text: My inner world quaked again.
  
  "Again? So soon?" a voice asked in fear. "This is outrageous! He has no right to this!"
  
  "There's more," another old one muttered. "Look at what hides inside of him. He has dangerous dreams."
  
  Lightning flashed. Shapes gathered around me, staring, judging.
  
  "He would not dare," a third voice finally scoffed. "He cannot. None would dare for her now. Not with this much doom ordained for her."
  
  "He could dare," the first voice hedged. "He is proud. Arrogant. Hungry for victory."
  
  "All the hunger in a hundred souls would still not be enough," the third voice scoffed again. "For how can the starving know success?"
  
  A growl came from my core, and this colorless world rumbled in response.
  
  "And yet he Rises again," the second voice muttered. "So soon after the last. Without respect for the ordained limits."
  
  "He invites judgment!" the third voice declared. "The heavens are low for a reason! He must be taught to crawl under them, as is proper for his race!"
  
  "Indeed," the first said. "He dares have so many improper cravings. For doomed worlds. For doomed people. For the doomed star-lass."
  
  "He seeks those which others have already bought, damned, and paid for," the second shape said with a tsking sound and a shake of its head. "Truly lecherous of him."
  
  "Shall we kill him now?" the first old voice asked. "So that he may offend us no more?"
  
  My shape grew teeth, and as I looked up I bared them.
  
  "Disgusting!" the third voice said, and I heard frightful revulsion in his words. "I will not touch such filth as this!"
  
  "Nor will I," the second voice declared. "Crushing this vermin is beneath us. Let other shoes step on him."
  
  "He is doomed himself," the third voice affirmed. "We need not act in any fashion. Hungry, wretched things like him always meet their own end, without help. Just let him lust all he wants for doomed worlds and the doomed maiden. It shall change nothing."
  
  The sky darkened at the old thing's words. Their shapes became even blurrier. The cloudy black sky became even heavier. My feet began to sink downward.
  
  It angered me.
  
  "Enough," I declared, and the boom of my voice hushed all others. "These are not my heavens. This is not my sky. You are not my gods. Begone from my heart."
  
  I raised a mighty right arm that I had never known I had. With an angry slash of my fingers I tore apart this worthless lie of a world.