Sixteenth Voice
And here in the night as I feel the inferno
I stare in the dark thinking what is eternal
The man or the moment
The act or the reason
These thoughts fill my head as I contemplate treason
Of dreams I have had and dreams I have pondered
When late in the night my mind it would wander
To things I have done and then quickly regretted
while denying vices my life had selected
And I think what I've done or have yet to begin
And the man I've become and the man that I've been
No caught in the waltz with an eternal dancer
I'm courted by death, but death isn't the answer I say
All I was meant to be
Could I suddenly just decide
Not a thought would survive
Could it be my life's worth
Ended there with my birth?
If I could see someone who's been there before me
And traded his soul for a moment of glory
His penance or mercy by spirits debated
While judged on a scale that's been heavily weighted
And what have I done could it be such a sin
In this man I've become, in this man I've become
now calling to God from the pit's very bottom
I pray he forgives every sin I've forgotten this day
And who would have thought that my fate it would conjure
This twist in the road on which I have wandered
Each vision and dream now completely dismembered
To give one's whole have and find nothing's remembered
And what good's a life that leaves nothing behind
Not a thought or a dream that might echo in time
The years and the hours
The seconds and minutes
And everything that my life has placed in it betrayed
Betrayed
Betrayed
The things I have done, the places I've been
The cost of my dreams, the weight of my sins
And everything that I've gathered in life
Could it be lost
Could it be lost in this
Could it be lost in this
Could it be lost in this night?
I don't sing so well, City; my apologies. But it fit.
No so long ago, I came mere moments from death, so close that I could see the light at the end of the tunnel in a blazing ball that seemed to move in slow motion as it came toward me. I always thought those illusions of time were just stories, exaggerations...they're not. Life really did slow to nearly a stop -- it seemed to take hours to realize what was happening.
The humans used a fusion cannon to blast my ship to pieces. A weapon powered by a tiny star. It fired bursts that then exploded in a shockwave that burned everything in its way, a nova triggered when the star was free of containment and had not enough gravity to hold itself together. Such small mass can't be in equilibrium like that.
Being shot by this feels like someone has poured gasoline down your throat and lit it up with a match. You can feel all your flesh burning from the inside out, and you don't ever blank out or die, because you just can't die until every last inch of it is gone. All the force blowing you apart, like someone set off a bomb in you. All the flesh tearing and burning up. All your mind fading away piece by piece, neurons fraying and burning, every single fading memory tearing from your grip. So much silence. It has never been so quiet as then. They were all silent, whether in grief, or relief, or absence.
The worst part was imagining what would happen if I survived. I would be an animal, on the level with a dog. Maybe a reptile, even. Maybe a fish. The more that burned, the lower I'd fall, and then I'd have lost all I ever gained. All I ever was. And then they would stomp me out
forever, and all the eternity I had planned would be gone forever. All I ever wanted, no matter anymore.
I barely managed to avoid disaster. I didn't lose all my mind, all my knowledge. I was prepared, in a strange sense. I think I saw it coming; some little part of me did, at least. Knew it would end like this. Knew I couldn't stand up to them. Evolution had selected them, not me. This was simple. Logical. But no matter what I think, for all my difference from all of them, I have gained the ability to fear. There's still nothing like staring down death and waiting to be consumed. Its jaws are a brilliant shade of gold.
...I suppose that's how I thought of it. I wonder if that's what all of them thought, what it was like for them.
And I wonder if the humans saw it like I did, the power they had when they fired that into my bridge. The same sense of power. Devouring conquest. One more step to the top.
City, why do you want me to monologue? This gets nothing done, and you know it. Oh, well...I'll be better tomorrow, I suppose...
(ooc: will pick up tags around 5:00 PM EST because I have somewhere to go. Sorry, guys.)