[He considers this in silence, supposing The Fade to be a sort of purgatory where souls drifted restlessly; the crossroad perhaps between a final resting place and a prison of brutal, ironic tortures far beyond those fantasized of and carried out in his years. That the jaws of Hell might not be there to swallow him when he left the world and life behind is a thought he has rarely entertained. But what if there was naught awaiting him but a void stretching on for eons? If he would have the presence of mind and awareness to recognize the all-consuming nothingness enveloping him, as Zevran had been, perhaps barbed whips flaying his back and hammers splintering every sin-laden bone in his body isn't all too terrible.

It would give him something to feel – and to look at - , at least. He smiles wryly to himself, but it doesn't linger long.]

…Faith.

[The word issues through gritted teeth like a curse, lips curling at the bitter taste it leaves in his mouth.]

I believed, once. I believed that if I hoped and if I prayed hard enough, that He might look upon this creature He created and grace it with a smile. That He might punish those who wished me dead, and that I might find a place among man, no longer envying them their freedom and having to live in the woods like the beasts that would roam at nightfall, away from my own sister. ...And when I could not have that, then I asked God for the strength to strike down my enemies.

[His eyes fall shut and his hands double into fists, leather creaking.]

‘Bestow upon me the power to protect my own life, oh mighty Lord. If you can find it within your infinite grace to bless Sophia and Julia too and spare them the wrath of so many among your flock, then I am yours, body, mind, and spirit, and so I shall be to my dying breath.
‘
[A long, deep pause. Swallowing, he lets his powerlessly trembling fists fall.] …Long did I wait for a portent that He had heard my cry. And it came, oh yes. It came, and with such… unquestionable clarity.

[He looks out with eyes glinting sharply like broken glass, his stiff, thin-lipped smile caught somewhere between vicious rage and wrenching grief.]

The only one a man can truly place his faith in is in himself… [And then, under his breath, something slips free.] …and even then…

[But with a sudden pang of self-awareness, he angrily shakes off the thought.]

If it is a man’s desire to survive, he must fight for it at any cost; those who do not fight deserve not to live.