Infectus Essum.

I cannot see, yet I can watch my form unravel. I cannot feel, yet I can sense the pain in my body disintegrating, atom by agonizing atom, to join with the Void. I float, shapeless and formless, through the endless darkness that is the Void. My prison.

I should be dead. My physical form has been destroyed, any "soul" I could by some mistake have had has been rent apart into nothing. And yet, here I am. I suppose my form of existence cannot exactly be called "living". There is only pain. Only time. Only eternity. Minutes pass like hours, like weeks, like years, like seconds. Time slows down and speeds up until it seems like it should be torn asunder. Perhaps it already has been. I am alone, utterly alone, to contemplate. But I cannot think. I cannot imagine. And yet my consciousness persists somehow. I scream and beg for death with the mouth I no longer have.

Every second, every year, is shrieking agony, and nothing at all. My mind (the one that doesn't exist) breaks slowly over an ephemeral eternity. Fragments of myself float away, chipped apart until only a solid core of hate remains. My nonexistent cries of pain turn to screams of impotent rage as I struggle in the abyss. Can you hear me, you bastard? I cry. It should have been me! I should have been the one! You just used Yochanan's power! My screams echo throughout the Void, which is to say that they never existed. The body I don't have writhes in sheer black hatred at the thought of him. The one who did this to me. That one will suffer. He will suffer like I do. I vow that I shall one day watch him float through the Void just as I am doing now. I vow that I will laugh as he screams in agony. And yet, these futile thoughts of revenge only serve to drag me deeper into despair. After all, I do not even exist. I have no body, no mind, no consciousness.

That is when it dawns on me. My existence is an impossibility. This place is an impossibility. What could one more possibly hurt? I ask myself. What does it matter if I have no body? I'll simply create one! I concentrate on my nonexistent self, and with my nonexistent will, I grip the Void itself. I begin to drag away parts of the nothingness, and contort it into what I desire. I scream in pain and delight as a chitinous finger, ending in a wicked talon-like point, slowly forms. I make another. And another. I become more adept with the Void, bending it, mastering it. Years pass as I form the Void into a new self. One with wings, with claws, with eyes that can tear apart minds. In the crucible of the Void, I set about forging the body that will bring the vile usurper to his knees. The process is agonizing, more painful than the time I've spent with any Holder. More painful than the time I have spent in the Void. I laugh in pain and pleasure as I enter into my new body, and feel a feeling that is like being born into the fires of Hell itself. I move my fingers, and flex my arms. I can feel strength flowing into my body, the strength of the Void filling me to the brim and above. I overflow with power, only to gather it up and savor it like a sweet nectar. I open my eyes for the first time, and see like I have never seen before. I practically weep as I behold for the first time the true beauty of my prison, of the Void. I am in awe of the emptiness, the blackness that gave birth to me. And now, I wait.

I wait within the Void, and throughout the shadows of the world. I am nurtured by the blackness, sustained by the darkness, and I become strong in my isolation. And when the time is right, I shall rise again.

I am Infectus Essum.

And "Legion" will pay.