Thus Spake the Zonbi - Alexander Dougal

Purr Majesty

She knows that she will die soon. Pain has become her reality. Woe is the queen abandoned by her people. No, this is not a reality fit for a queen. How fleeting. Her days are now spent in melancholic disregard atop her perch, listless eyes staring into the void of acceptance, awaiting the inevitable. Why must her body torment her so, contracting, tightening with greater intensity as each day passes, pulling at her very being? It threatened to terminate her existence at any given moment; an involuntary pseudo-suicide. She knew that she would die soon. These were not empty threats. Her body would kill itself, kill her. She just wished it would hurry up already.

This must be punishment; for what though, she did not know. She was a benevolent queen, one who enriched the lives of those fortuitous enough to serve her, one undeserving of such suffering. Her servants adored her. She was reminded of this frequently. They often embraced her; she absorbed their sorrow. In their own words, she was irreplaceable, beautiful, elegant, dependable. "At least I have you," they would say, staring at her with despondent eyes, hollow eyes, eyes shrouded in darkness -- the darkness of acceptance.

Why then was she abandoned? Why then was she left to fend for herself? Was her embrace no longer necessary? No longer desired? She did not understand, and she no longer had the energy to spend trying to understand.

She had lived a life of convenience, and although her general affluence had bloated her body into a peculiar sort of gelatinous butterball, this was no longer the case. She was sick, evaporating, her thick layer of blithe gluttony all but wasted away. She was wasting away.

She wondered about the nature of hierarchy, about how the absence of her servants had sent her into this helpless spiral, a spiral that withered her body down into a crumpled bag of bones incapable of the simplest movement, stranded atop her tower -- the tower where she would perish, the tower of false comfort that allowed the illusion of dying with dignity, the tower that allowed her to die as a queen elevated above her people. Though, what exactly was she without her servants? She was helpless. She was nothing. She needed them as much as they needed her... or maybe they didn't need her?

She quivered uncontrollably, but she was not cold. She was a queen, a quivering queen, a quivering queen with nobody left to queen over.

In hindsight, had she known her servants would cease so abruptly in the fulfillment of their defined titles, she would have dined more sparingly. She would have toned down her gluttonous tendencies. She would have been smarter. Would she though? She'd like to think so. She'd like to think with a little bit of foresight, she could have taken care of herself, could have avoided this pitiful state she now found herself in. Alas, thus is the woeful nature of hindsight.

But, again, why prolong the inevitable? Maybe it's better this way. Oh, the days of yonder past, days when a queen could rightfully feast without remorse, sleep to her heart's content, and spread her sunshine around in this world so muddled in darkness. Acceptance.

The world was getting darker. Her vision clouded.

...the pain gain. Incessant. She would die soon. She felt as though she might implode. Maybe she ought to, that would sure be an interesting way to go out. Implosion. She liked the sound of that. But... she'd implode alone with nobody to mourn over her inexplicable (and rather remarkable) implosion. No, physics be damned, she'd find a way to implode regardless.

But wait... what's this? The door? Have they returned??