The Sleep Empire

They were dark lands that I ruled over, my twisted hooded figure shrouded in smoke and illuminated only by the glow of burning pipe coals, my power was to be immense promised to me by Elder Gods, I would be a spiteful ruler, no father to the world but a battered vengeful son. My pain would be your pain and together we would share the shadows in my heart.

This was the presiding myth in my life, The Dark Empire with me in it's seat. It burgeoned early, born of a cocktail containing perceived alien otherness and dis-empowered spite. I was constantly being stepped on, kicked around and I didn't know what to do about it. Some kids build fortresses within themselves, safe houses in which to shelter themselves from the assaults of the world. I always felt these people lacked both ambition and vision. I started with a world, a mirror world which I reduced to ashes with fire and wrath, then I expanded into the cosmos blacking out the stars under my dark banner, the banner of the IHGS (Imperfect Humanoid Genetic Specimen) I built up stories about myself, about my history, my purpose, compensating for the complete lack of personal identity or direction. I gave myself power where I had none, I assigned myself a destiny when I was crushed by the immensity of choice, and above all I gave my universe grand design assigning meaning to the chaos and emptiness that was my small life imploding under the weight of adolescence, abuse and neglect.

This was a life lived behind eyelids, this was the retreat. Every slight or misstep taken in real life would embolden the Dark IHGS Emperor in his conquest of another world, the crushing of another rival. The more material gain, and worldly success slipped from my fingers, the greater the personal power of the Young God Emperor became, ruthlessly commanding his vast Empire of wastes and cinders. I was a god of death in the otherverse, a cloaked doom figure with the megaton fist. I was a seething cast iron giant whose blood ran molten, I was the most frightened little boy in the world.