When the end came to her world
She left her body behind
Everything she knew was gone
She walked through poison atmosphere
Watching the city burn
She looked up to the sky
At the small sun gone nova
Having glutted itself on the energies
Of its larger companion
The planet flooded with gamma rays
Could no longer sustain life
She grieved her useless efforts
Wishing she could snuff herself out
Like one of the candles that she burned
In the vain hope of countering
The misguided sorcery
That brought about the end
The end of life
The end of hope
The end of everything
~Cie Channeling Princess Ondina~
Note:
The final prompt in the November PAD Chapbook Challenge was "The End." I was inspired to write a poem for Team Netherworld's long-running WIP, Fetch.
Princess Ondina was the reluctant captive regent of the tyrannical monarchy of West Zecor. Misusing powerful magic learned from his mystical adviser Yadira, the daughter and High Priestess of Nyarlathotep, Ondina's megalomaniac psychopath brother King Qweh triggered a reaction in the planetary system's smaller sun, Zetar Beta, causing it to begin devouring its larger companion. This ill-advised action brought about the doom of Zecor (Zetar 6). Princess Ondina is the previous incarnation of Fetch's female protagonist, Pepper Baiij.
The reincarnation sequence of the Fetch story was born because I had long wanted to write a backstory for the third season original Star Trek episode The Lights of Zetar. This episode tends to be pretty much universally panned, and it certainly has its flaws, i.e. if Captain Kirk had referred to a grown-ass woman in her 30s as "the girl" one more time, I swore I was going to jump through the screen and make him wear his 'nads for earrings, but I was fascinated and, frankly, terrified by the malevolent light colony. It provided me many years of nightmares. To this day, even as desensitized as I am to most so-called horror (which generally consists of gore and jump-scares), I still cannot watch this episode in the dark.
Fun Trivia: The Lights of Zetar was co-written by the late Shari Lewis of Lamb Chop fame and her husband Jeremy Tarcher. Lovable Miss Shari definitely had a dark side to her imagination!
