Like a shadow he crossed the valley of his soul. Surrounded by chaos, red and black, the masses were a wave, rolling, rising and collapsing, infinite in scope and scale. The surge was indefinite, and the empty moon was reminiscent only of death. This was no place for the young, much less the living: yet there they were, quite similar save the uniforms, men just as he, with limitless potential, tearing the flesh of their brethren.
Not a savior, nor a hero, he ran. He ran for his love, for his past and his future. In human frailty he descended. Frantically pawing through the musty earth, groping, clasping, praying, he fell a little further down.
The darkness welcomed him. Was this the emptiness of death? A complete nothingness pervaded the room, an absence of sensation, a coma of the heart.
Like a flutter of wings his senses filled him. Feverishly slow, the room embraced him like a coffin, beckoning, molding, uniting his very being. It was still pitch black and very much alive, a conjurer of both time and space. With a flick he lit a cigarette, his composition, and his surroundings. It was obscure, even the ground seemed to be melting. Shadows began to vibrate, expanding, encompassing the entirety of his vision. He felt uninvited, and he felt the vitality of this darkness. With a swirl they inspected him, judged him, felt him, and with a flicker they disappeared.
In the verve silence he pondered. Hunched down, he waited like a fly in the spider’s web. The smell of decay made him long for heaven, for justice, for anything above the mortal spectrum. Finally, in this damned hole under this damned battlefield, he repented. The words crept through the void as a thief in the night. He felt like he was robbing a grave. All he could see was grey.
Time is the most useless invention in the dark. Even if it passed, what did it matter? There was nowhere left to go. Not now. He was stuck, no longer in a hole, but in himself. His heart became a trench. His wife, kids, mother, father, love and hate, fear, courage, shame, his past present and future, his hope, scattered, blinded, failing. Faucet tears dripped, fingers groped, he yearned. What a fool.
With a clash the curse was lifted. A light beamed down, beckoning the darkness, flaring, taunting the void. Bleached bones reflected the light.
“Tim, lets get you out of there!†“You look like shit.†Chris lifted his brother out of the hole, out of despair, out of the jaws of death, out of hell.
But he never left.