me into a coma.
They say to keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. Thats why Im here, in the Zig instead of banished to somewhere beyond the Cascade Archipelago in the Shadow Shard. At least here, under medication, under restraints they know where I am, they know Im under lock and key and safe. Who knows what trouble I could cause in the Shadow Shard, but here they can keep their eye on me.
They also say that revenge is a dish best served cold. That, I can definitely attest to with first hand experience although in my case, it was hot as Hell, but exceptions can be made. Im Living proof, after all, if youll pardon the pun. Nothing says revenge like an eye for an eye, or maybe a sibling for a sibling.
I am Cane to his Abel. I am Romulus to his Remus. Im the bad seed, the rotten apple and while I may have had some help along the way, I certainly enjoyed the trip. My new teacher taught me much about my new life. He may have chosen that life for me but like all young protégés I didnt know I wanted it until he chose it for me. If I have to spend the rest of my life strapped to this bed, medicated into unconsciousness, if I have to spend the rest of my life lying here, incapable of even so much as whispering my desire to relieve myself, if I have to spend the rest of my life settling further and further into sheets soiled of my own making it will have been worth it. It will have been worth the torture, the agony and the unmitigated misery of my training with Him. It will have been worth having the choice made for me for if I had known what it would have entailed I would have made it myself regardless. It will have been worth the humiliation and degradation I now suffer.
I finally got him. I finally got him for everything hes done, for all the pain, for all the persecution, for the torment, the anguish. He lies in a pile of ash for his sins, blown into the winds of time and fate, to be forgotten by those who loved him and honoured him with a heros welcome. My brother is finally dead for all hes done to me. I will forever treasure that sweet memory of the final moment as he gazed up at me in horror, in shock, in revelation at who I was, at what I had done and what I had become. Jealous that I had bested him, jealous that I had overcome his Hellfire, that which burned within him and scorched all around him. He was nothing. He is nothing. The Living Hellfire is dead.
Alone in my cell, in this massive stone pyramid, unable to move or even make a sound. In the darkness with only the scrabbling of tiny claws and the restless ebb and flow of shadow I am weeping. I can feel the tears as they course down my cheeks, stinging my face with heat and collecting in little pools at either side of my neck. My brother is dead and I weep with joy.
This is preview of my next work. I don't plan on officially starting it until I'm finished with what I'm working on now, so that will be a while. Of course, it's for the "Bad Guy".
************************************************** *********************************
PROLOGUE
The room is cold and dark. The dampness creeps, competing against my inherent furnace. One bare light bulb swings disconsolately in the hallway on the other side of the steel door, not so much producing light as shifting shadows, sending them rolling into the corners with each pass, only to return again with the pendulum swing. Like a tide of radiance that ebbs and flows with the almost clockwork consistency, it reminds me of all that I am now missing, all that I have left outside in my long incarceration. Why would I allow myself to be here, one might ask. Why would I allow myself, once one of the foremost villains that Paragon City has ever seen, to be held captive in a small cell in the Ziggurat penitentiary? Well, the answer is simple; I dont have a choice.
Im strapped to a bed, incapable of feeling anything around me, incapable of moving, incapable of stretching or shifting my position. The white linens on which my hospital gown bedecked form is lying are grey with frequent soilings and even less frequent washings. The only movement of which I am capable is the movement of my eyes, my only entertainment is the play of the shadows on the wall and my only company are the rats that circle and scurry about on their daily quest for snippets and scraps of leftover food, dropped by the nurses who feed me daily and medicate me into a coma.
They say to keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. Thats why Im here, in the Zig instead of banished to somewhere beyond the Cascade Archipelago in the Shadow Shard. At least here, under medication, under restraints they know where I am, they know Im under lock and key and safe. Who knows what trouble I could cause in the Shadow Shard, but here they can keep their eye on me.
They also say that revenge is a dish best served cold. That, I can definitely attest to with first hand experience although in my case, it was hot as Hell, but exceptions can be made. Im Living proof, after all, if youll pardon the pun. Nothing says revenge like an eye for an eye, or maybe a sibling for a sibling.
I am Cane to his Abel. I am Romulus to his Remus. Im the bad seed, the rotten apple and while I may have had some help along the way, I certainly enjoyed the trip. My new teacher taught me much about my new life. He may have chosen that life for me but like all young protégés I didnt know I wanted it until he chose it for me. If I have to spend the rest of my life strapped to this bed, medicated into unconsciousness, if I have to spend the rest of my life lying here, incapable of even so much as whispering my desire to relieve myself, if I have to spend the rest of my life settling further and further into sheets soiled of my own making it will have been worth it. It will have been worth the torture, the agony and the unmitigated misery of my training with Him. It will have been worth having the choice made for me for if I had known what it would have entailed I would have made it myself regardless. It will have been worth the humiliation and degradation I now suffer.
I finally got him. I finally got him for everything hes done, for all the pain, for all the persecution, for the torment, the anguish. He lies in a pile of ash for his sins, blown into the winds of time and fate, to be forgotten by those who loved him and honoured him with a heros welcome. My brother is finally dead for all hes done to me. I will forever treasure that sweet memory of the final moment as he gazed up at me in horror, in shock, in revelation at who I was, at what I had done and what I had become. Jealous that I had bested him, jealous that I had overcome his Hellfire, that which burned within him and scorched all around him. He was nothing. He is nothing. The Living Hellfire is dead.
Alone in my cell, in this massive stone pyramid, unable to move or even make a sound. In the darkness with only the scrabbling of tiny claws and the restless ebb and flow of shadow I am weeping. I can feel the tears as they course down my cheeks, stinging my face with heat and collecting in little pools at either side of my neck. My brother is dead and I weep with joy.
Brother of Markus
The Lord of Fire and Pain
The Legendary Living Hellfire
Fight my brute!