I don't understand...

Everything. I did everything right, from the very beginning...

Darkness beyond blackest pitch, deeper than the deepest night...

Created from darkness, all of us were; longing for it, struggling toward it...but why? Why when I'd gotten so far? Why when I was meeting my purpose? Why not before, why no warning, why no hint...even a hint of it, I would have known, Xellos would have known--we're not fools, we wouldn't have...I wouldn't have...if only I'd known. If only I'd known You.

I didn't know...please, I didn't know...this isn't what I wanted.

Lord of Darkness, who shines like gold upon the Sea of Chaos...

I only wanted what You wanted, don't you see? I wanted what you wanted for us, for me, for all of them, for everything, everything...it was going to be so perfect. Any one of us with my power would have done the same, You know that...You have to know what You created. We only know what we were created to do; only can do what we were created to do. I don't...I don't understand...

I call upon thee! Swear myself to thee!

I would have been Your vessel, if that was all You'd wanted. You didn't tell us what You wanted. We've held our purpose for thousands of years and You never told us otherwise--and I was the strongest of all, save You. I was the lord above lords, the one force strong enough to bring the End...wasn't that right?

...wasn't it?

I planned everything so precisely--from the moment the little witch first cast that spell, I'd been waiting for the moment I'd see it myself...Your power, source of my power, source of my creation and my mind and my purpose. You gave me my purpose, damn You, You made me of it...there was nothing else I could have done, nothing else! I was going to give You the world back--all I wanted was to go with it...

Let the fools who stand before me be destroyed by the power you and I possess!

I didn't mean this...I didn't mean for this to happen, I didn't...how could I have anticipated, how could I have known when none of us as even seen You. I didn't ask for this, I didn't know it would be like this, I didn't know what it meant, I didn't...I didn't want...I...

I did my best for You, for me; destroyed all who stood in my way, every gods-damned last one of them--until I found myself standing before You, and like every quaking mortal that saw the truth of me, I couldn't believe...but I knew. I knew I hadn't pleased You, and I knew that I could do nothing more; and once the light engulfed me I knew no more but You.

It's so cold inside You, Mother...

...it's so very, very cold.