Reduced to Zero

Reduced to Zero

All is one.
Light is too discriminating.  Light is fleeting.  Light glorifies a thing for but a moment, and then it is gone.  We are darkness.  We are encompassing, eternal.  We welcome all; we envelope what the light abandons.  We wish that all would join us, unified in darkness.  We are Dark Matter.
Unity is peace.  Unity is joy.  Is this not so?  Why do so many resist us?  Do they not wish their own happiness?
I drift among the stars, pondering.  One of our scouts returns from a small planet called Pop Star, bringing troubling news.  The inhabitants, the "Dream-Landers," live in perpetual chaos.  They lack unity and stability.  They are happy, and then unhappy, and lack control over these states of being.  They follow their passions independently, forsaking unity in favor of their own selfish pleasures.  Their emotions flow as the solar winds, uncontrolled and disorderly.  They are prone to violent action without provocation.  They require intervention.
They require us.
I rally the collective.  The situation on Pop Star is worse than we had feared, and yet it is not beyond hope.  For troublesome cases such as this, we have more… forceful means.  Our scout reports that he possessed the Penguin King, but was unable to suppress the creature's natural violence.  Given more time, the possession might have taken hold, but a band of disoriented peasants drove our scout from their king, banishing him back to space.  Poor fools.
This time, we shall be more comprehensive.  We must smother the planet and possess all before an uprising can occur.  We must strip them of their violence and chaos and merge them with the collective.  We must forge peace within them.
All shall be one.

One month into the purge, and all is not well.  The pink terrorist described by our scout has returned, resisting all attempts at collectivization.  He enacts violence indiscriminately, attacking all in his path.  Many Dream-Landers, untouched by us, have been beaten senseless and left for dead by this pink menace.  Many more have been consumed, eaten alive in his gaping maw.  He has rallied a small band of supporters and led a charge against our chief targets of induction.  Our footholds weaken by the day.  Already we are stretched thin by our efforts to harmonize this world.
His tactics are perplexing and, should theory prove true, unspeakably frightening.  As he travels, he garners favor among the locals, performing tasks that result in an influx of happiness.  This happiness is not our happiness, however.  It remains chaotic, fleeting… he is a warrior of light, using the tactics of the light.  The happiness he takes is drawn out of the people, ripped from them so that he may put it to his own use.
We fear that he has discovered a way to weaponize happiness.

I… we… are broken.
Our suspicions were correct.  The pink monster consumed the happiness of his planet and forged from it a master weapon:  a wand of pure light.  He broke our ranks and cornered us at the planet's center, then he struck.
I watched helplessly as one of our greatest warriors was cut down before my eye.  I faced the monster alone, armed with naught but my natural ability.  I threw myself at this enemy, but his weapon cut deeply, sawing gashes into my fine white skin.  Blood dripped freely from my wounds, bubbling through the space around us, and still the heartless creature attacked.  I writhed in agony, flinging my own blood at him, but this only fueled his fervor.  At last my body fell away and I was left naked, a single red, bleeding eye.
The pain was excruciating.  I burned from every nerve, my skin ripped away.  I beheld this monstrous creature and saw in the deep black of his pupil-less eyes the death of all unity, all happiness.  He was the great devourer; his hunger would never be satisfied.  In frenzy, I tried to strike him once more, but his mocking weapon cleaved into me, and I died.

Yet here I am.  I am nothing, and yet I am.  
I know not how I continue to exist, yet I feel that my understanding has grown.  All is one, but darkness is not one.  Darkness is nothing.  Nothingness is the only true unity.  In death, I find my purpose.  If I am to unite the universe, I must restore it to nothing.  I must reduce it to zero.
I feel my body returning, angelic in its newfound peace.  Spreading my wings, I take to the stars, ready to begin again.