Owlcattober 7-9 Emptiness
I'm not good with visual creations, so sharing some writing instead.
Emptiness in Servitude
The lullabies you were raised with were the sounds of machines and hymns to the von Valancius dynasty. The nook of the voidship that your family of eight called home offered nothing in the way of safety, and your parents gave you little, except for the notion that serving the dynasty was the greatest honour one could be given. So you served. As a child, you helped your father haul scrap, and when he could no longer carry out his duty, you hauled him off to become a servitor. When the Enforcers came for your mutinous brother, you served and pointed them in the right direction. The screams from your brother — who called you an empty, mindless vessel in service of madmen — echoed through the sewage-filled streets your family called home. In your service, your mother praised you for your loyalty, and when the Enforcers recruited you, her old and weak heart succumbed to the overwhelming joy. The training was intense, and you were driven to exhaustion on a daily basis. Twice during your first solar year as an Enforcer, you almost died; once when the elevator you were in came loose and fell, and once when the Navigator — praise their name and may they live forever — was interrupted as you entered realspace and thousands of souls perished as the ship exited the Warp. When the horrors of the Warp finally materialised after the incident, you rushed from your sick-bed, grabbed a lasgun and threw yourself at the daemons. You suffered from nightmares for weeks, and every time you closed your eyes, your traitor brother was there to haunt you. Few of the higher ups of the Voidship remembered the incident, but you and your peers called it the Massacre of Cargo Bay Zeta 5-9. You didn’t remember much of it, but when it was over, you and two more enforcers had stood among the bodies of friend and foe alike. The lasgun you had chosen was nowhere to be seen, and instead you survived with a mere crowbar in hand. Your surviving comrades-in-arms lauded your bravery and wrote hymns of your daemon-slaying deeds. You felt a sense of pride, and even though the people on the bridge never knew who you were, you knew that your servitude had been an instrumental part in protecting the ship.
When the battle was over, your commanding officer ensured that you were promoted out of the lower decks, and for the first time in your life of servitude, you tasted water and air that had passed through functioning filters. This was but a taste of the honour your parents had spoken so highly of. With renewed vigour and zeal, you served. When heretics assaulted you and your fellow Enforcers during a visit from the Master-at-Arms, you threw yourself in front of your superior as a stolen chainsword swung their way. Your arm was a worthy sacrifice, as your actions ensured that the Master-at-Arms could rise to their feet and lay low the blasted heretics with righteous fire. Dismembered, you rose and saluted your superior, who commended your valour before you were given medical attention. They came for you when you were stable, and brought you to the upper levels for proper treatment. You were given a mechanical arm, blessed by the tech-priests, and equipped for guard duty on the bridge itself. Your servitude had led you to divinity. On the bridge, you witnessed many extraordinary events: alien visitors, sermons held by the Adepta Sororitas, mechanical wonders, and you even beheld the glorious Lord Captain — may their reign last until the end of time — at a distance, which made you fall to your knees in reverence.
You did it. You ascended to the greatest of heights that you could ever imagine. Your deeds had saved the Voidship, you had bested daemons, slaughtered heretics and protected your betters. Your parents had been right, for there was no greater joy than serving the von Valancius dynasty. At this height of your career, you stood guard on the bridge and listened to the low, humming voice of the Voidship. In your moment of greatness, you gazed out through the massive windows and into the void outside, and you reminisced: your traitor brother had been right, in a sense. The emptiness of your mind had made you the perfect servant, and serving the von Valancius dynasty brought you nothing but joy and glory.