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A world of grit, poverty and malice. The air was unfit to breathe, the food unfit to eat - billions starved, gnawing on the bones of the weak and the slow and choking on the suffocating wind while a ruthless few feast and sneer at the insects beneath their feet. There was no laughter, there was no music, there was no hope. This was the planet of death: Necropolis, world of Nothing.
Ahzidal looked away from the hologlyf and shivered. He pitied whoever had the misfortune to live in such a blighted place, nobody deserved Necropolis. His own home planet was much nicer, Munto Codru being the backwater it was with nothing to worry about but the ghostly castles dotting the crags. It was a planet of small communities and simple living for the most part, a world well suited to unremarkable and content people. He left the gallery still reminiscing about home, wondering if his parents worried like they used to and if the circus still came every year. Walking down the steps a flight of songbirds winged by overhead, and the sun was just dipping beneath the skyline. Ahzidal breathed deeply, enjoying his day out in the high quarter of Vervunhive. It couldn't last any longer, as his worryingly empty credit wafer warned him every time he glanced its way, but he didn't mind. All good things came to an end, after all.
They are the howling void, where all things go to finish. It must always end, and they are the witnesses.
He hadn't found what he was looking for, though what that was he couldn't say. He bought a meat kebab from a roadside vendor with the last of his money, smiling as the juices ran over his fingers. He could get used to this, it really was a pity he had to leave. Ahzidal wound his way back to the port, in no particular hurry as he enjoyed his kebab. He tossed the paper sheaf it came wrapped in to the floor, licking his fingers as he made his way through the crowd. One or two people gave him dirty looks as he went by, but Ahzidal didn't mind. It wasn't like the paper wouldn't be cleaned up after all, that's what sweeper drones were for. Never once did he consider their stares anything more than ordinary.
They mark the afflicted, staking their claim for all to see. Others try to stay away, lest they be dragged into damnation as well. Nothing escapes them.
He smiled at the charity worker who showed him to the refugee transit ship. It hadn't taken long for Ahzidal to shake his native culture of xenophobia, now he made an effort with whoever he met. There was no other way to travel when one was short of cash, he had simply coped. He was far from the strangest creature abroad among the stars, and that made it easier. He blended into the crowd just fine, and had come to like it that way.
The afflicted hide in plain sight, infesting everything.
He scratched his right temple absent mindedly, feeling the tiny scab that had formed there crack and fall to the floor. Beneath was a short line of puckered pink scar tissue, which was a relief. Ahzidal feared the scratch was infected, it had taken months to heal to that point. He'd tripped while hiking and blacked out, hitting his head. That wound was all he had to show for it. It felt right somehow that he was finally healing, but he couldn't say why or specify in what way. There was a lot about the universe Ahzidal could not explain. He tried not to let it bother him.
They took off, destination anywhere. The point of refugee transit ships was free passage offworld quickly but their destinations were often wherever the pilot had to be by evening. Ahzidal shut his eyes, trying to catch some sleep in his seat while he figured out how to come by some more cash when they landed. The ship soared away from the hovering, bloated city of Vervunhive, never to return. The planet Metellos shrunk in the background, and the pilot flipped a switch. Ahzidal was gone.
++++
They come to him in dreams forgotten upon waking. Shades, whispers of ancient horror. Sometimes he wakes with a scream dying on his lips. Sometimes there is blood on his pillow. The wound is infected, though not as he suspects. Its taint spreads every night, even as the flesh closes and the scab grows old and black. The dreams are getting worse.
He is walking through a valley shrouded in mist. There is no sound, not even birds dare venture here. Ahead looms an old ruin, little more than a crumbled stone archway and the suggestion of walls. He approaches, filled with a sense of wrongness but unable to turn back. He crosses the threshold and all heat is swept from him - cold as the grave he is compelled to venture further. Finally after what feels like an eternity he comes across a sign of life. A pole juts from the ground, and on it is hung a tattered old cloak. It flaps limply, though there is no wind. It whispers so slowly to him, sighing so softly that if he hadn’t heard the noise a million times before he’d never have realised there were words at all. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he slipped the cloak about his shoulders. He surrendered.
Nothing. Nothing. Nooooooooothiiiiiiiiiiing.
Stars collapse and drag trillions of horrified souls into ravenous black holes. Bodies turn to spaghetti and finally lose form entirely as they become one with the swirling black. The Jedi Temple melts, its ancient halls running molten, students catching fire as they flee, Everything is consumed. The workings of the Sith are torn apart, eroded to dust and then to nothing by the weight of countless aeons. Not even the mightiest of their number can withstand eternity, only Nothing can. Men and women turn mad on the street, feasting on eachother in desperate hunger, giggling madly as they rip gobbets of warm flesh from their victims. Others have more perverse tendencies, the world is screaming in protest.
In every scene that plays itself out before him there is but one constant. An old pole, stuck halfways into the ground with a weathered old cloak fluttering lightly in the breeze. It never fades, it never burns. It is never there, and yet it is the only thing that exists. He realises, in the end, that it is Nothing. It is His cloak, His mantle. It is not for another to wear.
The visions fade and he is back in the mist shrouded house. Hinzerhaus, he knows its name well enough now. The cloak draped about his shoulders begins to face, searing through his flesh and into his soul. It will never leave, he knows that. The pain is excruciating, he can feel blood trickle down the right side of his face. Had he fallen? Was he ever going to hit the bottom?
++++
Ahzidal woke with a start, a dull pain throbbing underneath the scar on his temple. He looked around, hoping for a clue as to where they were headed and how long it would be before they got there. He touched the side of his seat, it was wet. He’d been bleeding again, how annoying. He knew the scab was already forming, he really had to get that looked at. Wiping the seat with his sleeve he realised that he needed a cloak: Space was cold. Looking around he thought he caught a glimpse of one someone had lost, fluttering in the updraft of an air conditioning unit. It wasn’t his, he reasoned. No need to touch what didn’t belong to him.
As a drifter, Nothing belonged to him. Alas, for so too did the drifter belong, if only he could remember.
There are such horrors in the empty places of the universe, and they hunger.
NAME: Ahzidal - he hasn't gone by his surname since leaving Munto Codru.
AGE: Though he is young by human standards, Codru-Ji fully mature at about 8 years old after their metamorphosis. Ahzidal is 19.
SPECIES: Codru-Ji, a four armed indigenous humanoid of Munto Codru. They are highly xenophobic, though Ahzidal has shed much of that, and feature supersonic hearing as well as communication should they so wish. Their skin is leathery and tough, and the males at least have vestiges of wiry fur on their forearms. Their juveniles are canine in form, six legged and feral - dubbed Wyrwulves. After eight years in this form they enter a cocoon and eventually emerge a fully mature, humanoid adult.
GENDER: Male.
DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Aside from his four arms and hairy forearms (ha ha), Ahzidal has a small scab on his right temple. It flakes away sometimes, revealing a scar beneath, but the wound always seems to reopen.
NOTABLE SKILLS: Ahzidal had a great love of hiking in the wilds of Munto Codru before his departure, and therefore has ample knowledge of camping, survival and navigation. He can blur into crowds easily enough, and has figured out how to pickpocket and otherwise steal from the unsuspecting. He has no combat experience beyond hunting for food - with traps, blades and hunting rifles - and barfights.
NOTABLE POWERS: Ahzidal is force sensitive, remarkably so. He has always been mildy attuned to the force, but after an encounter while hiking his affinity skyrocketed out of control. He has no formal training, and is even skeptical that he possesses the gift, but it can warn him of danger or point him in the right direction in a pinch. Aside from that he has the supersonic hearing and communication skills that all of his race share.
NOTABLE EQUIPMENT: Ahzidal has a slowly moldering wafer with a handful of creds loaded onto it, the clothes on his back and a pack filled with daily essentials needed for the traveler's life. He carries a long hunting knife in there, but only wears it on his belt if he knows he might need it.
AGE: Though he is young by human standards, Codru-Ji fully mature at about 8 years old after their metamorphosis. Ahzidal is 19.
SPECIES: Codru-Ji, a four armed indigenous humanoid of Munto Codru. They are highly xenophobic, though Ahzidal has shed much of that, and feature supersonic hearing as well as communication should they so wish. Their skin is leathery and tough, and the males at least have vestiges of wiry fur on their forearms. Their juveniles are canine in form, six legged and feral - dubbed Wyrwulves. After eight years in this form they enter a cocoon and eventually emerge a fully mature, humanoid adult.
GENDER: Male.
DISTINGUISHING MARKS: Aside from his four arms and hairy forearms (ha ha), Ahzidal has a small scab on his right temple. It flakes away sometimes, revealing a scar beneath, but the wound always seems to reopen.
NOTABLE SKILLS: Ahzidal had a great love of hiking in the wilds of Munto Codru before his departure, and therefore has ample knowledge of camping, survival and navigation. He can blur into crowds easily enough, and has figured out how to pickpocket and otherwise steal from the unsuspecting. He has no combat experience beyond hunting for food - with traps, blades and hunting rifles - and barfights.
NOTABLE POWERS: Ahzidal is force sensitive, remarkably so. He has always been mildy attuned to the force, but after an encounter while hiking his affinity skyrocketed out of control. He has no formal training, and is even skeptical that he possesses the gift, but it can warn him of danger or point him in the right direction in a pinch. Aside from that he has the supersonic hearing and communication skills that all of his race share.
NOTABLE EQUIPMENT: Ahzidal has a slowly moldering wafer with a handful of creds loaded onto it, the clothes on his back and a pack filled with daily essentials needed for the traveler's life. He carries a long hunting knife in there, but only wears it on his belt if he knows he might need it.
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