What if the evil of a whole world's people had been put into your heart for you before you were born?
I say 'you,' as if I could be talking to anyone. But there is no one here. No one but the most evil creature ever to exist - myself. Still, I can pretend.
You, whoever you are, don't have to consider such a question. You were born with your own heart, your own combination of good and evil, like any natural creature. But I do have to consider it, because it's true about me.
Long ago, my people - dare I call them that? They would have nothing to do with me, but I have always longed for them. Yes, I must call them my people, because even though they and I exist at opposite ends of the spectrum of good and evil, we are a part of each other.
It hurts that part of me is so far away and never wants to come back.
What was I saying? Oh yes, I remember. As if I could ever forget.
A long time ago, my people left me here and ran away to the stars to escape my evil. They had already torn me out of their bodies and souls - all the evil of their thoughts, their dark ambitions, their cruelty, everything that was ugly about them on the inside. All of that became me.
Even when I was still a part of them, they must have been far more beautiful than I am now. They only contained my ugliness. I am ugliness itself.
I can't even begin to tell you how much I hate that...
After they had separated me from themselves, turning me into the black pool of evil that I am now, I still wasn't far enough away for them to be at peace. They could not stand even being in the same world with me, who had once been a part of their souls.
So they built themselves wings, beautiful silver-white wings of stone and steel, and flew away to the heavens. I stayed behind. They would not take me along; how could they? Much as I yearned to fly with them on their wings, they had built those wings only to get away from me.
I still don't understand how stone and steel could have made the Others light enough to fly. I have the feeling I would understand, if someone ever explained it to me. I feel the intelligence within myself to understand... but who would ever tell me? No one could ever dare to risk allowing me to fly.
I might kill them.
Long ago, the Others left me here and flew away. I could never hope to be able to count how long it has been. I tried, for the first years and centuries I was alone. I stopped trying when the question ceased to have meaning. How long is a part of forever?
Today - after the same sun rose that is dying behind the blank brown stones now - someone came to my world. There were two at first, flying in a small set of white and silver wings that were not unlike the ones on which the Others flew to abandon me, but a different shape.
I listened to them. I was almost mad with the feeling of there being someone else here, after so long! I didn't let them know I was there. If I had, they might have left before I could stop them. I would not let them leave! They had to stay and assuage my loneliness and pain. Maybe I would hurt them. That would make me feel better. I knew all about hurting people, from the evil that made up my soul. It always made you feel better if you could make someone else feel your pain.
Or so I thought. Maybe there is something so wrong with me that I couldn't even feel that relief.
After a little while, I started to understand their language. To my eager, disbelieving amazement, I learned that there were more of them! They were separated from a vast number of their people, who flew on a much larger set of silver-white wings. These other... humans... would be coming for them, these two seemed to think.
I resolved to make sure they couldn't get them when they came. That way they would all have to stay!
Soon the people with the larger set of wings did come. Several of them came down from the sky, not on wings but in a sparkle of blue light. They tried to get past me to the ones with the small wings.
I didn't let them. I killed one of them that tried, and I toyed with the rest. It would make me feel better...
Only it didn't. It made me feel even more empty than before.
I retreated in confusion to the small set of wings. One of the people there wasn't moving. The other one talked to me!
Her name was Deanna Troi, she said. She knew that I was hurting - and lonely - as if anyone else could know that! She talked as if she could read my heart. As she went on, describing my own lonely feelings of betrayal and rage to me, I began to realize that she actually could.
She felt compassion for me, and it burned me. No one had ever felt that way for me before! No one could! I was pure evil!
To prove it, I tortured her mate. She begged me to stop, screaming and crying in the pain she felt with him, but through it all I could still see her compassion for me. I couldn't stand it! She had to stop! I didn't understand any of this, and it hurt me almost more sharply than my years of loneliness.
Another human came down from the sky. He was Captain Picard, the one who ruled the greater set of silver-white wings. I started to threaten him, to toy with his mind about whether Deanna's mate was alive, but then I had a desperate idea.
Surely his wings were large enough to carry me away with his people?
I started to scheme. Take me away with you, I told him. Or I will not release your people.
He replied with demands of his own. He played me for a fool. Finally he tricked me and disappeared along with the rest of his people, including the compassionate one, Deanna Troi.
I screamed in pain when they left. It hurt terribly, being abandoned again. But what could I expect? I am pure evil. No one could ever really agree to have me near them.
What would you do if no one loved you? What would you do if you were so unworthy of love that you couldn't even love yourself?
After they left, they sent an explosion from the sky to destroy the small set of wings they had left behind. Now there is no hope that I could ever learn to fly with those wings and escape from this place that used to be my people's home and is now my prison.
I will be trapped here forever this time. I have no wings to fly, and no one would ever dare to teach me how.
They know I might kill them.
I am Armus. And I will never see my people again.