Bare Grace Misery-Part 1
"Down the dark decades of your pain, this will seem like a memory of
heaven."
--Pinhead, Clive Barker's Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
Time does not exist down here. We are told that we have always been. Some of us are told that, for some, it whispers in our heads during moments of calm, when desire is quiet for a time, all hungers sated, all problems solved.
We have always been.
What have we always been? I have no memories of peace. Peace comes in the form of silence. It is rare, as one of our kind knows. There are some who believe that they were something before they came down to the labyrinth, that they did things that didn't sound like us, that they breathed. Those who think that end up in the vats of body parts and lime that spews a new creature every once in a while. I saw this happen once. I glanced at the vats in passing. A sort of metamorphosis occurs. Just the right parts come together and produces a new servant. They are interesting to watch, and not just with the victims. The one I saw had four legs, two in front, and two in back. The two in front bore the creature forward, and to this day I have never seen him use the back ones. Accidents happen, I suppose. We call him the Reaper. His arms are stout like tree trunks and his claws are long razors. He has spines down his back. His face, like so many of ours, is intersected and lacerated with barbed wire, but he somehow came out of the vat with two eyes and a mouth. When he smiles, his razor sharp teeth cut his lips, and dark rivets run down his chin. He's attractive by standards of one such as I. He even has hair, and he's very thin. We don't get ones like that from the vats very often. I myself was hand made by one of our masters. He made sure my general figure and facial features were kept in tact. He even gave me a few of his traits. The back of my head, starting at my neck, to the bottom of my forehead just above my eyes is a spiny wig of two inch pins placed in a grid like pattern of lacerations. I don't know my maker's name, but I know him quite well. I often glance at myself, then at him, and I note the similarities. Our tunics match, and I seem to see my reflection in his eyes. I'm considerably smaller than he. Once I tried to decide how old I was, or at least how I old I looked. A small victim came through. She was not very tall, and the Reaper enjoyed himself with that one, and oddly enough, she seemed to enjoy him. Victims like that just make our day, if they're attractive, that is. Not gross, not like the last one who called himself a believer in Satan. He begged for a female, but got the Fat One, as I like to call him. He got quite an eye full, and full of many other places, for that matter. But I digress. This one, a girl, was only a few inches shorter than I, but her eyes, the way she glared at the Reaper when he did something she didn't like- which wasn't very often-were blue and intense. These orbs, I knew, would carry over to the creature whose limbs she fed in the vats. I decided I was her age, or looked it, and had an odd-irrational- thought. Could my creator have perhaps fashioned me after himself in hopes of creating spawn? Of course, I could never ask that. We are encouraged to be more hideous and less sentient, but in the course of my existence here, nothing could ever send cold tendrils of hideous sentience up my barbed and stitched back than the one time I noticed him looking at me in a way that was very familial, too familial. And though they don't make it obvious, the other denizens of the labyrinth know something. Its not common for rumors to spread down here, but on the number of occasions that I have worked with my creator, passers by have scowled at me or glared at him. I don't know why, and in the calm, the silence, when thoughts creep in, my mind wraps around the concept: I am his spawn, and they resent me for it. Then the whispering starts again, a space filler of sorts, to pass the moments of coherent thought until another victim comes down to us and the screams of pain and pleasure bring a sort of life to us, a sort of pride.
We have always been.
I have passed him and felt his eyes, I have had my own trips with experience, and he's told me that he was impressed with my work, and though he masked his voice, I thought I heard a note of pride, and his eyes changed-as they were wont to do-from black to blue. I make very sure that I never cross him when he's looking at me like that. I haven't told anyone what I think, for it may mean the end of me. There is only one family here, headed by Father Pain and Mother Pleasure; there is nothing else. Despite my fears and the whirling thoughts in my head, I know in every fiber of my being that I was not created by him for any other reason than any of us are created. I have always been.
Bare Grace Misery-Part 2
"Forever would the wolf in me desire the sheep in you."
--Nightwish "Beauty and the Beast"
Years and decades pass like ground bones through my fingers. In my secret heart, my feelings have taken root in a hole deep within my soul. The chief one would be my worry over my relation to my creator. Underneath that are some trifle attractions to the Reaper, who is surprisingly open to my attraction to him. My maker, of course, found out about our less than professional relationship and threatened the Reaper and myself on pain of death if anything more came of it. I sneered at him, challenging him in a nonverbal manner-a manner less likely to get me chained to something sinister. In a few moments I had forgotten it, and let the matter drop. At a later point in time, I was standing in a corner, resting my shaking, bloody limbs (that victim had been a fighter. If it hadn't been for the Skinner he would have over powered me). I was standing still with my eyes closed, listening to the relative silence of my refuge, when he found me. "Give you a shock?" he asked, "I hadn't anticipated that when they gave him to you." My eyes snapped open, and he stood before me, looking down at me, and at once I felt like a.child! "I was perfectly capable of handling him, my lord," I replied. My maker snorted, "Obviously not." He paced in front of me, still mocking me. My hands no longer shook. I clenched them at my sides. "Assigning you victims you have no business handling is not a logical action," he explained, "Not only could one of our own die at their hands, if one of them escaped it would be chaos and a massive waste of time." I listened for a moment, wondering if he had a point. "You have progressed in the last few years," he commented. A red tipped hand twisted one of the pins in his chin. His eye flinched, but the painful effect seemed to calm him, " But that does not make you bigger in size than you truly are." It had crossed my mind to ask what that was supposed to mean, but I held my tongue. He stopped pacing, "I shall see to it that such an incident never occurs again. I believe you are valuable," he paused, "an asset to us. It would not do to lose you to a human." I tilted my head, "What will you do?" "Whatever I have to, to keep you away from.potentially dangers victims," my creator replied. My secret fears found solid ground. He was.concerned? How did this come about? My creator was nothing if not cruel and cold to everyone. Everyone except me. A personal revelation came upon me. For decades, how could I not have noticed? I was the only one he was civil to-in a strictly work related way. I was shocked and a little nervous. I tried to hide it, but surely my eyes betrayed me. His lacerated face softened in a way that made me want to put my back against the wall. I have only seen him look upon two things that way: the vats and unrecognizable piles of gore. My eyes darted about, making sure that the Reaper was nowhere in sight. My creator's pupils widened a little, and I noticed they were blue again. For a moment, I glanced at the pool of stagnant water next to us. My eyes were blue too. I didn't return my gaze to him; I couldn't look into those reflective eyes, the eyes that spoke to my soul. I kept my own riveted on the pool before me. A red tipped finger floated up and touched the unscarred flesh of my cheek and I jerked in surprise. But his eyes held a sense of calm. I relaxed a little. He held my face in one hand, but not hard. His touch was alarmingly gentle. I wanted to pull away, but I couldn't move. I leered at him. He seemed to be inspecting me, with those gentle eyes, so frightening. At last his hand slipped away, caressingly, and he turned to leave. I shuddered visibly, but gave no sign as to my mixing emotions. On the one hand I wanted to throw up in sheer repulsion, but on the other I wanted to follow him and tell him all that was in my secret heart, but I remained where I was. I gave myself a mental shake. I wiped my face before I remembered that I still had blood all over me. I left bloody handprints on my face where he had touched me. I stepped out from my refuge and followed the path he had taken, but there was no sign of him. I shuddered again and cursed my creator for all this unnecessary feeling. What right had he to trouble my mind so? There was no excuse and I knew as well as any other denizen of the labyrinth that to feel affection to any other creature or thing besides pain and pleasure is punishable by death. But in truth there was no denying it. I was his spawn, created by his own hands for him to watch, to amuse him, to leave his mark, and he had all but verbally admitted it. Very well, thought I, there's no running from it, but never shall anyone but the two of us know anything about this.I sighed.misery. I expected things to go on as usual, for our work to continue. I thought tings could not change. There's no such thing for us as change. I could never be more that what I am to him. I could never call him "Master" or anything more familiar than "my lord" so why shouldn't things go on? But after that moment, I never saw my maker again.
Bare Grace Misery-Part 3
"The sinful things, desire within, desire within"
--Nightwish "She is my Sin"
It never occurred to me to count anything, but I started counting the days, the weeks, and finally the years in which I never saw my creator. New fears began to pile themselves on top of old ones: what if he is avoiding me? I had the fleeting irrational thought of asking the Reaper if he had seen my maker, but I feared that, though he was not in my view, he was still watching us to make sure we didn't make anything out of my attractions to the Reaper. I went about my life, as it were, in a normal fashion. I could not see my maker, but I was certain that he was still watching me, for every victim that came through was tested to make sure it was safe for me. I found this to be only mildly irritating. At last, one day, after two years of not seeing my maker and having the oddest feeling of abandonment, I decided to go in search of him. I began in his usual haunts of old: the assembling box, the vats, the tar pit, and places of that nature. Not for a moment did I think of asking anyone for help, for as soon as I looked interested in the matter, the whispering among the other servants of the labyrinth would start. After two weeks of intermittent searching and working, I'd come up with nothing. I had been reduced to wandering in circles, thinking that I see his face in a pool of water or his shadow on the dark walls, but alas, it is only my face in the water, and only my shadow on the wall. One day I gave up. I leaned against a wall and sighed. A million questions flooded my head: is he dead? Is he still avoiding me? Why would he avoid me? Why did he disappear after that day? Were did they put his body? It was finally time to ask someone, no matter how suspicious it looked. I approached one of our veteran servants and cleared my throat. She turned and looked down at me. Why is everyone so tall? "Kitana, have you seen the one with the pins?" I asked. The one with her throat slit and her eyes wide and black shook her head, and in her raspy voice, "No." She turned to go, but I asked another question. "Is it not strange that he should disappear for such a long time?" Kitana turned back around, "You are not old enough to remember my original colleagues." I tilted my head, "How old am I?" Kitana smiled, "Fifty years if you are a day." I was confused, "But I am small." "We do not age," she said, "I had hoped you would figure that out by now. The one who made you was one of my former colleagues" That I could understand (except the former part. That was something I didn't want to think about), but still one question remained, "The one with the pins made me. Why?" Kitana shook her head, "That we do not speak of. Never ask me again." And I let her walk away. So, my maker watched me for fifty years. It didn't seem like very long to me. I was no older, no stronger, no bigger than I was fifty years ago. Had he made me for that reason? How confusing and disgusting this had all become. The day I decided to give up, I visited the vats one more time. It was a regular haunt for me. I was standing by idly, watching the body parts bob up and down in the mire, when a voice from the shadows brought me to attention. "You're wondering where he went." I glanced up and to my right. Another servant stood by, watching me watch the vats. He walked forward. I knew this one. I was the local clown. None of us took him seriously. This one was ugly, truly, not desirable in the least like the Reaper. My creator had once remarked to me that he'd been made that way on purpose because he used to be vain. It was back when I was quite a junior servant and didn't understand such things. He approached me now, that annoying piece of construction machinery still jammed in his skull, jerked his head about like a nervous tick. "Yes, I was curious," I replied. The ugly one pointed at the vats, "You've been looking in the right place, but not the right way." He followed his finger, and amidst the torsos and heads and arms and appendages in the green mire, floated something. A red tipped hand. My voice caught in my throat. The ugly one laughed and shook me by the shoulder. I turned to him, my gaze burning him to silence. "You ratted him out, didn't you, you ugly, worthless piece of rotting flesh," I accused, advancing on him. The ugly one nodded his head and laughed, "You bet. Wasn't going to miss the chance to put that one in his place. He's caused me enough grief to warrant some revenge." I would hear no more of it. I was torn between throwing the ugly bastard into the vats and just walking away, or ripping him to pieces with my own two hands and throwing his wasted parts into the vats and walking away. In the end all I did was walk away. There was nothing left to do, and anything I did would only serve to confirm any suspicions he had about my creator and I. When I was again alone, in my corner, my mind began to wander. A strange feeling crept into my chest and I clutched it in vague curiosity. My kind was not taught to regret, but I did. I regretted not returning his soft gaze on that day so many months ago. I could see him behind my closed eyes, could feel his blood red fingers on my face. It was comforting and at the same time torturous. There was nothing left in this place. Nothing left to wonder, nothing left to fear, and nothing left to think about in the silent hours of waiting, nothing except the whispering voice in my skull. I understood it then, what the voice was saying. It was a sort of closure finally. It sounded like it was saying goodbye, and I imagined what my creator must have been thinking of as he looked down into the vats, and for all the misguided thoughts of uncaring, cold creatures, I hoped it was of me. I opened my eyes suddenly. Thoughts such as those could not be healthy, and I was due for a victim. It seemed that my maker would have wanted me to go on without him there to breath down my neck. I pulled myself from the corner and turned in the direction of the Reaper's chamber. There is no rule against one of us causing pain and pleasure on another. In those hours of experience, I could think only one coherent thought, and it was of him, my creator, he who was responsible for my being. I could now concentrate on my work, and on the Reaper's. His voice, like the hollow whisper in my ear: What once was is now gone, but you have always been.
"Down the dark decades of your pain, this will seem like a memory of
heaven."
--Pinhead, Clive Barker's Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth
Time does not exist down here. We are told that we have always been. Some of us are told that, for some, it whispers in our heads during moments of calm, when desire is quiet for a time, all hungers sated, all problems solved.
We have always been.
What have we always been? I have no memories of peace. Peace comes in the form of silence. It is rare, as one of our kind knows. There are some who believe that they were something before they came down to the labyrinth, that they did things that didn't sound like us, that they breathed. Those who think that end up in the vats of body parts and lime that spews a new creature every once in a while. I saw this happen once. I glanced at the vats in passing. A sort of metamorphosis occurs. Just the right parts come together and produces a new servant. They are interesting to watch, and not just with the victims. The one I saw had four legs, two in front, and two in back. The two in front bore the creature forward, and to this day I have never seen him use the back ones. Accidents happen, I suppose. We call him the Reaper. His arms are stout like tree trunks and his claws are long razors. He has spines down his back. His face, like so many of ours, is intersected and lacerated with barbed wire, but he somehow came out of the vat with two eyes and a mouth. When he smiles, his razor sharp teeth cut his lips, and dark rivets run down his chin. He's attractive by standards of one such as I. He even has hair, and he's very thin. We don't get ones like that from the vats very often. I myself was hand made by one of our masters. He made sure my general figure and facial features were kept in tact. He even gave me a few of his traits. The back of my head, starting at my neck, to the bottom of my forehead just above my eyes is a spiny wig of two inch pins placed in a grid like pattern of lacerations. I don't know my maker's name, but I know him quite well. I often glance at myself, then at him, and I note the similarities. Our tunics match, and I seem to see my reflection in his eyes. I'm considerably smaller than he. Once I tried to decide how old I was, or at least how I old I looked. A small victim came through. She was not very tall, and the Reaper enjoyed himself with that one, and oddly enough, she seemed to enjoy him. Victims like that just make our day, if they're attractive, that is. Not gross, not like the last one who called himself a believer in Satan. He begged for a female, but got the Fat One, as I like to call him. He got quite an eye full, and full of many other places, for that matter. But I digress. This one, a girl, was only a few inches shorter than I, but her eyes, the way she glared at the Reaper when he did something she didn't like- which wasn't very often-were blue and intense. These orbs, I knew, would carry over to the creature whose limbs she fed in the vats. I decided I was her age, or looked it, and had an odd-irrational- thought. Could my creator have perhaps fashioned me after himself in hopes of creating spawn? Of course, I could never ask that. We are encouraged to be more hideous and less sentient, but in the course of my existence here, nothing could ever send cold tendrils of hideous sentience up my barbed and stitched back than the one time I noticed him looking at me in a way that was very familial, too familial. And though they don't make it obvious, the other denizens of the labyrinth know something. Its not common for rumors to spread down here, but on the number of occasions that I have worked with my creator, passers by have scowled at me or glared at him. I don't know why, and in the calm, the silence, when thoughts creep in, my mind wraps around the concept: I am his spawn, and they resent me for it. Then the whispering starts again, a space filler of sorts, to pass the moments of coherent thought until another victim comes down to us and the screams of pain and pleasure bring a sort of life to us, a sort of pride.
We have always been.
I have passed him and felt his eyes, I have had my own trips with experience, and he's told me that he was impressed with my work, and though he masked his voice, I thought I heard a note of pride, and his eyes changed-as they were wont to do-from black to blue. I make very sure that I never cross him when he's looking at me like that. I haven't told anyone what I think, for it may mean the end of me. There is only one family here, headed by Father Pain and Mother Pleasure; there is nothing else. Despite my fears and the whirling thoughts in my head, I know in every fiber of my being that I was not created by him for any other reason than any of us are created. I have always been.
Bare Grace Misery-Part 2
"Forever would the wolf in me desire the sheep in you."
--Nightwish "Beauty and the Beast"
Years and decades pass like ground bones through my fingers. In my secret heart, my feelings have taken root in a hole deep within my soul. The chief one would be my worry over my relation to my creator. Underneath that are some trifle attractions to the Reaper, who is surprisingly open to my attraction to him. My maker, of course, found out about our less than professional relationship and threatened the Reaper and myself on pain of death if anything more came of it. I sneered at him, challenging him in a nonverbal manner-a manner less likely to get me chained to something sinister. In a few moments I had forgotten it, and let the matter drop. At a later point in time, I was standing in a corner, resting my shaking, bloody limbs (that victim had been a fighter. If it hadn't been for the Skinner he would have over powered me). I was standing still with my eyes closed, listening to the relative silence of my refuge, when he found me. "Give you a shock?" he asked, "I hadn't anticipated that when they gave him to you." My eyes snapped open, and he stood before me, looking down at me, and at once I felt like a.child! "I was perfectly capable of handling him, my lord," I replied. My maker snorted, "Obviously not." He paced in front of me, still mocking me. My hands no longer shook. I clenched them at my sides. "Assigning you victims you have no business handling is not a logical action," he explained, "Not only could one of our own die at their hands, if one of them escaped it would be chaos and a massive waste of time." I listened for a moment, wondering if he had a point. "You have progressed in the last few years," he commented. A red tipped hand twisted one of the pins in his chin. His eye flinched, but the painful effect seemed to calm him, " But that does not make you bigger in size than you truly are." It had crossed my mind to ask what that was supposed to mean, but I held my tongue. He stopped pacing, "I shall see to it that such an incident never occurs again. I believe you are valuable," he paused, "an asset to us. It would not do to lose you to a human." I tilted my head, "What will you do?" "Whatever I have to, to keep you away from.potentially dangers victims," my creator replied. My secret fears found solid ground. He was.concerned? How did this come about? My creator was nothing if not cruel and cold to everyone. Everyone except me. A personal revelation came upon me. For decades, how could I not have noticed? I was the only one he was civil to-in a strictly work related way. I was shocked and a little nervous. I tried to hide it, but surely my eyes betrayed me. His lacerated face softened in a way that made me want to put my back against the wall. I have only seen him look upon two things that way: the vats and unrecognizable piles of gore. My eyes darted about, making sure that the Reaper was nowhere in sight. My creator's pupils widened a little, and I noticed they were blue again. For a moment, I glanced at the pool of stagnant water next to us. My eyes were blue too. I didn't return my gaze to him; I couldn't look into those reflective eyes, the eyes that spoke to my soul. I kept my own riveted on the pool before me. A red tipped finger floated up and touched the unscarred flesh of my cheek and I jerked in surprise. But his eyes held a sense of calm. I relaxed a little. He held my face in one hand, but not hard. His touch was alarmingly gentle. I wanted to pull away, but I couldn't move. I leered at him. He seemed to be inspecting me, with those gentle eyes, so frightening. At last his hand slipped away, caressingly, and he turned to leave. I shuddered visibly, but gave no sign as to my mixing emotions. On the one hand I wanted to throw up in sheer repulsion, but on the other I wanted to follow him and tell him all that was in my secret heart, but I remained where I was. I gave myself a mental shake. I wiped my face before I remembered that I still had blood all over me. I left bloody handprints on my face where he had touched me. I stepped out from my refuge and followed the path he had taken, but there was no sign of him. I shuddered again and cursed my creator for all this unnecessary feeling. What right had he to trouble my mind so? There was no excuse and I knew as well as any other denizen of the labyrinth that to feel affection to any other creature or thing besides pain and pleasure is punishable by death. But in truth there was no denying it. I was his spawn, created by his own hands for him to watch, to amuse him, to leave his mark, and he had all but verbally admitted it. Very well, thought I, there's no running from it, but never shall anyone but the two of us know anything about this.I sighed.misery. I expected things to go on as usual, for our work to continue. I thought tings could not change. There's no such thing for us as change. I could never be more that what I am to him. I could never call him "Master" or anything more familiar than "my lord" so why shouldn't things go on? But after that moment, I never saw my maker again.
Bare Grace Misery-Part 3
"The sinful things, desire within, desire within"
--Nightwish "She is my Sin"
It never occurred to me to count anything, but I started counting the days, the weeks, and finally the years in which I never saw my creator. New fears began to pile themselves on top of old ones: what if he is avoiding me? I had the fleeting irrational thought of asking the Reaper if he had seen my maker, but I feared that, though he was not in my view, he was still watching us to make sure we didn't make anything out of my attractions to the Reaper. I went about my life, as it were, in a normal fashion. I could not see my maker, but I was certain that he was still watching me, for every victim that came through was tested to make sure it was safe for me. I found this to be only mildly irritating. At last, one day, after two years of not seeing my maker and having the oddest feeling of abandonment, I decided to go in search of him. I began in his usual haunts of old: the assembling box, the vats, the tar pit, and places of that nature. Not for a moment did I think of asking anyone for help, for as soon as I looked interested in the matter, the whispering among the other servants of the labyrinth would start. After two weeks of intermittent searching and working, I'd come up with nothing. I had been reduced to wandering in circles, thinking that I see his face in a pool of water or his shadow on the dark walls, but alas, it is only my face in the water, and only my shadow on the wall. One day I gave up. I leaned against a wall and sighed. A million questions flooded my head: is he dead? Is he still avoiding me? Why would he avoid me? Why did he disappear after that day? Were did they put his body? It was finally time to ask someone, no matter how suspicious it looked. I approached one of our veteran servants and cleared my throat. She turned and looked down at me. Why is everyone so tall? "Kitana, have you seen the one with the pins?" I asked. The one with her throat slit and her eyes wide and black shook her head, and in her raspy voice, "No." She turned to go, but I asked another question. "Is it not strange that he should disappear for such a long time?" Kitana turned back around, "You are not old enough to remember my original colleagues." I tilted my head, "How old am I?" Kitana smiled, "Fifty years if you are a day." I was confused, "But I am small." "We do not age," she said, "I had hoped you would figure that out by now. The one who made you was one of my former colleagues" That I could understand (except the former part. That was something I didn't want to think about), but still one question remained, "The one with the pins made me. Why?" Kitana shook her head, "That we do not speak of. Never ask me again." And I let her walk away. So, my maker watched me for fifty years. It didn't seem like very long to me. I was no older, no stronger, no bigger than I was fifty years ago. Had he made me for that reason? How confusing and disgusting this had all become. The day I decided to give up, I visited the vats one more time. It was a regular haunt for me. I was standing by idly, watching the body parts bob up and down in the mire, when a voice from the shadows brought me to attention. "You're wondering where he went." I glanced up and to my right. Another servant stood by, watching me watch the vats. He walked forward. I knew this one. I was the local clown. None of us took him seriously. This one was ugly, truly, not desirable in the least like the Reaper. My creator had once remarked to me that he'd been made that way on purpose because he used to be vain. It was back when I was quite a junior servant and didn't understand such things. He approached me now, that annoying piece of construction machinery still jammed in his skull, jerked his head about like a nervous tick. "Yes, I was curious," I replied. The ugly one pointed at the vats, "You've been looking in the right place, but not the right way." He followed his finger, and amidst the torsos and heads and arms and appendages in the green mire, floated something. A red tipped hand. My voice caught in my throat. The ugly one laughed and shook me by the shoulder. I turned to him, my gaze burning him to silence. "You ratted him out, didn't you, you ugly, worthless piece of rotting flesh," I accused, advancing on him. The ugly one nodded his head and laughed, "You bet. Wasn't going to miss the chance to put that one in his place. He's caused me enough grief to warrant some revenge." I would hear no more of it. I was torn between throwing the ugly bastard into the vats and just walking away, or ripping him to pieces with my own two hands and throwing his wasted parts into the vats and walking away. In the end all I did was walk away. There was nothing left to do, and anything I did would only serve to confirm any suspicions he had about my creator and I. When I was again alone, in my corner, my mind began to wander. A strange feeling crept into my chest and I clutched it in vague curiosity. My kind was not taught to regret, but I did. I regretted not returning his soft gaze on that day so many months ago. I could see him behind my closed eyes, could feel his blood red fingers on my face. It was comforting and at the same time torturous. There was nothing left in this place. Nothing left to wonder, nothing left to fear, and nothing left to think about in the silent hours of waiting, nothing except the whispering voice in my skull. I understood it then, what the voice was saying. It was a sort of closure finally. It sounded like it was saying goodbye, and I imagined what my creator must have been thinking of as he looked down into the vats, and for all the misguided thoughts of uncaring, cold creatures, I hoped it was of me. I opened my eyes suddenly. Thoughts such as those could not be healthy, and I was due for a victim. It seemed that my maker would have wanted me to go on without him there to breath down my neck. I pulled myself from the corner and turned in the direction of the Reaper's chamber. There is no rule against one of us causing pain and pleasure on another. In those hours of experience, I could think only one coherent thought, and it was of him, my creator, he who was responsible for my being. I could now concentrate on my work, and on the Reaper's. His voice, like the hollow whisper in my ear: What once was is now gone, but you have always been.