Empty Hand sat on a makeshift throne of dirt and shattered stone, his leg draped lazily over the armrest, his posture the picture of casual contempt. The dead planet stretched behind him...grey and cracked, a sky that had forgotten how to hold light, air that carried the weight of nothing. He had been waiting. He had always been waiting.
When Jason arrived, Empty Hand's grin split his face like a wound.
"Ah." He straightened, his voice dripping with theatrical delight. "Here he is. The MAIN CHARACTER. The Chosen One. The Beyonder. Lucifer's choice." He leaned forward, his galaxy eyes drinking in every detail of Jason's presence. "Tell me... these last few years... how did it feel? Being the hero of the story? Defeating villains with your overpowered great powers? The love of women, the admiration of men, the worship of everyone who looks at you like you're something special?"
He stood, his movements slow, deliberate.
"Wonderful, wasn't it?"
Jason's voice was flat. "Is that what makes you so jealous? Because you're a miserable dark being with no one you care about, and now you hate me for having that?"
Empty Hand threw his head back and laughed. It was not a pleasant sound...it was jagged, broken, the laughter of someone who had forgotten how to find joy and had replaced it with something sharper.
Then his face changed.
The laughter died. His features twisted into something cold, something ancient, something that had been nursing a wound for longer than worlds had existed.
"You fucking mongrel." He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a snarl that vibrated with barely contained rage. "You don't understand it, do you? What I am? What I had to go through?" His hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Eh?"
He walked toward Jason, stopping inches from his face. Up close, the galaxies in his eyes seemed to churn with storms.
"I AM JUST LIKE YOU." His voice rose, cracking the dead air. "You miserable fool. I was born on Earth. The Earth. The empty one. With no heroes, no villains, nothing but reality....bleak, grey, hopeless reality." His hands trembled. "I read comics. Became a fan of series. I dreamed of worlds beyond my own. And one day... as I read another edition of whatever comic I liked at the time... I wished." His voice broke. "I wished I could come to this world....To be hero..To be happy... And Darkness responded. I was granted the power to join the DC world. Me. A human."
He raised his hands, his voice rising with bitter mock-joy.
"I was going to be the main character. The hero. I was going to have powers. Save people. Be FREE. Be happy." His voice cracked. "I was going to be everything I had ever wanted."
His face twisted.
"BUT I WAS DENIED." He was shouting now, spittle flying from his lips. "Denied the chance to be what I was supposed to be. God and His angels did not allow me. I was tainted, they said. Because Darkness was my entrance...not Grace. Imprisoned." He jabbed a finger at his chest. "For eternity. Years upon years. They became millennia. Thousands. Millions. Billions of years. Till i forgot my own name." His voice dropped to a whisper that was somehow more terrifying than his shouting. "My own fucking name....was forgotten."
He then laughed. It was hollow, broken, the sound of something that had shattered so long ago it no longer remembered what wholeness felt like.
"And then the world ended. Finally, I thought. I'm going to die....free from the endless darkness...From my suffering...From the pain....From it all" He shook his head slowly. "Yet I wasn't free....and i watched....I watched as it was slowly was recreated. The world was recreated.....Over. And over. And over. Again."
His eyes found Jason's.
"At one point, I even accepted it. This is my role, I said. This is the path I was born into. I will just be a part of darkness." His voice was quiet now, almost a whisper. "Until I saw you."
The disgust in his eyes was absolute. It was not just hatred...it was something deeper. Something that had been festering for eons, fed by every moment of Jason's happiness, every success, every celebration. It was the hatred of a man who had watched another man live the life he had been promised.
"The Beyonder Human, they said." His voice dripped with contempt. "Unkillable by Death, as his soul was born outside existence." He stepped closer. "That was me too. Is he going to suffer like me? I questioned."
He was right in Jason's face now.
"And yet... here you are. Allowed to live. Born on Earth instead of Darkness. Lived a life of power. Surrounded by those who loved you. Worshiped on Earth. God allowed your existence. Angels did nothing to speak against you. And the one who brought you...." His voice cracked. "...was the Son of God. The one who turned on Him. And yet YOU ARE ALLOWED TO LIVE."
He laughed again. It was worse than before.
"I didn't believe it at first. I tried to question your origin. Sent a few villains your way. Invited you in to see you face to face. That day... when you were with that Dove girl... I questioned it even then. Maybe I'm wrong, I thought. Maybe I'm picking on some innocent being." He shook his head. "But I was not."
His eyes locked onto Jason's.
"You and I come from the same Earth. Brought to this world by external factors beyond our control. But while I suffered... you lived happy. While I was despised... you were loved. While I was shunned... you were welcomed." His voice was thick with emotion....years of it, centuries of it, eons of it. "While I screamed alone in the void... you laughed with your friends."
He raised his hand, pointing at Jason's chest.
"You were everything I was denied. Every victory you won was a knife in my gut. Every kiss you received was salt in my wounds. Every celebration, every triumph, every moment of joy you experienced was taken from me." His voice broke. "Stolen. Because if I had been given the chance... I would have been you."
He stepped back, his arms spread wide, his voice rising to a roar.
"So yes. I fucking hate you. I despise you. I want to watch you suffer." His eyes blazed. "But this isn't about you. This has never been about you. This is about God. About His angels. About the universe that denied me."
He raised his hands to the sky.
"I WILL BURN IT ALL. Not for me. Not for vengeance. Because there is nothing else left. I don't want happiness anymore. I don't want love. I don't want peace." His voice dropped. "I just want death. DEATH TO ALL OF IT."
Silence.
Jason stood there, his eyes wide, his mouth slightly open. He had heard every word. Processed every syllable. The origin of the Empty Hand was revealed before him—a mirror of himself, twisted by eons of pain.
"I don't even know what to say." His voice was quiet. "I... I didn't know."
The Empty Hand lowered his arms. His eyes were cold.
"Now you do."