Looking forward to feeding on the Maelstrom
11 Dec 2022MudBarf
I have been in a cockpit for too long. I recognise that. But at this point, the damage is done - how do you recover your humanity from the unending void that devoured it so long ago?I used to be a functional human being. Then I ventured out into the black, and slowly it changed me. The first time I took a life - I was piloting a Viper 3, I had my brother on my wing. He long ago gave up the black and settled down to raise a family on Earth. I should have done the same while I still had the chance.
Now it's too late for me. The Thargoids are coming and instead of feeling the dread others seem to have, I feel nothing but excitement. I have delivered tens of thousands of tons of materials for the chance to have new and interesting ways to kill this enemy that has been kind enough to bring new bloodsport to my doorstep.
The hunger consumes me. I know that it's amoral, I know that it's wrong - but I also know that killing is the only thing that will quiet the maelstrom inside my soul.
Soul. Ha, I'm not even sure I have one anymore. I smile at my friends, my wingmen, my fellow killers - I would kill for them, I *would* protect any one of them, I would lay down my life for them - but I also know that, if the hunger was strong enough and there were no other prey to be had - I would happily spread their beautiful entrails all over a lifeless, barren rock and never look back.
As wrong as that sounds when I say it, it feels right inside. I am a monster. I am the thing that goes bump in the night. I am the right hand of the reaper. I am slave to my trigger finger - whether I'm in a cockpit or on foot.
As of late, I've preferred the personal touch to my murderous outlet. Looking into my victim's eyes as they exhale that one last time and their blood leeches into the dry, sandy surface of whatever hellish nightmare world they found themselves on when they had the misfortune of finding the wrong end of my plasma shotgun.
Hellish nightmare world. Or should I call that a paradisiac fantasy world? It is so very strange that what once would have seemed to be repugnant to my young virginal mind is now so beautiful to my old, twisted, parasitical brain.
Parasitical. Yes, parasitical. I am a giant parasite, I live to suck the life out of whomever it is I happen across when Frontline sends me to yet another dusty, worthless orb floating aimlessly in the void.
I should die. I deserve to die. I should be among the first that the Thargoids kill. But I won't be. I will survive, as I always do, learning new ways to bring death and destruction as I hunt my fellow sentient beings. Humans, Thargoids, and whatever other unfortunate creatures our terrifying species happens to uncover.
We invaded Thargoid space, we stole their resources, we attacked them. Now they're here to try to stop us. They're probably right to kill us. Especially me - I have murdered hundreds, perhaps thousands of their people - to satiate the hunger.
If I die, the universe will be a better place for my absence. But I won't die. I will go on causing death, destruction and mayhem. And I will receive rapturous acclaim and absurd, unspendable riches for doing so. So empty, so void of meaning - I will look into the eye of some faceless Admiral and I will smile that smile I have perfected, I will accept another meaningless pin for my chest, and I will feel the call. The hunger.
It will burn in my chest. I will imagine what the Admiral would look like painted red with his own blood.
One day I will break and they will have to put me down. Maybe then the maelstrom inside my skull will go quiet. Maybe then the hunger will stop.