The Void was cold.

Of course, Morgoth can feel nothing in his black prison, but he imagines that if he could the darkness surrounding him would be colder than the Hells of Ice and Iron ever were. He has spent millennia in silence, utterly alone, and the only thing that keeps him sane is the seemingly limitless memories his mind can call forth.

He remembers Angamandi, and all the creatures that filled it. He recalls the first and greatest of the dragons, and he smiles fiercely at the memory of the huge, hulking beast shrouding the world in shadow as Ancalagon flew towards the armies that opposed him. He thinks, at times, that that was the closest he ever came to hiding the lights that the petty Valar had set in place after he destroyed the two trees and stole the silmarils. Ancalagon's wings had blotted out the sun.

He thinks of his finest Lieutenant, Thû. The necromancer had been a Lord in his own right, a master craftsman as well as a sorcerer and a great warrior. He had lured countless men and elves into treachery, and done it all with a smile on his face. Morgoth's own invisible smile cracks into a grimace as he remembers how this fine warrior was sent wailing into the woods by an elf girl and her dog.

He thinks, with a mirthless laugh that he cannot hear, that he should not be too hard on his favoured servant; after all, it was that same elf girl and her lover that had put all the glamhoth to sleep where they stood, and him along with them. He feels a searing pang of loss at the memory of the stolen silmaril. He wishes he could feel their terrible heat against his brow once more, see their painful pale glow even for just a moment.

Black silence is his only answer.

He thinks suddenly, unwillingly, of Illuvatar. Something in him aches at the thought, and he thinks a string of foul oaths to distract himself from the memory of light and brilliance and the white-hot, wild thrill of creation. He remembers his own voice as it had been in the very beginning, powerful and clear, ringing out above the voices of the others, entwined with another voice that complimented it perfectly. He wants to scream his rage and loss at the memory of his brother, but he knows it would be soundless and unsatisfying. He would not even have the cold comfort of feeling an ache in his throat from the exertion.

He imagines, then, that he can hear the chaotic roar of the song that had been his undoing. He strains ears that no longer exist for music that cannot possibly be real—and he hears it more clearly. It is not his own voice, nor are the words the same.

When the three planets have an eclipse,
a black hole like a door is open.
Evil comes, spreading terror and chaos.
The ultimate evil.
Evil comes... evil comes.
Open the gate of hell

He listens, wondering if his mind has finally broken after all these aeons, if he is about to plunge into an abyss within himself far deeper and more unforgiving than the one he currently floats in. He tries to lift arms he doesn't have to cover ears that don't exist, and he thinks as hard as he can of the battle with Fingolfin that left him scarred and crippled, something unpleasant and shocking to shake him out of this dream.

Open the gate of hell
Open the gate of hell
Open the gate of hell

He hears the call again, and this time, he sees. There is a light in his darkness, small but steady, glowing before his face. He stares at it, and as he watches it widens itself. He sees through it to a world he does not recognize, filled with strange machines that even he—who saw the glamhoth ride to Gondolin in the bellies of steel dragons—cannot fathom. There, in the midst of this strange room, he sees the source of the singing.

He has no time to register what it is he is witnessing before the Void vomits him out, naked and shrieking.

He is flattened by the power and suddenness of sensation rushing back to him. He gasps, and screams at the feeling of air filling his lungs. His limbs are heavy, and he feels them as dead weight for he cannot remember what it is to move. His eyes water in the light that glows from above him, from some indefinable source. He thinks of the Lamplit Havens, and a guttural, gagging laugh claws its way from his throat.

"Who…" he rasps, finding his voice, remembering how to speak. "Who has done this thing? Who has brought me forth from the prison of the jealous gods?" He finds strength returning to him even as he lays trembling on the ground, and finally he tries to move himself. His arms shift slightly, then jerk clumsily into the position he intends, pushing him up and all the way back, so he finds himself swaying on his knees.

He looks up, then, and sees men arrayed before him. One stands before the others, tall and powerfully built with long black hair and pale, poisonously green eyes. He sees him as Thû for a moment, and feels a fierce, cruel sort of pride in his student—until he looks more closely, and realizes that this man is not the necromancer at all.

"Uhhh…who're…who're we?" The black-haired man questions. His voice rumbles and gurgles its way out of his throat; he sounds like a Balrog when he speaks, and his brows knit in confusion, making him look like a simpleton. Perhaps he is, Morgoth thinks crazily, feeling another laugh burbling in his chest. He quells the urge, and remains silent.

"Who ams dis dildos? Pfft, who de fucks doesn't knows who ams in Dethklok?" Morgoth jerks his head towards the source of this new voice, and he finds himself looking at a man who could have been the twin of Finrod Felagund. Morgoth feels a deep itch, a wish to destroy, to rend, to kill—but he again stamps down the urge. He knew the voice of the elven spell-singer, and this was certainly not it.

"I have lain in that foul abyss for many life-ages of this earth," he says, still struggling to adjust to the sensation of air rushing in his throat and the movement of his tongue as he shapes each word. "I know not where I am, or what sorcerers ye be that ye might undo the will of Eru and the power of the Valar. Come, tell me true…where is it that we now reside, and from where do ye hail, o sorcerers bold?"

The room melts into chaos, with five voices rising desperately in a bid to out-do the others. His ears ring with the sounds, his mind whirling, his body shaking and overwhelmed. He struggles to his feet, finally, using the wall to support himself as he clamps his hands over his ears.

"I believe that, ah, I will be able to, ah, answer any questions you might have." One voice suddenly silences the others, and he looks desperately towards its source, to find himself looking at a pale man with a scarred face not unlike his own, his eyes hidden behind squares of glass set in metal. His clothes are strange, pale grey but for a sash of red tied about his throat. He is accompanied by hooded men all clothed in black, carrying strangely shaped pieces of metal that they hold like weapons. "My name is Mr. Ofdensen, and I'm the, ah, manager of Dethklok. I think that, ah, we will be able to clarify things for each other, Mr…?" He stares blankly for a long moment, until he realizes that he is being asked for his name. He tentatively lowers his hands from his ears, standing as tall as his trembling, stiff frame will allow.

"Melkor," he forces out, only to see the strange, little man barely smile with a coldness that would have been more at home on his own face—there is recognition and understanding in his eyes, and he feels a little answering tremor of almost-recognition; something about this man is terribly familiar, though he cannot place it.

"Very well then, Mister, ah, Melkor. Why don't you come with me, and we'll, ah, get this all sorted out," he says, and Morgoth thinks of Ungoliant poised to devour him as Ofdensen's already-tiny smile vanishes. The hooded men with their bent hunks of metal approach him, and move as if to guide him after the little man with the red sash as he leaves the room; Morgoth stumbles along willingly, remembering his old strength as he remembers how to walk.

This world is strange, and terribly different than anything he remembers—but it is not so different than the things he has dreamnt. He feels a smile pull and twist his mouth, and his strides lengthen as his back straightens. Yes, this world is strange.

That does not mean he can not rule it.