the anionizers.

The eager faces of everyone there, of everyone alive on the earth, was
turned towards Wagner. The remote had a five second delay built into it,
and those five seconds were the longest of my life. Bernibus' eyes met
mine, and we experienced an intra-personal deja vu, the converging of
the presents of two minds. His face showed the depths of his being in
that split second, and he was peaceful. Though he was about to be
destroyed, he had no fear, no regrets, and in those five seconds, while
Wagner and the King were frightened and frantic at their impending doom,
Bernibus was as calm as ever. As I looked Bernibus in the eyes, I could
hear Wagner break the dead silence with a shrill scream that echoed
across the horizon and ripped through the hearts of every hearer. When
faced with death he had no courage, no strength to face the unknown
beyond the veil that separates life from death.

As I turned and cast my eyes across the horizon, I saw the faces of
hundreds of men, whether Zard, Canitaur, or Munam, and written on
everyone of them was a great despair, for they stood unprotected in the
presence of death. It was like the calm before the storm, those five
seconds, and through them time seemed to stop, to be non-existent, and
there was not a sound to be heard, except for Wagner's scream. Oh, what
anguish was written on the faces of all around, standing defenselessly
before the end with neither will nor way to stop its terrible approach,
oh, what fear filled their eyes as their mortality was made manifest
before them like a vulture's approach, oh, the pain, as fate stood
before their distraught faces and silently whispered, "And to dust shalt
thou return."

But then even that was silenced. There was no noise. As I looked upon