"Why?"
The question raced through her mind for what was probably the millionth time; a comet in perpetual free-fall, periodically orbiting her thoughts at the speed of its own light. Even in the stillness and solitude of her personal universe, all was not well.
"Why? Why did he choose this for himself when he could have had so much more?"
She paused and carefully peered into the dark prison cell that was facing her. The man inside slept, unaware of the pair of eyes fixed on him. His observer quietly noted his chiseled features, his chocolate-brown locks, his muscular form…
"He had so much going for him. So then why? Why did he even bother?"
As she recalled the events of the past day, her face flushed a little at the memory of locating his personal file in the WOOHP database and reading the entirety of its contents: WOOHP's earliest observations of him, his resume, the blueprints of his most significant projects. She read the very first appraisal they'd written: "By far the brightest candidate we've had in a while." Brightest. He had been a star in every sense of the word, a star with a luminosity several orders of magnitude greater than those of his peers, such that they all appeared as mere dwarfs in comparison. There were the stacks of accomplishments, the prestigious awards, even the one-sentence recommendation letter from one of his MIT professors that simply read: "This man is a genius." In short, he was about as close to perfection as a mere mortal could get.
Since his arrival at WOOHP, he'd ascended the ladder till he was at the organization's very apex: the head of its weapons department. It was a position with great honor and responsibility, one that even Jerry himself had entrusted him with. He had continued to shine even in this position as a beacon of dazzling mastery, unmatched knowledge, and brilliant wit.
But at this point she stopped and frowned sadly, for from what she'd learned in her astronomy class, it was always the brightest stars that burned out first. Those great minds from the past that studied these types of physical phenomena had often made comparisons between them and various words of wisdom passed on from the ancients. One such story went as follows: far from being satisfied with his place at the right hand of the universe's Creator, a certain heavenly being named Lucifer had wanted more. Disgruntled and overtly arrogant, he led a rebel throng in a concerted effort to overthrow the very Creator Himself, but ultimately failed. Eternally disgraced and scorned, he was subsequently cast out of heaven in a flaming ball of fire, shrieking all the way towards his shameful doom.
Now, as she continued to stare into the gloomy depths of the condemned man's cell, she could see the parallels between his tale and Lucifer's. In her eyes, this man, in spite of his massive potential, had now been irreparably reduced to a pathetic person fixated solely on destructive revenge.
And it was at this point that the grim realization struck her: just like Lucifer, he was also in the depths of Hell. If Hell existed, she reasoned, it was not a literal furnace where people burned forever; rather, it was a mere metaphor to aid those with little imagination, to help them in grasping the everlasting despair experienced by those who had permanently fallen from grace by means of their own petty vindictiveness.
"Why? Why did he choose to do this, even when he surely knew the consequences?"
She heaved a sigh and turned away from the slumbering man, away from his devilishly good looks. Even as her boots clinked against the steely corridor while she walked, the bothersome question gradually faded from her mind, though she knew full well that, just like a real comet, it was destined to return time and again.