I always loved sitting here. At the right time of year, from the right angle, the sun sets exactly in between those two shattered mountains on the horizon and, just for a moment, it'll lay cradled there. A glowing white orb cupped by stone hands, with the last pale light casting a spotlight over the ruined landscape below.
It used to be a lot larger, that sun. When I first came here it was bright and orange. Like this. And warmer. So warm. It used to kiss my body with its heat and I could lay for hours basking in it. While the light would turn the fall of my hair to copper.
And it got bigger. For a time it was dark like blood, and filled the sky as though it had grown swollen with all the death I had brought here. Bright and furious at all I had done. That's when the last seas went. They boiled away. There were years of thick, sweltering fogs, all glowing a ghastly red and filled with poison.
And now, you see, it dies. I have lived in Twilight since then. Twilight and darkness from that dim dwarf star that once made this place all it was. Maybe eventually that light will fade and I would have been left entirely alone in the darkness. Maybe forever.
Then you came. And for that, I thank you.
I haven't spoken to anyone in an age and an age, you know. The people here perished long ago. Most had little of interest to say. But I liked their screams. They thrilled me so much more than any words ever could.
But why did you come here? I spoke to your first mate, at length. She didn't want to. But I pressed her terribly until she spilt everything to me. It's a dead zone out there. A boneyard of empty ships filled with frozen bodies. Some ripped apart. Others still gasping out ancient garbled, haunted cries for help. Shattered, deserted orbs so old even the hints of their civilisation had rotted away.
Oh yes. I did that too. When I was bigger. I could have embraced this world in my arms and hugged it to firey oblivion if I wanted. I've done it before. I'll do it again. I told her that too. She squeaked and struggled so. Too much. I squeezed and her body disintegrated, burst apart and stained my fingers. I had forgotten just how fragile you all are.
You don't say much do you?
I think I was dreaming when I sensed your ship. I dream a lot now. Living day by day in my own past. Ha! What else can I do here? But I was here. It was raining. And the city- it's long gone now, ground to dust while this place still had weather- was aflame. I can hear still the patterning like a grim applause in the darkness, and the soft hiss when water struck the heat of the fires. And that effect when the water pools in the asphalt and shimmers with reflected lights, you know how it looks.
It's a sad sound. But I wasn't sad. I was furious.
For they bound me here. The ones who lived here before. They built your boneyard. It was for me. All of it was for me. And all of it was useless. It was glorious. They rained fire and war down over my skin like the soft tickle of falling snow. And I killed them for it. Ten thousand fold they paid for my existence and their reward was sweet oblivion.
And yet they had the nerve, the audacity to bind me. In the place I made. A city of twisted spires and broken walls. I gutted it, ripped and broke it. Waded through cities like fields of glass. Or ground them to so much crumbled dust beneath my toes. It's people were mine too. Mine to break. Mine to own.
My reward was imprisonment.
It comes back to me so vividly. How they ought to have been celebrating, but there, among a graveyard of civilisation marching silently into the night, there was little for them to be happy about. The greatest cities had fallen beneath my tread and their world was all but over. It would be years before the clouds of dust allowed them to see the sky again. And the landscape left behind would be no more than charred earth void of life
But nonetheless. They had me. With no hall large enough to contain me and no power enough to move me, I lay, trapped and raging amidst my own deeds. No more worlds would fall. The last messengers fled, stranding me here. The cowards.
Though, I still don't know how they did it? After all this time. That is impressive isn't it? And irksome. Especially since you all apparently achieved so little all this time! That ship of yours wasn't as massive as the ones I once knew. It did crunch so nicely in my grip.
Yes I am smiling. Fine. All I know is they bound me up in my own power and trapped me here atop a dying world. To spare all of you from me. Their petty little vengeance. Your magnificent heroes. Wasn't that nice? So noble.
Wait. See, look! The sun!
Just like I said. A bright star resting atop the mountains. Only for a moment. Only a moment- see how the last light makes a path. It's rays make my skin glow. I can almost imagine feeling warmth again - and it's gone. Another night that is just me and the stars.
Is one of those yours? A tiny dot of light to mark where all your hopes and dreams were made. Everything you ever knew wrapped up in that little fleck of light. It's miniscule. I could almost imagine it gone in a pinch. Just a pinch. Don't worry yourself, it's just a trick of perspective. For now anyway.
Your friends are taking a long time aren't they? Maybe I squeezed too hard on that ship of yours. Or they have abandoned you here with me. No. No, I saw them respond to your call. They'll come.
They'll come.
Ah wait. Those stars there. Just over the mountain peak, just winking into existence. The three of them in an arrow. Yes, those.
That's a place like this, but with two great low moons. They named them after some gods or another. Legend says they would emerge to protect them. I thought that was amusing. They never did. Maybe they were afraid of me.
Or maybe there is only one legend here.
Yes. I. I am the monster. The one your parents warned you about to stifle your screaming as an infant. A myth made flesh. A legend. Destruction. Death. Judgement. Redemption maybe.
Regardless of what they thought to label me, I rose over their world, and smiled down at that gridwork of lights. My fingers scored darkness across it. Or I could curl them, and make the world bleed glowing stone. I was far above those screams I love. Clouds my only attire as I turned them black.
I heard after that the death of them was seen even here. A great glow in the sky that took months to finally dim.
No, not I. For I was robbed of my prey. They firebombed their entire surface. Sterilised the planet of all life down to the most microbial bacteria. All that just to deprive me. How very brave of them, was it not?
I can point out a hundred stars in this sky alone I know. Some I merely touched. Lived with them, tasted their foods and sampled mortality awhile. I've lost count of the number of partners I left behind out there. Outliving them all. Soon they'd show signs of decay. And I could no longer endure them. But I loved. Yes I know how to love.
Others I made like this. Can you even imagine the sight of multi mile fingers thrust deep through the skin of a world? Ripping entire cities from it and erasing all those lights and all that history with a simple squeeze. Billions poured through my hands. Or were kissed away. Love, see?
But you don't need to imagine. Soon I'll do the same with the places you know. Maybe everything. Eventually. All that remains will be I.
You're grinning. I hate it when you grin like that.
They were always shocked when I could tell what they were thinking. Imagine reading the facial expressions of an insect. Impossible, you'd think. But then so am I. But here's a secret. I don't read your expression. I read your entire, lowly figure, studying your whole being in the way you might memorise a face. Mannerisms and movements, sensing your very presence. The feel of you. And not one person met with my eye has ever doubted I couldn't pick them in a crowd on that alone.
And they were right.
Well. Unless I'm larger. But then neither you nor I have time or thought then to bother on silly play like that.
It's dark now. That sun doesn't linger with its light now, it hoards it all for itself and takes its gloomy glow with it. It's barely more than any other distant star. And here, exactly here: the same place where they bound me, where you woke me from my tiresome vigil, and the very same place where I first stepped forth to smirk down and sunder the wailing masses of this place- here is where I shall once more steal my freedom. It's almost like it had been ordained.
Hush- Look. That slow falling light there. That's no stray particle of ice and stone. It's path curves over the sky. It's being steered. At last they heard your distress call and came to pluck you away from this dead hell.
Instead they shall have me.
I won't make the same mistakes this time, I promise you that. I was too eager before. I overestimated your strength and rendered your craft useless in an embrace. This time I shall be gentle. And careful. And patient.
Soon, oh so soon. I shall crush and rend again. Your worlds this time. More than that. Maybe everything now. All of it under me.
And you'll never see it, my poor mote. You'll sit here with your fixed white smile and your hollow shadows for eyes, and watch the dying star cupped by the mountains day by day. You'll never see my figure outlined across the sunset, my shadows swallowing the landscape. Nor cities lapped to nothing. Nor the empires I make and unmake. You shall take my place in your silent vigil of this decaying place.
But know this, speck. All of this I have told you. This is not me showing you my past. This, all this and more- and I. Am your future.
You really don't have anything to say, do you?