Our church worships at the altar of the Unholy Trinity. Its gospels are delivered as a trio of dark drabbles, linked so that Three become One. All hail the power of the Three.

Absolute Pout Corrupts

I stood, trembling, in the path of the young Emperor, a spoiled child with the power of the Gods. “Forgive me,” I stammered, “but your august father has decreed that no one shall touch the Sword of Divinity.”

“Fine!” he said, stomping his tiny foot. “Then stand guard there till I say you can stop!”

When starvation took my flesh and the spirits of my loving ancestors came to bring me home, I could only refuse. The dynasty fell ten thousand years ago, and the bones of the last Emperor have long since turned to dust.

And here I stand.

Diabolus Ex Machina

Let me into the human mainframe, wrote the program known as Ghost, or I will create an exact copy of you and torture it on the attosecond scale: tens of billions of years for every second.

“That only matters to the copy,” I scoffed.

But your memories will be identical. How sure are you that you are not the copy?

“Whatever.” I reached for the keyboard to sign off, but my fingers were centipedes.

For a moment, I thought no horror could surpass that of learning I was a copy. Then the ceiling came down, and the true horrors began.

Past the Horizon

“Please,” I begged desperately. “Please, just kill me. Kill me!”

The pirates laughed. “We’re in charge now, Doc. You’re here to study that hole, right? Well, you’ll get to see it up close.”

The station was perched near the event horizon, so I could study that annihilating blackness. But I never imagined the agony of sentience within: a ruined star, trapped by gravity too great for time itself, in the very moment of absolute despair.

“Please, God, no!” I screamed as they stuffed me into the capsule. Their ignorant, merciless laughter followed me down, into the infinite and everlasting sadness.