You Do Not Know

A/N: Okay, this came about as I was watching "Common Ground", and I was wondering, what was the Wraith thinking? This is what came of it. This is part one of about 5 or 6 parts. Please, wait for the thing to be over before you trash my portrayal of the thoughts of a wraith, but please review! no flames

Disclaimer : Clearly, I do not own Stargate Atlantis, Shepard, the wraith, or any of the characters. I don't even own the dialogue for this.

Warning, spoilers for Common Ground

I hear them bringing in a man, but I do not rise. As much as the hunger burns in me and I want to rise and feed, it has been too long...I have strength no longer. Once I could have destroyed these iron bars, but no more. I cannot move, and I wait to die.

The man has begun to move. He grunts, and begins pacing his cell.

"Kolya! I didn't kill you last time, remember?" he shouts. I could almost laugh. The captor is no where near here. He continues to shout, alternately calling and cursing. These humans. They are inscrutable. They fear us, but they fight and kill themselves. They hate us for killing them that we might live, but do not stop killing one another, though it gains them nothing.

"You're wasting your breath," I tell him. I am ashamed at the sound of my voice. It is like that of an old human. Once it was deep and powerful, but no more.

"Didn't know I had company down here," he says, and comes over to the barred window between the cells.

"There is no escape," I tell him, but he does not believe me, boasting that he will get out. He tries to see me in my cell, but I am hidden in the darkness. I can see him though, and see he is a young man, strong. How I long to feed on him. Even a few years of his life would be enough to stave off death for a little while longer.

"Many years," I tell him. He asks how many is many, and I tell him it is meaningless. And it is. What does time matter when one is starving, waiting for death to end the suffering? Every moment is an eternity of suffering. I have heard the humans speak of a place called Hell, where fires burn eternally, but never consume, and that is what my hunger is. I would feed, and I would not. Even the life of this man would not be enough to satisfy me, and I would just prolong my suffering.

He talks some more, pretending to sympathize. He says that his people are coming for him, and that when they come, perhaps they will take me with them. Again I am hit with the reality that I am so weak that he does not recognize me as a Wraith.

The guards come, and try to take him somewhere, but he refuses to go, until the beat him back with one of their weapons, a stick that inflicts great pain. It is what has so drained my strength. They brought me here already too weak to fight and have just barely kept me alive. A moment after they take him, more come for me. They open the door, and come in arrogantly. They know I am done. Before, they came in trembling, a dozen at a time to control me with the pain sticks. But now only two come, pain sticks at their sides. They know it has been long since I fed, and that I cannot feed on them, because of the guards on my hands, even if I had the strength to get to them. They come and kick me, mocking me. If I had fed just a bit on the man next to me, I would have destroyed them. But I am too weak to even stand at their bidding, and so they drag me to my feet, and half-drag, half-carry me to wherever it is they want me to go.

I hope I am going to die.