I AM PEN

Pisces System: Present Day

"We still do not know what turned the lights on at the dawn of time, but we know what turned them off."

Rancor Consi

Polarian Professor of Astro research, Refugee

     Nine thousand years of being frozen and rethawed had left my mind a fractured mess, but as I watched the day begin anew, one question still lingered. Could I destroy the universe?

     "Son... or Sword?" Lachesis slithers, his forked tongue wicking past his fangs. Standing behind, Caesious shifts his sword belt over his shoulders, simultaneously shoving the old man forward. The Phergian falls to his knees, his snot-incrusted lips trembling as his bulbous eyes meet the steaming pile of severed heads beside me. Lachesis releases a slow breath, puts down his quill, and yawns wide to reveal all his fangs. "Son... or Sword?" Caesious doesn't wait for a reply. He kicks the thin, fish man in the back, sending him face-first into the churned mud. Chuckling erupts from some of my men as they watch the feeble old fuck unstick his head from the muck. His sagging, glossed-over eyes fix Lachesis, then fall slowly to me.

     "Please, sir, I have no sons. They fell outside Cantis. You must believe me. I would give them if I could..." Lachesis's quill scratches against his paper, and with a flick of his finger, Caesious seizes the Phergian to his feet. The Centaur drags the man to the stump. Thump. Thump.

     "Next!" Lachesis hisses, and the next captive is pushed forward. "Son or Sword?" This one still has color to his gills. A wiry-looking fellow with sunken eyes and slate-colored skin that's as smooth as glass. Lachesis repeats his charge as the Measurer while I twirl the tip of my blade against a stone and suck snot out of the back of my nose. The air in this primordial world had a way of sticking to the back of your throat, slowly building like a film with every breath until you either spat or gagged. Thankfully, the smoke took the edge off the more toxic fumes, but still, I couldn't wait to leave. To rest.

     Despite the pair of stars that this world orbited, it is darker than yesterday and will be even darker tomorrow. Squinting above, I could make out the Dusk-Bringer's ships. Tens of thousands surround this world's stars like the seeds on the outside of a strawberry. To their credit, the stars weren't going quietly; they hurled lassos of plasma and charged particles at the Core-Eaters Lite Ships, but their outbursts were like those of a petulant child, tantrums hurled in vain. Soon, this world will grow dark, its warmth stolen like countless others. I stop twirling as piss traces a line down the Phergian's legs and begins to pool at his feet.

     "Animus is going to sleep well tonight," Caesious replies, his meaty fist seizing the slim fellow by the dirt-caked collar and shoving him away. There is some mumbling, then another pair of thumps. One for the axe meeting the stump, one as the man's head joins my pile.

     "I don't recall a time the Bull hasn't!" I say. Which is either a miracle or madness, considering all the lives he's ended. Lachesis smirks at my jest, then carefully makes another scratch on his parchment.

     "Next!" He bellows.

     The boards creak as a third man is shuffled forward. His rubbery face is slack, but the hate in his eyes is a raging fire. With one arm, he clutches a wound at his side; the other dangles limp and useless. He rears his broad shoulders as he comes to a stop before me, his blood-soaked hair left dangling before his eyes. He raises his head slowly, snarls as our eyes meet, and then launches a mix of blood and phlegm at my feet.