Soulreaper

For more than a century, scorpions and snakes and other sparse desert animals were her fodder. She drew them in as the FirstMother had taught her, twisted their cognition to her own end. Pouncing, she would gorge quickly and cleanly, their essence forming part of her own, merging, changing. Occasionally a particularly dominant creature would contest her dominion as she embraced its soul, would fight against her being, seeking to usurp command of the whole. Never were they a match for her will.

In her hundred-and-sixty-fifth year, she encountered a goblin. Though she did not know it, the goblin had found itself lost from its travelling platoon during a sudden sandstorm. It had staggered past her lair, half- mad from heatstroke and thirst. She had followed it with unabridged curiosity - and hunger - for many hours. Finally the goblin had collapsed to the ground, a spiral of dust washing its face in a film of grit. She was certain it was at its weakest, and so she pounced, as she had done ten thousand times before.

THE POWER!

Never had she experienced such strength of will, such FOCUS! It sensed her approach even before she had drawn its soul, and it fought bitterly. It tore at her, biting, thrashing, roaring. Their horns locked together in a brutal display of combat, the combat for which the prize was pure existence. After an eternity, the goblin broke, and she encircled its will with dogged resolve. It screamed at her NEVERNEVERNEVERNEVER as it died falling into the void, as she deconstructed its neural pathways, felt its memories, its knowledge of the world around it seeping into her own mind like pus into cloth. It became her, as all did in time.

Years passed. In all her time. she only ever left the desert once. On her three-hundred-and-fourth day on this planet, she claimed for herself the form of a human. She had crept into a village three hundred miles from the desert. She knew not the horror she inflicted on its inhabitants over the next two months. The villagers did not understand what disease would target children and only children, leaving them pale, unblinking husks incapable of recognition or emotion. As the days pressed on, the victims expanded in age. Teenagers began to fall foul of the Mind Death, becoming empty zombies that refused to eat until they died, pupils darker than the space between stars.

In frantic desperation, those villagers that had not yet upped and left for nearby towns had sent for a mystic to heal their poisoned village. It was this witchwoman that she chose, the vessel to carry her into the future. She took the witchwoman's body to the desert, and the villagers fell weeping tears of utter penitence in her wake. No more suffered.

In time, she had built the Tower, the conduit for her now much expanded awareness and ability. She no longer required souls to absorb within herself. Insofar as she was concerned, she was human. She was biological perfection. The humanistic ego had infected her every impulse, and she LIKED the way it felt. The complete and total certainty that she was the apex of evolution rendered it impractical to consume souls. Now, she reaped them, forging them into useful tools. Human tools.

She felt Fred burn against her chest, bright and strange. His was a peculiar taste. It was......a taste of fate, of sheer possibility. His soul smelled like a key, a key that could open any door, any lock. A key that could unlock the universe. The concept both fascinated and terrified her. She was still not on first name terms with fear. She had only felt it once before - during the vicious battle with the dead goblin's soul. How many years since that? She could not remember. Her mind sometimes became confused, disoriented. She was old now. Young then, old now. Another concept.