Lök lunges, but is easily stopped. The door shuts, and I feel an unbearable pain sweep into my soul.
The sentinel nudges me toward the burning energy source.
“What… is it?” I ask, blinking and straining to look at it again.
I can feel my skin start to bubble…
“What is happening?” I scream.
The Empire’s main thug stares right at it. With his mechanical mask, he is well protected. And without real eyes, the brightness does not hurt him.
“We have killed your whore,” the leader says.
The light… it’s deadly. I feel hatred and contempt build inside my heart.
The sentinel kneels before me. “Your worthless seed barrel,” he continues.
I twist my head in agony. “Stop,” I say.
I fall to the floor, hardly able to move. I don’t know what’s happening to me, but it feels like I’m aging.
Without care, he turns his back to me, placing his hands near the energy source. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
It feels like my organs are turning inside out. I inch away, but the pressure keeps me pinned to the floor.
I’m changing, turning into something terrible.
“Help,” I choke. “I’m dying!”
He inhales. Deeply, he holds the oxygen in his lungs, proudly entranced by the blue beams of light. “This is where I became a sentinel,” he says.
I twist across the floor, falling into deep spasms. I can hear his words, but things are starting to cloud over, like my brain has aged ten years in ten-seconds.
“Radiation. Plain and simple. Pure Energy,” he says, turning once again.
His back glows blue as he marches forward to taunt me more.
“Power,” he whispers.
“You don’t know anything about power,” I manage to say.
Power doesn’t come from any type of soldier or Empire. It comes from within. I don’t give a fuck what any alpha says. The most powerful weapon of all is love.
“Maybe,” he says. “But we have managed to control it.”
“Control what?” I ask.
“Resnyx,” he says.
“Everyone knows that. It powers this planet,” I say.
He bends and releases my cuffs. Suddenly, I am free, but it no longer matters. My skin has started to sag and wrinkle. My bones ache. My veins protrude, blue and purple, and my skin has thinned.
I’m not young anymore.
I’m old…
They have robbed me of love. They have taken my heart. And they have stole my youth.