I am not as I once was. They have done this to me, broken me open and torn out my heart. I do not know who I am anymore. I must try to remember.

He was dead again when I got home that day. His corpse was in the kitchen, near the counter, where it appeared he'd been chopping vegetables when the urge to stab himself through the wrist had struck. I slipped on the blood coming in, which annoyed me because that meant it was all over the kitchen floor.

Fortunately, where reason failed, blind panic served well enough.

You are Insignificant. One of millions, neither special nor unique. I did not ask for this ignominy, and I resent the comparison. Fine. I don't you like you, either.

We worship Him not because He is the best of our gods, but because He is, or was, the greatest killer among them.

There is no logic to grief.

And in that sliver of time, I felt the power around me coalesce, malice-hard and sharp as crystal. That this analogy occurred to me should have been a warning.