To die would be release. To close his eyes for the last time, to feel his heart stop, to cease breathing. To leave the agony, misery, and suffering of the universe behind and just float into the eternal expanse of stars forever. Stars. How he missed stars. He couldn't remember the last time he saw them. Or the last time he'd seen anything but this dark cell and his tormentors. The thought sent a pang of sorrow through his body, and if he hadn't already given up, he would have felt the sharp sting of tears in his eyes. When he was a boy, growing up on the Cuban coast, he used to sit for hours on the beach and watch as the sun set over the aquamarine waters of the ocean. Now, if he closed his eyes, he could still feel the white sand against his toes and feel the breeze rustling his hair. He could still feel the exhaustion that settled over his entire body and deep into his bones after swimming away the whole day. And he still remembered where his mind wandered when he sat there, watching the sky celebrate yet another day of beauty and joy. It wandered to Space, it dwelled on girls, it swirled around his family, it fumed about school, but most often it contemplated. At the time, he'd never admit it to anyone, but it contemplated everything. Life, relationships, philosophies, and death. He would imagine his dying moments, lying on a bed beside the very same ocean, hair the color of the very same shore, and eyes as old as the very same sun. He pictured his family there, sisters, brothers, maybe a couple of kids, and, of course, a wife whose beauty defied age. He never even paused to think that his death would happen any other way. He certainly never thought he'd die alone in a gloomy cell in a Galran warship flying through a part of space that was millions of millions of light years from that beach. From that sun. From his family. With mild and detached amusement, the boy from Cuba noticed that he, in fact, did still have some ability to cry. His tears fell from shattered eyes, rolled down a bruised face, and met the blood stained floor with a bitter kiss. Lance McClain, the Red Paladin of Voltron, the Sharpshooter, the goofy one, the dumb one, or whatever people called him, was unable to stop the sobs as they racked his body, was unable to stop himself from showing weakness. He was incapable of doing anything other than sitting in agony, and wishing that his captors would just end his life.
