I don't know what to do any more. I don't know what to write in this stupid journal. What philosophical nonsense could I possibly come up with that could hope to reconcile what's happened? Here, how's this: I'm like Midas, except instead of turning all I touch to gold, everything I touch turns to death. At least gold has some modicum of value. Death has nothing. It is nothing.

I used to proclaim myself the God of Death with little reservation. I'd like to think that it was my younger self's tongue in cheek way of telling fate to piss off, but now I can't say for sure. Over time it became my mantra, my identity, and it seems now that no matter what I try to do with myself, I can't escape it. Everything I love…Everyone I love…Everyone who remains close to me for too long runs the risk of dying. And it's not the death itself that gets to me. Everyone dies; that's inevitable. It's the way they die. It's always premature. It's always unnatural. It's always violent.

It's always my fault.

Is this who I am? The God of Death? Is that what I'm destined to be?

I know I've written this line before, but I think I've lost myself. What's worse is that I've come to realize very recently that in the process of that loss I placed the blame for every terrible thing that's ever happened to me on everything and everyone except for myself. I blamed the alliance for the Maxwell Church Massacre, I blamed DeSchepper for my capture, I blamed the Quell for the destruction of the colony, I blamed its absence on my subsequent instability. At no point in the past or present did I ever consider that maybe in a world where everything I'm involved in seems to go to shit, that I'm the problem. Maybe it's self-absorbed to believe that. Maybe it makes me a narcissist. But doesn't it just make sense?

Howard would tell me it doesn't. He'd tell me that it makes me a victim. Or an innocent bystander. I'm a person affected by tragedy. The world isn't fair, he'd say, and it doles out chaos to whoever lives long enough to experience it. He'd tell me there's no rhyme or reason to any of it. He'd tell me I'm unlucky. My life is Murphy's Law in action, no two ways about it. On top of all of that ridiculousness, he'd tell me that I don't know where my head is, that I'm not the kind of guy to get so down on himself. But can it really be considered being down on oneself when the truth is so irrevocable? I'm the only commonality between these events. The problem must be me.

Maybe I should have killed myself. I thought of it a lot when I was younger and stupider and didn't quite comprehend the eternal emptiness of death. I thought of it often in the aftermath of the Church, but I was a child then. I didn't know how to kill myself. I was more afraid of the pain of dying than the emptiness of death itself. Oblivion is impossible for a ten-year-old to fathom, after all.

It wasn't until after I began piloting the Deathscythe and saw the horrors of true war that I began to understand the nothingness of death. Life is what is so full of potential. No matter how bad things seemed to be, as long as I kept plodding along life would get better—hell, it couldn't get any worse, could it?—but the minute I gave in to that niggling thought, the potential of life would die along with me. So the thought left for a while, overwhelmed by legitimate purpose. It came back while I sulked in captivity aboard DeSchepper's warship. I knew her intent. I knew that she was going to use me and the mobile suit I created for something terrible, and I could have stopped it. My death would have prevented that colony from exploding. Looking back, death likely would've been preferable to what's happened since. Never mind the pain, never mind the eternal nothingness. So many innocent people would have lived if only I'd had the strength to die.

But I lacked the means. At least, that's what I keep telling myself: Another lie, no doubt. If I'd have had more time the infection would've taken me, though that was never the plan. That was never something to be relied upon. I keep looking back on those weeks, examining them, scrutinizing everything that happened, but I can't find a point at which I could've done it right. Attempts could have been made, certainly, but the surveillance was too perfect, too constant. They would have caught me in the act, they would have revived me and then I would have been stuck contemplating another loss in a long line of catastrophic failures. Even so, I still find it hard to stomach that living is what was meant to be for me.

So here I am now, stuck again and wrestling with more guilt than I ever imagined possible, guilt that stretches far beyond the years-long knowledge that I was responsible for the massacre at the church. Now I've got the colony on my shoulders. Heero wounded. Hilde, stuck in that fucking stasis chamber like a corpse. And why? So that I could live?

No. I won't have it. I won't accept it. I wasn't meant to live. Not like this. This I can accept, and I'll do death one better. I'll take every bastard that ever wronged me down with me. I won't stand to be the God of Death anymore. I'll be the God Above God, and I'll rain misery and hellfire down on every poor soul that crosses my path. Count on it.

This means war.

-MSgt. Duo Maxwell