Title:  Eternal Damnation 
Author:  Saklani 
Codes: multiple
Series:  TNG, DS9, VOY 
Rating: PG-13 
Summary:  A damned soul begins eternal penance. 

Disclaimer: PARABORG owns all. I make no money, I swear!! 

Feedback:  HELL YEAH!  to saklani@wildmail.com 

Posting-  Sure! Go ahead, just let me know where ya put 
it! 

Author's Notes: I don't think I could truly explain this
one.  I sat down and wrote it this night.  I guess my Muse
really wanted to do it. I hope you see something in it.

Eternal Damnation

        "It is required of every man that the spirit
within him should walk abroad amongst his fellow men, and
travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes forth not in
life, it is condemned to do so after death..."


"Damnation," I hear voices whisper.  "Damnation."

I thought I knew something about torture, about torment,
but there is no agony like the agony of a soul forever lost.

Oh mock me if you will.  I know your soul... I should, I
was just like you.  Heartless, caring only for promotion,
for power, as if they had any meaning.

"Damnation," they say again, and I want to scream.  I am
screaming, but there is nobody to hear me.  Nobody to
care...

How fitting, that I who caused hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of people to scream in pain will now spend
eternity doing the same.  The irony would kill me, if I was
not already dead.

I never believed in immortality, in life after death, but
I believe now.  Too late...  too late...

And this universe, this place I used to call my home, can
a place this cold really be considered a home?  All the
things I thought merely a routine part of life- the
slavery, the torture, the perversions, the death- when did
they suddenly seem so wrong?

Oh Gods, make this pain stop!  I cannot bear this, but I
am powerless. Everywhere I go, I see misery.  I want to
stop it... I must.  

I cannot.

They are taking Nick away now.  My death has made him
ownerless, but I am sure that will not last long.   No,
with his beauty, he will be sold for a good price.  I am
sure my brother will find ample ways to spend the money,
too.  Perhaps he can buy himself a promotion or another
slave girl.

He is so beautiful, my Nick.  Except he wasn't really
mine, was he?  He should have belonged to nobody but
himself.

I pray he goes to a kind master.  I can hope for no more. 
I can do nothing.

And Vash, my beloved body servant.  Beloved, as if I ever
felt love.

I do now...

What will become of her, since my cruelty has marred her
features forever?  The mines?  The processing plants? 
Death would be a better fate, for perhaps those that
condemned me will give her peace.

"Damnation," rings in my ears again.  Will they never stop
saying it?!! Will I never be free?!!

But I brought it all on myself, did I not?  I never once
saw!

I can see now, but I can do nothing... nothing.  


        "It is doomed to wander through the (universe)...
and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared...
and turned to happiness..."

What place is this?  Where have my incessant travels taken
me?  

Can this place be real, for it is like none I have ever
seen.  Terrans are not slaves, but powerful creatures.  And
such lives they lead, such happiness! 

That woman over there with the beautiful red hair,  I know
her!  She belongs to Garak.  And yet, here she is, dressed
in a stunning gown, dancing with a handsome older Terran. 
How perfect they look...  Is this what Terrans would be
like without the Alliance?     

Oh, I want to join them!  I want to ask them about this
place.  I wish...

Look at that!  Can a Klingon truly be intermingling with
Terrans? Regent Worf, no less!

At least, he was Regent when I died.  

When was that?  I don't know... time lost all meaning for
me.

Only pain now... 

        "No rest, no peace.  Incessant torture of remorse."

Could this have been me?  Could I have known the joys I
see around me?

I see Garak, intertwined with a Terran.  I even know him,
Captain Julian Bashir.  

But they are not acting as master and slave.  No, I feel
love here, real and powerful.  It burns so brightly.

I want some!

I see a Changeling and a Bajoran.  

A Prophet and a freighter pilot.

A Klingon and a Trill.

A Vulcan and a human.

A Borg and a... hologram?  

A hologram has found love, but I was incapable of it?  A
terrible, destructive, part human machine knows love, but I
never once felt it?  

Unfair!  I should have known!  I should have seen.

But I blinded myself...

"Damnation."

"Go away!" I screech.  "Leave me alone!  Is it not bad
enough that I can see what might have been mine without
ever possessing it?!  Must you mock me as well?!"

"Damnation..."

        "Not to know that no space of regret can make
amends for ones life's opportunities misused!  Yet, such
was I!  Oh, such was I!"

Oh yes, I see you, brother, and I think you sometimes see
me.  Or perhaps just feel my presence.  I am often around
you now.  

You waste your life, brother, as I wasted mine.  There is
nothing to be gained in the pursuit of power.  Death cares
not for your place in life.

And the games you play with your slaves... I wish I could
tell you how sick they make me.  Yet, they are the same
games I once played. 

I want to shake you, make you see how wrong this life is. 
I want to change places with you and give kindness to all
those you abuse.  I want to make amends. 

Just once, let me make amends!!  Just once!

"Damnation..."

I understand now.  I understand...

        "Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was
my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence
were all my business..."

But I turned my back and looked for power.  And now...

Now, I travel all the time and watch things I can no
longer experience. I do not know which is worse, seeing
horrors that I cannot stop or witnessing joy I cannot share.

Makes no difference, for I am doomed anyway.  I and many
others who went through life as I did, without feeling.  Oh
yes, many of my fellow wanderers are familiar to me. 
Pa'Dar, Garak, my brother....  more appear all the time. 
And they wander as I do, through the vastness of eternity.

We never speak... we cannot, but we trade looks of horror
and sorrow. That's more communication than we ever shared
in life.  And we all deserve this fate.

I know that I deserve this.  

And if anyone ever asks you what became of Seska, arrogant
daughter of a twisted Cardassian family, the answer is
easy...

"Damnation..."

THE END

Happy Halloween, everybody.

I hope you recognize the quotes as being from Charles
Dickens' "A Christmas Carol."