Emptiness.

To be a contradiction in oneself is to have a purpose. To those gifted with the purpose comes a responsibility, a reliance to act upon it on their own accord. To those gifted with the purpose comes happiness, sadness, grief and joy. The completion of the purpose often leaves the individual with a sense of accomplishment; of jubilation. The purpose defines the individual, for it is not the individual that acts against the purpose. Should the purpose be accomplished, then the cycle shall unceasingly begin again. Like a well oiled machine, the purpose shall run endlessly; resetting and reapplying itself when necessary, always guiding the individual along their self appointed path.

The dead do not have a purpose.

Exdeath never imagined that death would be quite like what he found himself in. He'd long since given up on the belief of "gods" or supernatural deities; he always imagined death as a endless empty void of nothingness. In fact, he found himself midly surprised to find that his assumption was more or less accurate.

The consciousness during death bothered him quite a bit, however.

Sanity was an infrequent visitor. His inner demons were many and unrelenting; each time clear thought came him, grief and despair would make it a point to reclaim him as quickly as possible. Should they miss their cue, the immense, vast ocean of helplessness that surrounded and tormented him would close in, always drowning whatever hopes may have sprung forth in his soul.

There was no escape.

Reality, cold and ungiving, would come crashing down every time he'd set to pondering such a conquest. He'd tell himself that since he was not dead, there had to be something else he had to do in this lifetime. Then memories of the bloodshed, caused by his own hands, would pierce his soul like a wickedly righteous dagger. Perhaps he was serving some sort of sentence for his criminal acts. Indeed, his crimes against humanity were many and severe; though he himself had not committed them in any state of mind, he had been unable to prevent them from being committed.

It was thoughts like these that sent him spiraling back into the depths of insanity.

Time was a nonfactor, but still it eventually grew to the point where he began to hate when lucid thought returned to him. He soon started diving deep into his grief each time thought came clearly. Yet he could never completely hide himself behind his despair; a single thought, one pale glimmer of grey against the absolute black darkness of the void, had somehow anchored itself to him and refused to let go.

Freedom.

The good freedom of "mind" would do, when his "mind" was all he had left; that he could not fathom. He often scoffed at the irony when allowed, for his situation brought a sort of twisted amusement to him. He did not take any real enjoyment from the matter, though; rather, whenever he found himself with conscious thought, he found himself hoping that the demons of his soul would reclaim him as soon as possible. Truly, it grew to the point where he detested sanity with every fiber of his being. He prayed for the day his demons would overwhelm him; utterly and with no remorse, he would have conscious thought no more. Grief and despair burned and suffocated him to no end, but the unchanging emptiness of the void was quite simply too much for him to bear.

His demons could not conquer him for good.

For although the emptiness never changed, although the hopelessness ever lingered, he was always pulled from his delirium before it could permanently set in. Hope had anchored like a beacon in the middle of the endless sea of helplessness. Once again; despite his resistance and all of his efforts, he could not detach himself from the beacon. And though its glimmer was faint and barely perceptible in all of the insanity, it would not let him slide into the brink from which there was no return. He could not completely forsake hope.

He grew to despise that beacon.

The formless void was the perfect place to nourish and cultivate his hatred. The everpresent nothingness was the fertilizer; the glimmer of hope, the seed. If hatred alone could have delivered him from his predicament, then it would not be long before the boundaries of Limbo shatter theirselves before him. Yet hatred alone would not deliver him from his situation; that fact, in itself, served only to fuel his hate even more.

His demons were still unable to overcome him.

To have hope is to have a purpose. Exdeath did not have a purpose. Yet he had hope; subconscious as it was, he could not deny its presence. His body had long ago been destroyed. He was dead, forgotten; lost to the outside world. He would not die; every sane moment of his existence was spent in torment. Yet the hope persisted, only serving to fuel his hatred even further.

The cycle would not end.

It was during a brief struggle against sanity that the Change came. He never bothered to wonder afterwards whether it had been planned, or if he'd just happened to be sane at the time. Perhaps it was fortunate either way; nothing good could spawn from his insanity, not with all of the hatred that filled his soul. And still, the entire thing had been a risk of the highest caliber. Exdeath was filled with such hate at the time, he was nearly self destructive. Though he knew it not, it was entirely possible to self destruct his own mind and soul; thus ending his existence and denying him of the purpose that had seeked him out.

He felt hot.

And a sensation. One long thought gone, yet apparently buried in the same subconscious corner with his hope. It was sudden; brief in the matter of seconds, yet enough to draw a reaction from his long tormented mind.

He was falling.

The ungiving ground did not greet him with kindness. If his mind had not snapped out of its stupor yet, then the harsh contact with the packed earth most certainly did the job. Another sensation, thought perished long ago, rose from the depths of obscurity and assailed his senses. Pain throbbed in his left leg, upon which he had apparently landed quite akwardly. Face first on the ground he had sprawled, with the sun beating, unceasingly, on his back.

He felt pain. He felt heat.

The smell of dirt and grass wafted through the filters of his helmet, heavy in the fragrance of late summer. The thick aroma was too much for him to handle and he sneezed, the sound echoing hollow within the confines of his helmet. The action brought an ache to his skull; understandably, as he was no longer used to possessing sinal cavities.

The sun unceasingly beat down, bathing him in such heat he'd not experienced in lifetimes. He laid there, face down, curled in the fetal position. Confused did not begin to describe the emotions running through his mind. Yet although his stay in the void had dulled his mind, it did not make him any more naive to the world. He couldn't bring himself to believe that after such torment, after such insanity, he was alive.

Something was wrong.

And then it hit him. He was still insane, still trapped in the formless void as a formless soul. His mind was leading him on the ultimate deception, trying to convince him that he'd somehow been resurrected. All he wished was for the torment to end, in one way or another, but it appeared that he was fated to suffer throughout all of eternity. His helplessness quickly ascended to pure hatred; the sun's gentle hand did nothing to prevent his rage from blossoming out of control. An overpowering urge to gouge his eyeballs out with his own hands came upon him. Logic had long since left him; frustration and helplessness were evident on his shaking hands as he raised them with the single intent of mauling himself beyond all recognition.

He only stopped short when he recognized the gauntlets his hands bore.

If this was yet another delusion, then it was the most convincing one he'd come across yet. Not only had he envisioned an environment, grassy and green; completely different than the one he knew himself to be in, but he'd also imagined himself a body. A body ruined long ago; impossible to amend by any manner of mortals. A body that had brought about the ruin of two worlds. The same body, sporting dark blue armor and a sky blue cloak, that had ripped through frail mortal kingdoms in ages past. The gauntlets that now covered his hands were stained in the blood of too many innocents to count. Impossible to amend; not possible to grieve. He could not move his gaze from the jewelled fixtures, in complete disbelief as he was. His mind had tread on forbidden territory.

He was Exdeath.

At least for the time being. In the first instance he could recall, the hatred did not blossom. The rage had not been planted over the indignation of the realization. No; the rage was not there, the hatred nonexistent. In their place was an emptiness, chilling in its purity. Torment was eternal and salvation was nonexistent. Even now, he realized, he had not the luxury of insanity. To bear this new agony in complete lucidity was more than he could endure. He wanted to cry.

"I don't believe it..."

He'd heard the footsteps quite awhile ago, yet he dismissed them as quickly as they'd been put to earth. Everything in this delusion was just that, a delusion. The unknown figment's words brought a tingle to his spine, however.

He recognized the voice.

A swift foot found its way into his midsection, striking him with such force only a well practiced warrior could create. Exdeath grimaced and said nothing, wishing only that the demons would return to reclaim him. Another kick and he instinctively curled up into the fetal position, wondering if constants still remaining in this lifetime. Insanity only stood on the sidelines and laughed, making no move to reclaim him as the figment lashed out again with his foot.

"Get up you bastard."

A hint of anger laced the figment's words, bringing his thoughts to exactly who stood over him. Yet he made no effort to discover the answer himself; confident in the fact insanity would shortly reclaim him. Insanity moved not an inch.

"I didn't come here to kill you, as much as I would like to. Now pull yourself up before I pull you up myself!"

The figment was definitely angry with him. Yet it was only a figment of his delusion, and nothing more. The harsh emptiness persisted, and he curled up tighter in an attempt to fill his spiritual gap. Yet it was ineffective; nothing he did would drive away the chill. Nothing he did would bring him peace of mind. He was so tired.

Two arms wormed their way under his shoulders.

He didn't have even the energy to fight. A single heave and he was lifted from the ground. The figment was quite strong, for he was held in the air for several seconds before being roughly set back on his own two feet. Instantly his knees wobbled. He would have fallen if the figment hadn't grabbed him; balancing him and setting him upright. His knees wobbled again.

"Goddamn it, can't you remember how to walk?"

He made no pretensions. Whatever strength of will had survived his ordeal with the "presence" had been drained from him in the void. He was weak, so very weak. Perhaps the weakest being to ever exist. Memories, distorted and truncated, came to him in any case. Before long he was standing of his own accord, never once imagining that he'd have need to brace any "legs" ever again.

"Just like a baby. I swear. Limbo will do that to you, I hear. Open your damn eyes."

The sun bathed him in glorious heat as he strained to open his eyelids. The emptiness never ceased to gnaw at the pit of his soul; although the sunlight did nothing to remedy it, its blessed heat soothed him quite a bit. He may be experiencing his cruelest delusion of them all, but he found himself no longer caring. The heat of the sun was an infinte improvement over the unrelenting emptiness of the void. His eyelids opened; slowly and with great strain, and for the first time in ages he found himself flooded with images.

He'd long since forgotten how truly glorious color was.

For all of its warmth and comfort, the sun proved to be too much of a strain on his eyes. It took quite awhile before his vision reached levels comparable to his days among the living. The figment only stood there all the while, muttering beneath its breath about something or another. Exdeath cared not at all. The sun was soothing some of the constant emptiness, and that was what he was concerned with.

Until his vision returned.

"This..... this is not real....."

He hadn't even thought about his voice. The words just came out randomly, laced with the same icy flatness that gnawed at the pit of his soul. Perhaps it was shock at the identity of the figment, or shock that he could finally see in the world of the living. In any case, his mind had to have been working several steps slower than his mouth. He surprised himself with those words.

Exdeath was staring into the face of Galuf.

"Of course it isn't. I'm dead. You're dead. This forest was burned to the ground long ago. By you yourself, if I have to remind you 'bout that."

Exdeath was silent. He remembered killing the old man in front of him. The "presence" had been incensed beyong all rationality, overconfident in the frailty of a single mortal. Despite all of Exdeath's efforts, he hadn't been able to prevent the self destruction of the man. Hatred had oozed from Galuf, like blood from an open wound, when they'd engaged battle. The old man's hatred had been great, but the "presence's", as always, had been greater.

The best Galuf had accomplished was to cause him to retreat.

Incensed about his defiance, the "presence" didn't give two thoughts to setting the forest ablaze. The entire forest, which had once been a monument to prosperity and steadfastness, quickly became a mounument to death and despair. Although he himself had sensed nothing, apparently the "presence" had picked up on the passing of Galuf from the world of the living. That would have explained its half-satisfaction that on day, Exdeath decided.

And now the man, whose life he has ended, was staring him in the face.

He was not naked; putting to rest any assumptions of naked little angels flying around and stinging people with heart shaped arrows. Galuf was dressed as he was on the day he died; bright green robe, brown pants, purple undershirt set against the a pink belt. Galuf was a bit shorter than him but not by much; Exdeath surmised him to be around six foot four or six foot five. Unkempt brown hair hung loosely about his shoulders, in stark contrast to his neatly kept goatee.

Exdeath didn't know what to say.

Although Galuf was old, he remained in top physical condition. He'd been strong during his days among the living; Exdeath had no wish to see how death had affected his strength.

So he turned and walked away.

A rough hand was placed on his shoulder, no sooner had he taken six steps. Without warning he was pulled around, ending up face to face with Galuf. Yet he apparently was not close enough, for the old man clenched the nape of his cloak and pulled him closer in a single tug. Exdeath was now uncomfortably close to Galuf; nearly nose to nose, he could see the hatred visible in the eyes of the old man. When he spoke, it was soft and through clenched teeth; almost a whisper, uncalled for in the lifeless, unreal forest.

"You can't run, Exdeath."

Spittle flew from his mouth, only to ding ineffectively against Exdeath's dark blue helmet. Galuf suddenly extended his arm, releasing his grip on the cloak and sending Exdeath staggering backwards. Balance and luck were against the Dark Mage, for the tree root he backed into was enough to send him sprawling to the mossy forest floor.

Exdeath made no move to pick himself up as Galuf approached.

"What..... do you want....."

Malice was nowhere to be found in his words. He sounded more tired than angry; most uncharacteristic of the Exdeath he remembered. Galuf stopped short, confused by the lack of resistence. Presently, finding it all ridiculous, he himself sat down and burst out in twisted laughter.

"Dahaha! What do I want? What do -I- want!? It certainly can't be important enough to warrant this pseudoreality, tailored just for you, can it!?"

Exdeath was silent.

"You're wasting time."

Exdeath pondered the man's words. He was being vague, intentionally; whether it was the purpose or not, the vagueness did not anger him. He was so tired, so drained, to even think about caring. He wanted nothing more to be alone, to suffer in solitude, and it was obvious he wasn't going to get his wish.

He learned to accept the burning.

"Explain yourself."

A quizzical expression crossed Galuf's face as he sat there, pondering how to answer the question. It didn't take long for the old man to settle on an answer, although Exdeath knew no answer was coming the moment Galuf's mouth opened.

"No, no, no. First thing's first. You haven't been the same since you were destroyed. Mind telling me, since the others were wondering, why that is?"

The last thing Exdeath needed was pity. He had no reason not to be frank; should the old man not believe him, that wasn't his fault. He couldn't understand why he asked in the first place.

"I..... was not myself."

An interested look crossed the old man's face as he motioned for Exdeath to continue.

"It..... I..... was not in control of my body..... something else was....."

Galuf silently processed those words. Obviously, it was an easy claim for anybody to make. But the level of aggression that oozed from Exdeath had changed dramatically since his destruction. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps that was what Exdeath had to do.

It would explain why his soul hadn't joined the others in death.

"So you're saying... all those years, you were possessed?"

Exdeath didn't answer immediately. The conversation had reminded him of something he'd since forgotten. Something noted before he'd learned the truth about death and the torment that comes with it.

"It's not dead..... it is still out there....."

Galuf was silent. He'd already done his part. He wanted nothing more than the eternal slumber that comes at the end of the great battle. Perhaps Exdeath didn't need as much explaining as he'd previously thought.

"You're wasting time."

And Exdeath understood. If he had one desire that could rise above the insanity; more than anything else, he wished for the "presence" to join him in shapeless torment. Yet there were still boundaries, still limitations that confined him beyond the reach of mortal men.

"No escape. No hope."

Galuf stood up, stretching his legs and wiping the dust from his pants. He threw a glance over to Exdeath, still seated upon the mossy forest floor. He knew that Exdeath was drowning in helplessness; so was he, as they all did when the time for departure came. He gave a thought to cheering him up and discarded it just as quickly. What was not a cheery person in life would not be a cheery person in death.

"As long as one is fit to command, escape is always feasible."

With that, Galuf set off towards the edge of the forest. He'd just about crossed the vine strewn threshold when a thought came to him, dear and close to his heart. Though he loathed the prospect of it, he realized that the Dark Mage might very well be able to pull it off. Swinging about, he realized that Exdeath was still seated upon the mossy floor, exactly where he'd left him. Cupping his hands, he brought them to his mouth and sent the call echoing throughout the forest.

"Exdeath! If you see my grandaughter Cara, you be sure to tell her grandpa still loves her!"

Not bothering to check to see if the Dark Mage understood, the old man swung abruptly about and returned to his death. Only moments later, the forest began to shift and turn. Rips and tears appeared in the fabric of the unreality; the forest was disintegrating before Exdeath's very eyes..

And then he was back in the void.

The demons came for him.