For a long moment there was nothing but the light creaking of the chair rocking back and forth which disturbed the silence. “So…” Hesitantly, Elissa bit her lip and slowly swallowed past the lump forming in the back of her throat. “You’re God? The true God?”

The creaking stopped suddenly as did the chair Dark was rocking. “Me? A God?” The harsh, discordant voice sounded partially amused, partially scandalized. “Not by the slightest stretch of the imagination! I’m the maker of the Gods, not one of them.” Dark slowly stood up and lifted a frail bony hand in her direction. “I’m the slayer of Gods! I’m the destroyer, the annihilator, and the end.” His voice was slowly rising and a cold misty wind drifted all around, seemingly coming from nowhere. “I am no worthless God,” Dark sneered. “I am The Darkness That Devours!”

“But…” Working up her courage, Elissa slowly rose to stand toe to toe and stare into the dark empty pools that were Dark’s eyes. “…Didn’t you say you made this world? And the Gods in it?”

“I did,” Dark sneered. “What of it?” His lips half twitching in a snarl, it was the first real emotion that Elissa thought she’d seen displayed on him since her arrival.

“Then…” Taking a moment to chew on her lower lip for a moment, Elissa tried to round up her thoughts and form them in a manner that might not raise his anger any higher. “Why me,” was the first question she finally settled on. “Why this place? Of all of creation, and with the power to create whatever you can imagine, why me? Why here?”

“Why?” Dark slowly growled, his lips snarling up at the corner and twitching several times, before he finally let out a deep sigh and flopped back down into his chair. “Why not?” Sounding almost expectant, his dark gaze stared up at Elissa, sending goosebumps up and down her arms. “Why not you,” Dark asked again. “Were you not chosen by your people to be their sacrifice? Weren’t you the one they most wished to rid themselves of, of all your race? Are you not chosen to be sent here to serve, die, and perish at their amusement and not mine?”

“It’s not like that!” Shocked, Elissa shook her head from side to side to deny what he was saying. “I was chosen because I was the best. I was chosen to represent my people’s honor, strength, and courage. As a nation, we had an obligation to fulfill and I was chosen as the one most capable of fulfilling that obligation.”

“And you believe that?” Dark sounded shocked for a moment and then tilted his head back and laughed wildly.

“Kakakakakakaka!! Foolish little thing! Did they not tell you that normally it was the darkest scum of the dungeons that were sent here to pay the price? The orphans, the murderers, the crippled, the broken, and the unwanted? The peoples of the land do not send their best, brightest, and strongest here – if so, why would they choose you and not one from their royal line to represent them in such an important and honorable undertaking?

“You were cast away. Discarded and sent here as trash to be disposed of and never to darken their steps again,” Dark finished, sounding smug and amused.

“I… I wasn’t!” Shaking her head back and forth, Elissa vehemently denied what she was hearing.

“Then answer me one thing child,” Dark whispered softly, “you were gifted some form of magic to send you here. When your sentence passes here, exactly how were you supposed to return back whence you came?”

“I was given a travel ring,” Elissa answered slowly, worry starting to gnaw at the back of her mind as she chewed her lower lip hard enough to make it bleed.

“A ring?” Dark asked. “How exactly does this ring work. Does it take you where you wish to go?”

“No…” Alarm bells were starting to sound in Elissa’s head and she felt tears slowly begin to form in the corners of her eyes. “I placed it upon my finger and it took me to the basement under this wrecked house.”

“So something to send you here,” Dark chuckled lightly, “but what were you given to send you back?”

“No… Nothing.” Her knees starting to go weak, Elissa slowly sank down to the ground before they collapsed out from under her. “Was I really sent here to be discarded,” she whispered almost breathlessly. “Why?”

“Who can say what motivates the flawed and worthless heart of man,” Dark shrugged. “But you have your answer. I didn’t choose you. Like all the worms which slither across the ground, you mean nothing to me. One of you, all of you, you’re all the same flawed shadows of what was once the reality I walked.”

Coldly, uncaringly, Dark relentlessly continued to hammer his point home. “I never chose you to fulfill some noble position as my toy. You were discarded and sent here to perish; thrown away by your own people. When you ask ‘Why you’, you mustn’t ask me, but instead seek the answer from your own people.

“As for ‘Why here’,” Dark chuckled coldly, “the answer there is very simple. Where else does one send unwanted trash, except to a forgotten junkpile?”

Getting up, Elissa slowly stumbled out of the room and into the kitchen, as Dark’s wild laughter followed mercilessly and echoed in her head. “Kakakakakakakak!”