PDA

View Full Version : My characters - #3



Cogwheel
2007-09-12, 02:05 AM
In hellfire was I forged
In the crucible of war was my soul tempered
A shard of Khyber is my heart
A demon my soul
Clad in soulsteel
I am naught but a shell

For I am Zelrath, the damned one.

For as long as I can remember, I have fought, fought for those who had created me, those who were responsible for my accursed existence, those who would butcher thousands without a second thought, yet would shy from the deed themselves. They cared not for a soldier such as I, indeed, they cared not for any of their creations.

For my entire life, the demon within has guided my hand, the hand that killed so many. I was never free, my will was never my own. Always, the demon that I housed held power over me, and I was naught but a puppet. The only ones who could salvage my wretched existence were those who began it, my creators, and they cared not.

Year after year, I butchered hundreds mindlessly as the demon, as my creators commanded, feeling nothing, thinking nothing.

And then, at last, salvation came...but the price was too high.

Flames on the horizon. A dull, low roar silencing even the last screams of the dead and dying. On that day, all life was scoured from the battlefield, yet the souls of the dead would find no rest. Their bodies would lie forever on the blasted land, for this is the Mourning.

Yet I survived. And as I stood there, standing tall, alone among the carnage, unharmed, I asked myself one question: why? The moment I asked myself this, another question, yet more terrible, came to my mind: was it me?

For years, I pondered this question, cursing my existence that had allowed this vile fiend to live, to live within me, wandering what was now the Mournland. For years, I walked alone, alone with the mist, alone with the dead.

My creators were died on that day, and with their deaths, little by little, the demon relinquished its grip on me. My mind was my own at last, leaving me to brood on the deeds I was forced to commit, the thousands of innocents I had felled. Yet, even then, the demon would take back its own at times, and no more would my mind be my own, as it would take control once more.

For those years, I searched for my purpose in life, some purpose beyond a war machine, yet I found none. I tell you this now, there is no pain in heaven or hell that is greater than that of knowing that you have no purpose.

At long last, I came to a decision. I could not destroy myself, for though I would gladly do so and destroy the fiend within me, it would not allow me to do so. Yet I could not allow myself to butcher more innocents, and so I came to my decision: I would exile myself to the land of Sarlona, away from civilization, away from any that I might bring harm to.

Today, I rise to the shores of Sarlona after a long walk through the seas, one that has taken me two tireless months. Whether it is a road that will lead me to redemption or perdition, I know not, yet it is the only road the world has left for me.