“This is the last one, my lord.” The timid voice shook with fear as the speaker finished his report. Karl could almost smell the terror wafting from the young colonel and sighed in exasperation. Today he was less angry than normal, his ordinary fury giving way to an emotion more like... nostalgia.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwFMU5FdWHy
“That is all then. Leave,” he commanded, and continued to stare out the large window of his office, never turning to face the poor colonel. At first, the respect and fear had uplifted him and he was swollen with pride, but after several years of ruling the world under his iron heel, he was starting to get worn out. Being a nearly omnipotent dictator was, in the end, no more interesting than anything else he could have done with his life.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3g4ITyMPNt
He sighed again, more deeply this time. It wasn’t that he was unhappy really, and he had plenty of activities to spend his time on, even productive ones; but he had, with his almost limitless power, done everything that could be done in this life short of experiencing death. Not all of those experiences had been pleasurable, but at least he could say he had done them. Giving birth had been especially unpleasant.
His phone rang, and he turned to the desk with invigorating anger. Who dared call him now, while he was thinking so deeply?! Someone who wanted to die, no doubt.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFSSXe3DalV
“What do you want?” He snarled into the phone, his grip nearly crushing the handset.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1PCm1DfpAN
“Uhrk!” The person on the other end of the line was yet another terrified slave. “Er— I’m sorry, my lord, I didn’t mean to—”653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPxJakD2kLL
“Just tell me what you want and hang up,” Karl growled.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1isqYuwRiw
“My lord, we just wanted to know when you wanted to schedule the hearing for those accused of blasphemy against you? We don’t want to let the issue stand longer than necessary. Th-th-that is i-if you want, of c-c-c-course!” The poor caller was, just as the colonel before her, terrified out of her mind. And for good reason.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDYGUOrmKih
“Kill them all,” Karl said shortly and slammed the phone down. What nuisance, he thought. Then an idea came to his mind, and he picked up the phone again to call the person back. He hadn’t even gotten a name from her, he realized.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡx9YyDqRsCW
“Hello, you’re the one who just called me? Yes, I still want them killed. Are you questioning me!? How dare you! I command you to torture those blasphemers instead of just killing them. Keep them alive and in pain for as long as you can! And go to Hell while you’re at it!” He slammed the phone down again, smashing it to pieces and denting his desk.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQgiVnWW3ny
How did all this happen? He wondered. I haven’t made any mistakes, have I? He pondered for a moment, tracing his life back to search for where things started to go wrong. Life used to be so exciting and full of color! But now it was monotonous and gray, just the same every day.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwn0wwSyEtz
No, he thought, maybe I’m just having a midlife crisis. I have no regret for any of the decisions I’ve made. He suddenly remembered a little boy hiding from bullies, and a kindly mage who enjoyed honey tea on cold evenings. As memories of his childhood flooded back, he recalled the exact start of the journey to how he got to that spacious office and the world his slaves.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXqsoWY1fAA
I was ten years old, living in a corporate orphanage in a dirty city in the American Midwest. The caretakers were generally benevolent, but their kindness would run dry if a child took too long to be adopted. Adopted for a hefty fee, of course. Their hearts were guided by their pocketbooks, I guess.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM7gBCH4x6N
I was an odd child, I suppose. This caused me plenty of bullying, and I tended to hate the world and everything in it. I still do, but that seems to be how I developed this trait. The other children, whether they were large or small, boy or girl, loved to despise me. I can’t remember a night back then when I didn’t have bruises all over me, physical and emotional. I tended to lash out as well, and my magical talent was probably the largest factor in my problems back then.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4j0rOMcq14
Maybe it still is.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUElgyns0xN
But one night, I remember the matron turning the lights out, and leaving with a warning to me.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1HuIkQaiIE
“Karl Faron, if you don’t shape up and get adopted you’ll be thrown out, mark my words!” She spat those words at me, for she hated me as much as I hated everyone else. I decided that I needed to die.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfdszbxjgmc
I was too tired to formulate a plan for bringing about my own demise that night, but the thought stayed on my mind the next morning, and I ruminated on it during breakfast. If I knew then all that I know now, I could have simply wished myself out of existence, but I was a little boy who had no idea how to stop a beating heart. I wondered if my spoon was sharp enough to stab myself.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM6pEWWrNky
I remember my shock when my name was called on the loudspeaker, informing me that an adopter had come for me. I was in a daze as I gathered my meager belongings and put them in the trunk of Mr. Humbert Deimos, a short, mousy man with thick glasses and a funny accent. I was probably going to hate him too, I thought, but withheld my judgment at first. I wanted to give him a chance.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnBKpAcFs4B
“You’re no doubt wondering why I adopted you,” he said. “You’re not an ordinary boy, you know.” He said it matter-of-factly, not the way I expected those words to be said by an adult. I used to get the ‘You’re so special just because you’re you’ speech all the time, but this was different. I sat up a little straighter.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWb1r91ny1Q
“I’m not an ordinary man, either. Because we both have a Talent. I’m a mage, and you’re going to be my apprentice. How does that sound?”653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAP3viemWxg
I remember we were at a stop sign when he said that, and I responded by opening my door and getting out of the car. He was crazy, I decided. I silently walked back up the road.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqMoo7Jc9mK
“Now hear me out! I know how this sounds!” He was so pathetic and despicable in his eagerness. But I was favorably impressed by what happened next. I was suddenly back in my seat in the car, and this time the seat belt wouldn’t come undone.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNbeXy5QYws
“What the heck!” My ejaculation was in wonder, for I knew I wasn’t imagining things.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJGBWgWF2DO
“That’s right, Master Karl, I just magic’d you. Still don’t believe me?” He was so childish in the way he exulted at one-upping a ten-year-old.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKZANmr6ugD
“Okay, so you’re a wizard, fine. But I’m not anything like that!” I was mad that he had so easily caught and trapped me, so I wasn’t going to play along. I find it hard to blame me, as I hated the world and everything in it, and that included Mister Deimos.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqLAu3oMXyc
“We’ll see,” was his only response, and we drove the rest of the way to his country home in silence.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm5yhjPniA9
The next six years were an amazing rollercoaster. Of course, puberty played a role in that, but I began to discover some of those more... distasteful emotions, such as love, joy, and peace. Humbert was really a stand-up guy, and I think he truly loved and cared for me. Most of the time I cared for him too, as he was the only human to ever see me as more than a tool to be bartered for money. He invested a lot of effort into my training.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGtNfCgoXjZ
There was a common tension, however, in all of my magical learning. I had a tendency to go too far, to use too much energy, and so I was often putting myself and others in danger. Humbert was always getting on my case and telling me to reign in my powers so I wouldn’t hurt anyone. This angered me.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡawBp2Mls3C
I remember one night, just before we parted for bed, he gave me a stern warning.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡevuA04xi6a
“Karl, your soul will be burnt and consumed if you don’t start limiting yourself. You are turning yourself into a monster!” He said those last words with great precision and deliberateness. They stung, and I left wordlessly with tears in my eyes. I really cared about his opinion of me and had generally low self-esteem, so I was easily hurt when people said things that weren’t meant to.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0NAsOGYKvw
That night I was so angry that my magic leaked into my dreams. It was a wonderfully horrific experience, and when I awoke my red hair had turned black, my irises were bright red, and my face became quite evil to look upon. I’ve made myself more handsome since then, but I literally awoke as a monster that morning. I still chuckle when I recall the absolutely stunned expression that I received from Humbert when he saw me. His coffee slipped right out of his hand!653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ68P1bUfruR
“Karl,” he said slowly, “what have you done?”653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkNY79ppHLa
“I don’t know, but I like it,” I replied firmly, deciding that if it annoyed him after what he said the night before, then he deserved it.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ75p2y3wIlY
“Karl, you know better than to let your magic leak into your dreams. What did you dream about?”653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxpilQxu38U
“That I was the ruler of the world and everybody was afraid of me.” If his jaw hadn’t punctured the foundation of the house before, it certainly did this time. I’ve never seen anyone look so truly shocked as he did that morning, and I’ve tried. A couple years ago I killed an entire civilization and then showed their corpses to the single survivor. Still didn’t compare.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP4YPI7Azd3
But I digress.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP9c81pRjdY
Humbert, kind and loving Humbert, gave me a very stern lecture, and I stormed out of the house in a rage. How dare he! I remember thinking. He doesn’t understand! Ah, those words that define the thought patterns every teenager has in relation to adults. And of course, few of them truly understand. I was feeling self-righteous and indignant, so what came next should have been obvious, and no doubt Humbert was trying to find me to avert the—ahem—impending disaster. Disaster in his opinion.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl3mM6Jm6WD
I was in the middle of a field of uncut grass when I felt his probes, empathic and psychic. I was so mad, and I just wanted to be free of all the pain and sorrow and fear that had plagued me since I could remember. My fury, my rage was so absolute that my vision turned red and it seemed that a dam had burst in my soul. The fire and force of that fury were so powerful that the entire state of Michigan is now a crater, and the earth’s axial tilt was increased by a degree and a half.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvwqTKJXKQY
To date the most impressive display of my power. I have a photograph of that crater as seen from space framed on my wall. It’s simply beautiful.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMHPfHJnN9b
Ever since that day I’ve been taking matters into my own hands. Sure, I command armies and the entire world population are my slaves, but a true dictator must be willing to get his hands dirty once in a while to keep things in order. That’s figurative, of course, as I don’t have to leave my seat to doom a continent. Sometimes I even let my idle thoughts cause chaos just so I can have a challenge in cleaning up the mess later.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6tIAy82tvh
My life isn’t that bad, I suppose, and I should be grateful for the good things I have. But there’s only one thing left to experience in this life, and it would be my doom to do so...653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4hDxZ2QDN9
Karl mused for a moment, remembering that dark thought he’d had the night before he was adopted. Death was the final experience for one with the power to experience everything. What would it feel like? He’d given plenty of other people the opportunity.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJFN4XviT22
When the colonel came back for his nightly report, he found the Ruler’s office empty, but for the dictator’s black cloak on the floor. A note on the desk read,653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm4LD1gHiwC
“I’ve done something no sane person is brave enough to do. I beat you all. Go to hell. Signed,653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3fkPsJV8nl
“Karl Faron"653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwrcfsgPxnZ
The End.653Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY8TC6rQY6l
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