• It awoke. A voice of ages.

    It had no name but the names men gave it, names held little meaning. Yet, it gave it pleasure to hear those names uttered forth from the lips of men - men who often came to such varied and deliciously painful ends.

    It reveled in death for death was its purpose.

    An existence without end was wasted without purpose and the one constant without end was death.

    Death became its purpose.

    It had seen the universe die uncountable times and the inevitable rebirth countless more. Dark unto light, death unto life. This was the way of all things and it gave it immense satisfaction to be part of the grand clockwork of existence.

    Throughout its existence and all the varied incarnations of the universe which had been no creature had fascinated it more than man. It seemed they shared a common purpose for man was elevated to the pinnacle of greatness amongst the ecstasy of carnage. For this reason it pleased it greatly to accompany man when he sought perfection.

    It presented itself in varied forms, but became tangible only on the rarest of occasions. Periods when its influence was strongest and death and conquest grew heavy on the minds of men, prized jewel of a Trojan female, Roman spear, Mongolian Warlord - amongst others, these were some of its more noted and fruitful forms.

    An endless existence yielded many moments for introspection.

    It questioned the path it had taken, was death truly the alpha and the omega? For an infinitesimal moment in time it pondered the nature of death and imagined a universe without it, reviewing its actions in turn and assessing the very nature of existence.

    Yes.

    Death was the only path.