Thirty years should be able to take the bite off of almost any event. The years have not been kind to any part of me, save my outer appearance. Even that has become something I don't want staring back at me from any reflective surface. Penace has come at a heavy price, but then that's the way things should be.

Even breathing becomes pointless and difficult after a while. After so long it feels as though one has been filled with sawdust and left to dry from the inside out. Things start to fade, everything loses it's natural luster eventually. I never thought I'd be one to be content with being as dry and stagnant as a flower pressed in between the pages of an encyclopedia and forgotten thereafter.

Once long ago I was me, but now he's gone and not likey to ever return. No, it had nothing to do with this. Some how, long before any of this I managed to get lost within myself. It was that way for so long I had forgotten it could ever be different.

Until I met her.

...no, it's not even appropriate to mention her now. She has no place in this hole I've dug for myself. I have only myself to thank for that.

The fact that I'm even here makes me doubt a higher power. I lost the will to live years ago, there's just simply nothing more for me to give anyone anymore. Nothing left for me either.

THey say the ends justify the means... I just wish there were means that could bring about my end. I've tried, believe me. I seem to be rather impervious to that sort of thing. But perhaps that alone contradicts my earler statement regarding a divine power. It proves one does indeed exist, and believes that nothing, not even saving a planet is good enough to extricate my sins.

Sometimes I think if all would be well if I could only find that missing bit of me. But that is impossible as well. I know the location of it, but ever since she...

No.

I said I wouldn't bring her into this.

At times it seems that the emptiness has filled me to the point of bursting, but it always manages to take just a little more, even after there is nothing left.

So why am I still here?

There is no one left to avenge now, no one left to take revenge on. There isn't some great act of penace that I can perform that I haven't already. There is no incantation, no archaic arrangment of syllables in existence to release me. I've know the answer for quite a while now, actually. It's really much simpler than I put forth here, but at the same time impossible for me.

No one but me can save myself.

I think you can understand why this is not an option.

I know I do.