Slowly drifting. That’s what I felt. The only thing my body could feel. Consciousness slowly fading from my mind. Giant white clouds rolling through the sky. Sunlight poured through them. The wind ruffled my hair. Its smells calmed my senses. For a moment, everything was fine.

But as if the calm came before the storm, black clouds quickly rolled in, swirling their way into the sub consciousness of my brain.

Within moments, a loud scream jolted me. Sweat beaded down the sides of my face.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Alert. My pupils were wide-eyed as they laid in the center of dark rings.

“Again?!

I knew it all too well. The same vision. It was the same vision, the same one every time I try. It drags me from the small blissfully moments of happiness. Anger and depression, are forcibly dragged from me.

“Dammit.” I mumbled.

I have heard the screams of the raped.

I have heard the screams of the tortured.

I have heard the screams of the dead.

Their voices never go away. They come to haunt me like everlasting nightmares. It is because of them that I can’t sleep. I envision their faces, the deceased as their blood engulfs me, drowning me in the depths of hell. It bubbles and spills over the very walls that I am incased within. Their skulls bobble up and down within the thick fluids. They howl. They moan. Their voices never cease to fade. I hear them plead. I hear them cry. Their blood seems to never wash off. Its color won’t ever fade. It blooms like a blood-rose as its thorns continue to prick and stab at my wounds, never letting them heal. No matter how hard I scrub, I can never atone for my sins.

I let out a sigh.

“Why?”

In this era, nothing was a secret. There was no escape. The rapid advancement of technology made sure of that. I looked down at the bracelet band that wrapped around my left wrist over neatly wrapped bandages. It really pissed me off feeling tagged.

Location, heart rate, blood pressure, vitamin levels, anatomy structure, even doubts. Everything was known. Everything was understood. That’s why I’m here.

A loud cranking sound emerged. The chains rose and fall, letting gears spin and fit into each other.

“Let the shift begin. In this living prison.”

It just sounds better when anything inanimate turns alive. We were part of an experiment. An experiment that seemed to use the weak from humanity. Every night, cells would shift randomly. It made escape almost impossible. Well, almost. Cages that were empty the previous night were replaced with new specimens.

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Life here was never easy. It never has been.

People struggle, we all have. I’ve been willing to throw my life away. The scars on my back are still hot from the smelting iron being slowly forced into the soft flesh of my skin. It burns. I can temporarily feel the scarred X that aligns my back perfectly. They made me a piece of artwork to be auctioned up on the black market. Of course, no one bought me. Nerves no longer exist within me, except for the very tips of my fingers. Every last one of them has been withered away into the darkness of my blood. I can still feel the last remaining sensation of pain, from the tears that dripped down my eyelashes. My emotions are forever lost. Love, happiness, sadness, they have all been peeled away from my very existence. However, my body still screams in agony. My pseudo smile still remains, hoping that it is enough sometimes to warm the hearts of people.

My dreams were once pure. They had their significance in the world before me. The ideals that followed these dreams were once righteous. They had meaning that could give blessings to something so grand. These so-called ideals were once so pure that they could put the smiles back on children. To help the people who couldn’t stand on their own two feet, that needed the extra pillar of support.

I wanted to be a savior to all.

I wanted to be the king of a kingdom.

I wanted to rule with an iron fist. but show the people that I had love and respect for them.

The thought was childish. It was an ideal that one could think of as selfish and irresponsible. It came with a lack of knowledge. Knowledge that may have helped someone who understood what it meant to take responsibility for their actions and understand the consequences that may follow in suit.

Maybe I wasn’t old enough? Or maybe I was too naïve to think every answer had an answer.

Within my mind, I thought of myself as a king. I seem to believe that I had the power to change the world. I used to think that I could protect the world from the evil that lurked within the shadows. That I could stop the darkness from creeping up on the weak. For all that it was worth, that I could slow down the process of corruption. To eventually halt it in its tracks.

“I was naïve. I’ve led innocent people to their demise.”

That’s right. It was me who lead them to their deaths. They lied in the streets bleeding away. Hundreds behind me. Because of the war that I waged. People suffered because of me. Ideals fall apart someday. They will never become reality. That’s what I’ve been told. That is what I have witnessed.

The world is constantly changing. It’s revolving like the seasons that come and go. The revolver is always reloaded and someone from time to time has to bite the bullet. It doesn’t show mercy to the weak. For some reason, it doesn’t show mercy to the strong either. It’s a sensation that brings pain to everyone at one point or another.

Love, it knows no mercy. It does not stop for you or me.

The train that I departed on was of some sort, different. Those years were the best of my life. The most that I could remember about my past.

I wasn’t pushed off.

I didn’t fall off.

I didn’t do anything to endanger anyone. Not the passengers, nor any of the people who provided service. The train that I was on, vanished. Out of thin air, it no longer existed. I hung in the air as the base beneath my feet was swept away like a rug.

It felt like a dream, almost as if I was living a lie. That my reality crumbled within a dream itself. The person who I thought was always beside me was just an after-image in my thoughts. I soon came to terms to realize that no matter how I looked at it, she was really gone.

I promised her happiness. A better life than the one we were living. Her words to this day never leave my thoughts as she died in my arms. It was the least that I could have done for her. Let me be the one to see her final breath. To be the one who watched the tears run down her face as she said her farewells to this cold-hearted world. It was this moment when my ideals changed. The day when the harshness of reality hit me. The physical manifestation of a bullet that would pierce right through my heart, severing all ties to the emotions that made us humans weak. The person who my world revolved around crumbled at the feet of my existence by the revolver and the wind would carry it to a world far away from home.

The person who had to bite the bullet.

That person was me.

I am no longer the person who I think I used to be. My mind screams for a savior, not that I will admit it. Playing it off cool, as if I can live on my own without the thought of another. However, I need someone. My heart needs saving. It needs someone who can wipe away the tears. It wants to be held close so that it can feel the warmth of another. I am no longer the person that I wanted to become. The smile that comes across my face is but in my mind with blank emotions. I stand on the tracks at the cross-road waiting. I wait and wait for the day when it comes back. I believe as if these visions are real. Everything that intervenes with this notion becomes destroyed. My heart weighs itself on the scale of the world. The demon that has been locked away would be unleashed. Its presence was known to everyone and everything. My bloodlust eyes paved the way towards darkness. No one was safe. Friendships were torn. The bonds that once held us together now became nothing more than a distant memory. One voice constantly fills my head.

“Welcome back Wrath.”

“Wrath?”

“Welcome back into the world my greatest child.”

It says the same thing over and over again on repeat.

I want no one in life. The bodies pile up. The stench of rotting flesh cease to fade. I felt as if I was helping them in their own cause. The blood would never wash off. The pain that would develop in my heart would make me more human than I was to ever be. It would create an aura of depression that overcasts my entire being.

The rain hardly ever stopped. It drenched me through, day by day. Year by year as sadness and grief flood around me. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. All I could do was look up at the stormy clouds and accept everything for who and what I was.

Somebody.

Anybody.

“Please save me.”