Author: Ninja
Timeline: Post Episode 43
He has to get out.
The room has no walls, no ceiling. It seems to stretch into a black nothing ringed in faint, colored circuits that flicker in the shadows. The floor beneath is a dull white luminescence beneath his feet. He's yelled for hours now. There's no one to hear him. The shackles are firm and taut about his hands. There's no one here.
He can't get out.
He's going to die.
A faint clattering noise echoes through the empty nothing. It rings loudly inside his head where his thoughts tumble like a storm, all flashes of fear and rage and hate. He keeps tugging at the binds about his hands, but they don't relent. The chair he's strapped to is neither warm nor cold; it simply is. The whole damn room simply is.
"I don't want to die!"
He doesn't want to die, but he is. He is going to die. In minutes, maybe. Minutes.
Just a few minutes of being alive left.
He decides to scream some more.
"You'll regret this! You'll-" Anger blinds him, chokes his voice just like the fear. Maybe it's just fear he feels. He tries to hold onto that feeling. Maybe if he holds on hard enough, he won't die. Maybe he'll remember what feeling is. Maybe.
Minutes. Minutes to remember me.
Like a gaping maw, he feels his frantic mind tearing through every emotion, grappling and grabbing and sinking in claws and he's terrified, shaking, unable to think, just feeling, aware of the slipping sands that count down the minutes, the seconds, and there isn't enough of them for him to hold on to. There isn't enough time to feel everything.
He'll forget. He'll forget it all. He'll die. Poof.
He'll just end.
"-You'll regret this!"
For a moment, he feels regret. It's unfamiliar and strange - weird - as though its an odd shape, the way it fits inside his head, like the edges keep scraping together. It vanishes, subsumed in fear and rage and hate again.
He should've been more careful. He could've made sure they couldn't follow him. He should have been faster. He should have skipped the backwater planet and pushed deeper, ran farther. Stupid. Stupid. But it was too tempting. No one was supposed to be looking. No one was supposed to care about some mudball!
Should've, should've, should've. Should've thought it out. Should've beaten them down. Should've ripped it all out.
He collapses against the chair and feels a faint tug in his shoulder where they patched him up. He's not thankful.
Minutes. Minutes to remember. Seconds.
A faint, prickling feeling crawls across his shoulders.
"It's time."
He stiffens, clenching tight and forgetting breath.
He can't hear them approach, of course. Somewhere behind them they circle, moving strangely. Thoughts without hearts. Voices without mouths. Circling. Calm.
The room stretches out into pure black.
"F-Finally!" He yelps, trying not to cower. He notices flickering blue like melting light moving past his shoulder. They come to stand before him. "Just kill me already!"
He doesn't want to die. He doesn't want to be here even more.
The red pits of their eyes train on him. No one is coming for him. No one cares. He's alone. Just him, on his lonesome, strapped to a chair.
Isn't that what he told that one life form? Isn't that what he laughed about, when it had all seemed so funny? He had never felt alone before. Maybe this is what it feels like, like the black space around him has crawled beneath his skin. Suddenly it's not so funny any more.
"Gammon, of the Planet Barak."
He hates the way their voices sound. Soon it'll stop. The last thing he'll ever hear - them. It burns him up.
He won't feel that soon, either.
"You have been proven guilty of planetary theft, murder, mass destruction of property, -"
Tick, tick. Down the list. The words are formless and droning. Gammon looks from one executioner to the next, the terror inside him growing legs and spreading until he's cold all over.
There's no contesting the accusations. They're all true. He's had a long career. He'll never see a planet burn again.
"Just get on with it!" he snaps, rattling his cuffs.
The foremost Hyjuss' gaze looks at him impassively, and the words fade. It doesn't look offended by the interruption. It doesn't look like much of anything.
"Very well."
He's going to die.
"Proceed with the spiritual cleansing."
"What?!"
WHAT?!
"For your crimes, there is only our heaviest sentence."
Gammon surges against his cuffs and shrieks into the blackness at the beings standing before him, their edges shimmering and empty. "You have to kill me! Look at all the things I did!" Planetary destruction. Murder! Theft! High crimes! The worst crimes!
No. No no no no no no.
"There is no peace in killing."
"Yes there is!" He's arguing, jerking, chattering and shaking in his chains, begging to die. He wants to die.
Cleansing is worse. It's worse. He knows. He's heard. Seen - things. Heard things. Watched the slow turn of planets like Doral below him, suspended in the black of space, simply breathing and nothing more. He'd gone down to the surface. There was nothing there worth taking. No one there to laugh at. Just empty eyes and breathing.
There's nothing left of Barak, either. How many of his kind are left? An empty planet, just breathing, its people running to every end of space. Running from this. Running from-
A light kicks on above him. He cowers. He's a coward.
Minutes. Seconds to remember.
Is the last thing he'll ever feel - fear?
A red hum fills his head. Machinery. Something heavy drops against his head with a soft clink of metal. Something thin and red lances around his cranium, circling.
Seconds.
"D-Damn you-!"
"Your crimes end at Earth. Now, you may join us in peace.
That is justice."
Gammon laughs, frantically. He hates them. All of them. The Hyjuss. The earthlings. His shrill honking laugh fills the chamber. Suddenly he's babbling. Scared. A low red flash fills him, blinking once-
Twice -
"I can change!"
"You will."
The third flash fills the darkness before fading, becoming nothing.