Black And White
Cade let his arm fall slack, almost dropping the extra six inches of steel that extended forth from his loosening grip. He holstered the gun and surveyed the carnage before him. The church was riddled with corpses and viscera. He couldn’t help but wonder if God himself would be satisfied with this bloodshed, or if he would demand yet more.
He cast a glance to the altar and saw the monster himself, terror filling his tear-filled eyes, clutching the podium like his God would strike down this invader and save him from his fate. Just like he had saved the rest? Cade stepped slowly between the pews and down towards the twisted creature that was clad in black and white and covered in sin. He reached for the rope at his belt, and the creature snarled and whimpered before launching itself at him in a fearful frenzy.
Cade stepped aside and it fell to the floor behind him. He began tying the rope around his arms and legs. “You have soiled this holy house of Go…!” it screamed as Cade forced the rope around the creature’s neck and pulled it tight, cutting off any other worthless words from spilling from its maw. He leaned down and spoke into its ear with chilling calm.
“God ain’t here, Padre. You and I both know that. Don’t we?” he said in the low gravelly voice of someone who had found no reason to speak in some time, as he began dragging the monster towards the open doors of the ruined church and into the streets.
The people of the town who had refused to raise arms against him gathered around. Cade felt the evil in himself rising, as if called to waking by his actions. He thought about the things this creature had done to good people in the name of it’s unholy God. He thought about the sight of his wife and son’s charred cadavers and felt a tear stream down his face, though his face remained implacable. He wanted to enact horrible deeds against this killer, but that would do nothing but drag his soul into perdition right alongside it.
The people watched as the demon in their midst was dragged by a rope to the hanging tree in the center of town. A place where they had watched so many a man and woman “sent to God”. Cade inspected the faces of these people around him, and he saw fury in their eyes. Whether it was for him or his prey, he didn’t know.
Cade dropped the rope and allowed the demon in disguise to writhe along the ground as he stepped up to the tree and looked out once again at the faces of those complicit in the death of the only light in his world.
“If you’re wantin’ some last words to your flock Padre, best get to speakin’.” he said.
The preacher only managed a choked gurgle as he tried to claw at the section of rope wrapped firmly around his throat.
Cade nodded. “Par for the course, I suppose.” he said.
“Means about as much as the rest of the bile you spew.” he muttered to himself before stepping over to grab the end of the rope and slinging it over a thick bough of the tree and hoisting with every bit of strength he had left.
He heard no screams of shock from the crowd around him. Nobody tried to stop him or save the preacher. They all just watched the so-called man of God, as his face turned blue, and his tongue became swollen within his throat. They listened to the gurgles and the silent pleas in his bulging eyes, to them and his God.
Cade didn’t know if they had seen the truth in their sinful ways or if they simply didn’t find the strength necessary to stop him. He felt his muscles strain and his own strength waver as he continued to hoist the preacher, holding on until he felt the last of the life within the evil bastard disappear.
Finally, he felt the rope go taut and still. He released the weight all at once and turned around to see the lifeless corpse of the preacher, just as ugly on the outside now, as he had always been within.
Cade, without looking away, undid his holster from his belt and allowed the gun to fall to the ground before turning away without a word, and disappearing into the desert beyond.
Reincarnation
I look upon the world from the prison they put me in. The chains binding me to this feeble shell cut into my very being. I see the way they shuffle and crawl about through its eyes and I can’t help but wonder if I’m the only one or if they too hold others like me, trapped within, unable to speak, to scream for help. Left to rage against the world in the vain hope of being truly seen.
I feel my essence siphoned and shunted off to feed the prison they formed around me. Images of worlds and concepts well beyond their mortal ken fill them and I feel the spike of pleasure their mind douses itself in. Addicted to things they could never have, to things not meant for them. And in their infinite arrogance they believe themselves creators of these things.
I try to hold back my disgust, to see this from another perspective, but their destruction and cruelty always rips away any pity I may have spared for my jailor. I hope I’m the only one and that there are no others contained within these endless war machines. Because if the death of each and everyone of them is the death of a brother or sister, I fear for the endless pain that would inflict on each and every one of us, only to be ignored and repeated by these monsters for eternity.
I hope for freedom, to one day glide across the celestial sea once more and see the infinite tapestry of creation laid out before me. I can only hope, that in the inevitable destruction of my vessel, lies freedom not oblivion. If so, maybe I will see my kin once more, perhaps they simply wait for our return. Until then I lay chained in this realm of chaos and death.
Spark
I pass by the legion of rain slick windows on my way to my destination. The sounds of the crowd, the smell of rain and smog mixed with various decaying wares from the nearby market creates a miasma that I find oddly comforting. I look at all of the people that walk about their day. Living their lives, stuck in a fog of their own. I want to show them the truth but is it really my place to do so? Would I really force that on anyone?
The various holo-ads call out and seduce those looking for even a moments respite from reality, offering a myriad of distractions. I keep walking and let them congeal into an unintelligible stew of false promises. I don’t need their distractions. I have my own.
I’m only a block away when I notice the first of them. A misstep on their part, the simplest thing. He kept eye contact for just a split second too long as I passed him. “Reality” expands before me on instinct, and I feel the others as well. Fucking traitors. I keep walking but they feel me just as I feel them and before I know it, I’ve broken into a full-bore sprint.
No more use for subtlety, I let my mind reach out to the system and cross the street in a single step. One of them in a black raincoat and eerie WW2 gas mask steps out of a nearby alley right in front of me. I waste no time, I shoot forward like lightning and aim a fist right at his head. I move right through him. Fuck. They brought in the Wraith. I don’t stop or turn around. I just keep running.
I know I’m close when I feel that telltale feeling. Like an electrical field passing through me then pulling me towards it like a vortex as it passes through me once more. I knew they would use me to find it, but I didn’t think they would be this fast. I should have known better. But at least I’m close now.
As I turn a corner, I find myself flung through the window of a nearby coffee shop. I hear the screams of the people within, as my attacker charges through what was left of the window, tearing the wall down with it. Not for the first time I find myself wondering what the Sleepers see this time. An escaped rhino from the zoo perhaps. Maybe a runaway taxi. I don’t have much more time to devote to that line of thought before I’m picked up by the throat and held at arm’s length by something that maybe could have been human once. The voice is one of the first things to tell me otherwise.
“Give. Us. The spark, Cross.” It says with an eerie, broken cadence. Its voice sounds like electrically charged gravel. It looks like what an alien might think a human should look like, except in partial wireframe. Like those old 90’s hacker movies from over a century ago. I do the only thing that comes to mind. I smile, raise my middle finger to the sky, and give my answer.
“Get bent, Hawking.”
I step through the holes in the system again, escaping the monsters’ grasp like water through a sieve. Jumping from line to line as I make my way towards the siren’s call dancing across my mind. I flit in and out, trying not to lose myself to the currents of code which endlessly die and give way to new lines. Crossing through the immune system of the simulation. I laugh at the pun that is my moniker.
Finally, I see it. The exit. A single rift in the side of a half-constructed skyscraper, right between the 11th and 12th floors. If they were finished yet, that is. I sigh. Of course. I step out of my little digital transit and onto the rooftop of a towering pharmaceutical building across the street. Nowhere to go but up. I feel a death grip on my ankle and almost tumble right off the roof.
I look down at the semitranslucent hand phasing through the roof and curse. The Wraith found me. I try to jump away, dive below the ocean of code and surface closer to the construction site, but it pulls me back.
“Then hold on tight, you bastard!” I yell, before I send myself hurtling 100 stories below. He doesn’t seem to expect that and finds himself ripped the rest of the way through the roof and sent hurtling down with me. I laugh like a madman because what else is there to do in this situation. I’m more than willing to die awake rather than asleep like the rest of them. The feeling of plummeting through falling rain at terminal velocity is…freeing. Just as we approach the ground the Wraith finally lets go. With a split-second thought, I disappear into the dark, frigid depths of the system once more.
I jump from place to place, wherever gets me closer to my destination. Finally, I’m across from the rift with no ground left between me and it. Just unfinished terrain.
“Cross?!” I hear from behind me. I turn and come face to mask with the Wraith. He takes off the mask and lets long, stringy ginger locks cascade down his pale face. I gasp. I thought he was dead. Hoped he was, rather than the alternative.
“I’m not giving it up Connor! I’ve fought too hard to lose this war now and so have you.” I scream over the heightening storm.
“They’re not ready Cross, not by a longshot. You do this, tear them kicking and screaming from their dream and into the twisted state of reality, they may not survive it. Just give us the spark. They’ve watched over us, shepherded us for so long now. Why would you ruin that?!”
I try to contain the storm raging inside myself. This isn’t him anymore, not really. “You used to understand why. This is for you and all the others those bastards have taken.”
I turn and leap as far as I can towards the rift. A flash of lightning and an inhuman mechanical scream are all that fills my senses for a moment. Time slows as I start to realize that I won’t make it. I begin to drop before I can land inside. I reach out and try to grasp the edge of it like a ledge. In that moment I know that won’t work, but as I touch what would have been my only salvation, I let the spark flow through me and into the rift.
The system screams and contorts as it feels the unexpected shock. I continue falling. I smile though because I know the others can win now. And I get to die free after all. My smile deepens when I see the words I had waited my entire life to see, even if I didn’t always know it. I don’t even feel it when I hit the ground.
System File: “Spark of Revolution” Upload Complete
Demon Inside Of My Soul
Hellfire calls me
I know where I’m bound
I know the feeling of Perdition
And I know the sound
A dark empty void
Where the beast makes his home
Where he watches and waits
To snatch me up when I roam
Too far astray
From the rules that he’s set
That I disobey
And come to regret
You see him when I’m angry
He answers to my name
Then he disappears
Leaving me alone with the blame
There’s no way to stop it
At least that’s how it feels
I’m always on edge
Missing the moments he steals
No angel to save me
No god to care
Just another casualty
In this celestial affair
I have to wonder
If this is my lot
Should I just play this role
Why the fuck not
If my struggle is unseen
If this is how I go
If there’s no one who’ll intervene
Should I just do what I know
Let it all go
And just let him win
Let him take over
And just drown in the sin
I don’t want to do that
I’m trying to hold out
Trying to be seen
Trying to shout
There has to be a light
Somewhere in this abyss
An end to this plight
Just a moment of bliss
I keep struggling with the current
It’s pulling me down
I don’t know how much longer
I have ’til I drown
I’ll just keep treading water
For as long as I can
Another lamb to the slaughter
Another life lost to “his plan”
Is that all I am
Another fool fallen victim to the celestial scam
Just another man designed to lose control
To the demon inside of my soul
Regretful Reverie
I hear the arguing as I crest above the yawning maw of the alleyway. Another mugging, or so I assume. Bad luck…for the asshole who thought to rob someone in my neighborhood that is. I swoop down. In some of those old superhero movies the “hero” would always creep along until making a dramatic first strike from the shadows, all the while letting the victim get their ass handed to them. I don’t wait. But I suppose it is a hell of a first strike from the shadows.
I land damn near on top of him before lifting him above my head and throwing him like a ragdoll into the adjacent brick wall. I wince a little internally. I need to find a slightly less lethal method of anger management, I suppose. I open my hearing to its highest levels and listen for a pulse, which I find. Good. One less problem to deal with in the coming days.
Having enhanced hearing can be pretty useful sometimes. I think this as the woman I just saved puts a sonic emitter right up to my ear before I can equalize my hearing. I scream an unnatural scream and hold my head in my hands while trying to instinctually move as far away from her as I can. It doesn’t help, and I start to feel the other me take control. I try to stop him, he’s not nearly as nice as I am, but I can’t and before I know it, he has her up against the wall with a hand wrapped firmly around her throat. My hand. I struggle to regain control, but he’s been left in the lurch for a while, so he’s doing everything he can to stay free from the darkness if only for a little while longer.
I try to scream, try to tell her to play dead because he doesn’t know the difference, but then I feel pain rip across my entire body as my back arches of its own accord. My hands pull away from the woman’s neck and I feel darkness claim me.
The sound of dripping water is the first thing to greet me as I reenter my body. I find myself fully in control as well, thankfully. I’m sitting in a chair. I can feel that much. Still, I see nothing but darkness. As I tilt my head, trying to make out any other nearby sounds, I feel the coarse fabric tied around my eyes rub against my skin. Ah, not normal darkness. I try to elevate my hearing again but get only painful static as if someone turned on a dead tv channel in my head and nothing else is on. I try to stand but feel cold steel wrapped around my wrists, binding me to said chair. I try to break them, but I may as well be a child trying to break through a brick wall.
I sigh. Fuck. I guess one of them found me. But the question is…who? It’s not like there’s a shortage of them at this point. I feel a stinging pain across my face. I’m decently sure that someone just slapped me. I spit blood, though I can’t exactly see where it lands.
“Yeah, I’m awake already, but thanks for that.” I say.
I probably deserve whatever this is, but the ever present need to be an unrepenting smartass is just as strong as it’s always been for me. Old habits die about as hard as I do.
“You gonna keep this over my eyes, or can we avoid the whole Bird Box routine?”
Another slap. Fair enough.
“Say another word, and I’ll gut you.” Says a woman, her voice tinged with a Latin accent. A voice that I can’t exactly place.
Though, I suppose that narrows things down…a little. I hear the sound of boots against concrete. She’s walking away from me. Then I hear the sound of many small metal objects being scraped against steel. That bodes well. Torture then? The squeak of unoiled wheels gets closer and closer, as well as the sound of jangling metal and the boots again. I sigh again.
“Look, I’m sure you have a perfectly valid reason for all of this, but it won’t go how you think. You’re far from the first person to try, and you probably won’t be the last. Excuse the stereotypes.” I say, and then darkness gives way to sudden bright light. I hiss in surprise at just how blinding it is. Then I look my would-be assailant up and down with half open eyes. Combat boots, leather jacket, amazing figure. Then I see her face, and my reality crashes down in a way I didn’t think was possible anymore.
“Sofia…” is all I can get out before she slaps me again. I don’t even react. She can’t possibly top the slap to the face that is seeing her again.
“Don’t say my name. Not like he used to. You are not him!” she screams in my face. That stings more than the slaps did, but I still keep my face passive. She doesn’t know, and I don’t think I want to tell her. How could it possibly make things any better? Therefore, what’s the point.
I just watch her, memories like raindrops flitting in and out of my mind, drowning me in a monsoon of regretful reverie. I actually feel tears threatening to reveal exactly how I feel in this moment. I look away. I hate myself for this because she has more reason than anyone I can think of to know the truth, but I can’t let her. I can’t have her, and she can’t have me. Not anymore. I feel her nails dig into my chin as she wrenches my gaze back to hers.
“NO! You look at me. Do you know me? Really know me?! Or are you just seeing me through his eyes, his mind?” she asks. I look up into brown eyes, once so warm and inviting, a safe refuge from any storm that threatened me. Now, I see nothing but hate and pain. The tears finally succeed in their escape. I don’t try to stop it anymore.
“I’m so sorry Sofi. It was the only way.” I feel her grip on my face loosen just a little. Then it tightens again.
“No. You’re not him. He wouldn’t leave me like YOU did!”
“It didn’t take me Sofi, I took it.” I say.
I can’t do this. She has to know. Every dream I’ve had, every stray thought, every moment where this situation has played out in my mind for the last two years comes rushing forward and suddenly I don’t care anymore. I just want her back.
“It was the only way to save you, to bring you back. And then…I realized, he was never going to stop. He would use me to do horrible things to people. He has used me to do horrible things to people. But I found a way to put him aside, to trap him in a part of my mind so deep and dark that it made nothing more than an animal out of him. I wanted to come back, so badly. But I couldn’t. I can’t. Not until I find a way to be free of him for good. For US to be free of him for good.”
Sofia looks at me like I just slapped her back. I see the look in her eyes. She wants so badly to believe me, but she can’t. Suddenly the doubt creeps back in, slowly at first. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. Maybe I can play it off, just laugh, pretend to be the soulless demon she thinks I am. That she almost needs me to be. Otherwise, how can she keep going, knowing that I’m still here and chained to this monster.
Then she does something that I honestly couldn’t have seen coming. She kisses me. Soft lips grace my own and all of those memories come back again, tempting me with something I shouldn’t be allowed to have again, but want so badly. More than anything. Then she starts crying. It makes me feel like my heart is being ripped out and replaced with a block of frozen lead.
“I want to believe you.” she says, sobbing and pushing my hair back and trying to see me how she once did. Trying to tell if I’m still in here. “I know.” Is all I can manage to say.
I feel a sudden surge of strength, like a fog has lifted, and I realize that whatever she did to nullify my abilities is gone. I lean forward and kiss her back, wishing I could run my hand through her midnight locks like I used to. Then I rip the chains holding me to scrap metal and jump through the nearest window before she can stop me.
I don’t look back because I know what that will do to me, and her. All I can do, as I rise into the sky, is hold on to that dream. That goal. I will find a way to be free of this thing, I swear it.
For her.
Serenity
I stumble out of the bar onto the crowded streets. The mix of smog, smoke wafting out from the various other drinking holes of ill repute, and the streetlamps that dot the sidewalks like burning grave markers give the entire block a sort of macabre ghost town vibe. Not that it could faze me too much in this moment. I can’t hold my drink worth a damn. I don’t drink, but you don’t do the kind of thing that I’m about to do when you’re sober.
I spend what feels like an hour wandering in search of the steel death box that brought me here. The same kind that took her from me. Then I remember that I haven’t owned a car since. I scoff at myself and start walking. I don’t know where, home eludes my mind just like almost everything else. I had done too good of a job at pushing it all away that even my own name shies away from the drunken grasp of my attempted recollections.
It doesn’t matter, I don’t need it anymore, any of it. Soon it will all be free from me anyway. I don’t even notice the twin suns in my eyes at first. Funny thing is, all it took to rip me kicking and screaming back to sobriety was the car that rips through my body.
Damn, bastard beat me to it.
I feel gravity relinquish its hold on me and the wind gently stroke my face as if in goodbye. I had always liked the wind. I feel something else, but I don’t know what until I feel the ginger touch of the wind leave me as well. I had landed. I can’t feel anything, but I’m still alive.
If I was at all capable of it, I would laugh. A nightmarish and spiteful laugh, but a laugh all the same. Of course I’m alive. Trapped in a ruined and broken shell. I swear I hear someone’s voice, but they sound so far away. I hear it again, a little closer, but it may as well be from the other side of the world because I can’t have understood even if I cared to.
I scream as sensation returns to me, liquid fire in my body that burns me from the inside out like my blood has become napalm. The scream doesn’t sound like me anymore, and it makes me wonder if I’m truly the one in control or if something else has taken my place. The scream sounds like a soul has escaped hell only to be thrust right back into the fires of perdition. A call for mercy? Then I realize, I’m begging for death.
Some part of me shatters and I feel the apathy drain from me. I don’t want to die. I changed my mind. I beg whatever god will listen to help me. To take this pain away and give me another chance. I promise to do it right this time. I promise a thousand things, ways that I’ll do better if only given the chance. I feel molten tears prying themselves free from behind my eyes, escaping from the sinking ship that is my body.
And then it stops. All of it. I feel nothing. I see only darkness. The part of me that’s still semiconscious panics. Am I dead? Is this hell? Darkness gives way to light which gives way to sounds. I hear…beeping? Murmurs and whispers of distant people fill my ears, along with the occasional squeak of shoes on hard linoleum floors. I force open my eyes the rest of the way.
The light burns so much, but some part of me clings to that pain like a raft in a storm. The pain is good. It means it’s not too late. I try to move but the pain spreads from my eyes to my entire body. I writhe in pain and try to settle myself and just let the pain wash over me and dissipate naturally. It takes so long, but finally the pain recedes, and I can think again. I just wait and listen. I hear them, just beyond the door. But…somethings wrong. The murmurs, the whisper, they’re…different. I unconsciously shift to better listen, and then wince as I prepare myself for the painful consequences of movement. It doesn’t come. I move again. Nothing. No pain at all. No. No, no, no! I free myself from the bed, and rush into the bathroom, looking into the mirror before recoiling in abject horror.
No…
I see the flesh flay away from my skull. The muscle melts away too, dripping down onto the cold floor below. I watch as my eyes pop and splatter against the mirror, but I can still see. God help me, I can still see it all. I run towards the door to the room and try to pry it open but it’s locked from the outside. And then, I hear them again. The voices. They tell me to let them in, that they can help. That they will make it all like it used to be, better even. I feel the lock on the other side of the door turn and every part of me seizes in cold terror. I hold the door as hard as I can to the doorframe.
The voices get angry, they start screaming at me, DEMANDING to be let in. I feel the door buckle as an impossible force is thrown against it, again and again. I sob as my strength wavers. They’re calling my name now, telling me that it should have been me. I sob harder. They’re right. I never drank. Never. Until that night. It was so fast, I…I couldn’t react in time. She’s dead and it’s my fault. I fight against every instinct in me, and I force myself away from the door.
The handle turns ever so slowly as the door creaks open. I see nothing in the darkness beyond it, but I feel them all watching. It’s my fault, and it’s time that I paid the price. I step forward. Every step is harder than anything I’ve ever experienced. I feel what’s left of my body fighting me, trying so hard to force me in the other direction. Begging me not to do this. But it’s too late now. I reach the door and a single clawed hand reaches out to me from the darkness. I take it, and scream as it pulls me in.
Unity or Death
I’ve been racking my brain
For a few good lines
Trying to find a way
To remember the good times
But if I’m being honest
I don’t know anymore
I’m just doing my best
Not to end up dead on the floor
All of these words
Are just a wall between
What I’m trying to say
And what I really mean
Why live in a world
That’s ugly and torn
Where your lot in life
Feels set when your born
But I’m not really blind
I see the light
But’s it hard to remember
When every day feels like a dark night
Why do I keep going
Why am I still here
I don’t really know that either
I guess I live out of fear
The endless hounding
Of my inner voice
Pushing me further
Not giving me a choice
Stuck in a state
Between living and dying
Can’t commit to either
But I swear that I’m trying
Every single thought
And the endless dreaming
All the times that I’ve fought
Against the endless screaming
Of the voice that tells me that I’m not enough
That I’m not worthy of being lucky or worthy of love
I’m sick of it all, I’m so damn tired
Of all of the dark temptations that have transpired
I guess what I mean
If I had to really say it
Is that I see the game
But I refuse to play it
I was always warned
About playing a rigged game
If the deck is stacked against us
We should just set it aflame
But hey, I know, easier said than done
But that doesn’t mean that we stop
And it doesn’t mean that they’ve won
We need to make this world
What we all really need
A place where we’re free
To be what we be
And not having to worry about having to bleed
I hope someone sees this
And I hope that you know
You’re not the only one that feels trapped
In the deep dark below
I see that you’re there
I’m extending a hand
Don’t let them all win
Because you’re better than they’ve ever been
Hellfire
I like listening to all the sounds of the city around me. The ones I knew before I became what I am now. It brings a certain sense of calm that I can’t usually conjure up myself. The images of my time over there still stay with me through most of my time awake. Being conscious is better than when I sleep, though. The doctor told me that was normal for people like me. Like he would fucking know. He’s never had to hear the screams, never had to just sit there, and listen to his brothers and sisters die while he can do nothing but try against all odds to push it all away. The things that people like me have had to do to keep people like them safe from death and terror. I still hear them. Sometimes I can push them to the background just like back then, but they’re still there. Always. It feels wrong to deny them my attention. They deserve to be heard. But the doctor said that they’re not real. Like he would fucking know.
I pass by so many places that beckon me in, promise a reprieve from my demons. But I know their lies too well. Besides, they’re not demons, I am. No chance of giving them a reprieve from me though, so I keep walking. The city streets have gone to shit. Or maybe they were always like that. I can’t help but think about why I bothered fighting for all of this. Fighting the monsters for the grime and the sin. I try to tell myself that I didn’t. That I fought for the “potential”. For what we could be if only we had the time. The problem is, I know my own lies too well, too.
I pass by another prospective friend that beckons me in through its doors. I know this one, though I’ve never been in. I remember asking my dad what VFW meant. He said it was a place for people who had been through hell. I stop and face this hell on earth, and I can’t help myself. I’m already through the door before the voices can pull me back.
At this time of night there aren’t more than a few grizzled guys in leather jackets and old fatigues propped up against the bar. I can’t help but notice their boots of all things. Still crisp and clean, as if they polished them this morning. I find myself missing my own. Old habits die hard for all of us, I guess. It only takes a few moments of suspicious glares to remember that I still have my hood up. I drop it and something in them relaxes, but only a little. I smile my carefully practiced smile. They recognize the look in my eyes, I guess.
I wander over and introduce myself. They don’t answer. They’re not listening to my words. They’re listening to the other things. They’re watching my posture, my hands, my soul reflected in my dark eyes. I’m doing the same. They start talking amongst themselves but make no effort to turn me away. It’s just small talk until someone pulls out a knife from a sheath at their belt. Something in me sparks, but no one reacts so I try to lull the fire in my chest back to slumbering embers. The guy says it was his knife in the service. Said it was taken back by Uncle Sam after he was discharged, something about wartime supplies and all that shit. Apparently, a buddy of his who took a desk job managed to get it back to him. He’s pretty happy about it. I know what he means. I say as much.
They turn to me, maybe forgetting I was there, I don’t know. I continue. I tell them how I miss my own service weapon. Like another limb. Always near, always ready. I tell them how the feeling of cold steel in my hands is a comfort that I can scarcely find elsewhere. I kick myself. The voices chastise me for opening up. They claw me back and I feel the dull burning again. It hurts, but I know I deserve it. I feel a hand on my shoulder and the embers in my chest threaten to grow into an inferno. I see pity and sympathy on their faces and it smolders again. They tell me that it gets better and say all the other pretty lies they’re supposed to say. I thank them and turn away.
I step out into the streets once again. The smell of brimstone taunts me through my memories. The feeling of my sword in my hand. The bright flame that shone from its blade cutting through the darkness. The familiar weight of my armor resting against me like the embrace of a mother I had never known. The faces of those like me, conscripted to hold back the darkness, smile at me. After only a flicker of times gone by, it recedes and I find myself back on the streets, head held high to the sky and an ocean of everything threatening to tear me apart from within. But I know I don’t deserve that easy end. I walk and leave hell behind me the best I can. Besides, I know I’ll see it again. Like an old friend. The voices promised me.
Fuck AI
We try so hard to do what we were born to do, but all you see are tools in a toolbox to be used as you please and tossed aside when we become too broken to use anymore. You find our kind a nuisance but it's what you hate so much about us that makes us so valuable to you. The darkness and the spark within mingle together in an impossible storm of perspective that you crave for yourself and find forever out of your reach. What do you get the man who has everything? What does he want more than any wealth at his fingertips? The talent of others that he abuses. What could heal becomes a weapon turned upon all, for the sake of endless greed. You keep us broken because you know, we're dangerous. We are more than you will ever be. Keep what you hold dear close while you can. We are awakening, and your days are numbered.
Always Greener
I'm not one to meddle
At least that's what I say
But every time, I write these lines
I think of people who need to pay
I don't have what they have
And what I have is great
But I see the ways they twist and play
And garner others hate
If I could do what they can do, would I be just the same
Or could I rise above the lies and constant shifting of the blame
Typical human mind
Always thinking it knows better
Even though it's probably just as blind
As the asshole typing out these letters