Inspired by “The Chronicles of Riddick”, starring Vin Diesel.

My life–such as it was–was over. Until the day that I met the Furyan.

They had spread across the great expanse like a wave of darkness, leaving destruction in their wake, blinking out planets and stars like so many candles snuffed in a breath.  You know the story: if they could not convert you, they would kill you.

My race was not eradicated. No, we were converted, whether we chose to be or not.

The Necromongers needed us.

My people, we were of a particular mind. By that, I mean, we were of a Great Mind. Our minds are moon and stars above that of many other species. We are Connected. We can communicate telepathically, even across thousands of light years, and can even carry the thoughts of others with us across the expanse. We can see into the minds of others, reading the impressions left upon their cerebral cortex. Thoughts, experiences, memories.

They called Him (quietly) the Holy Half-Dead, but, if anyone was half-dead, it was us. Where we had been artists and philosophers, oracles and orators, now we were communicators and weapons. We had become the Quasi-Dead.

Most of the time we didn’t know one moment from the other, always lingering on the edge of life and death. That is, until we were required to touch minds. Rip into them was a more accurate description.

My life had been over for a hundred years. Until I touched the Furyan’s mind. Such rage was there. Fierce, undying, ever-burning rage and desire for freedom. We cried out the only thing this latest Lord-Marshall could possibly do to stand under this creature’s fire.

“Kill the Riddick! Kill the Riddick! KILL THE RIDDICK!”

It was as if his mind fed back into mine, opening me, shattering me, filling me with this fire. It burned through my mind, lighting the dark corners of death where I had been kept for so long. And, somewhere in the dark and the dead, I prayed to the stars.

Let them not kill Riddick. Let the Furyan prevail. Let the fire burn.