Pain.
White, blinding pain. it’s just pain, that’s all I feel.
Searing white, like I’m being burnt alive in a furnace. The same furnace to which he was taken.
If I cared less earlier, now I no longer remember what feeling anything other than numb, sickening PAIN feels like.
Deep, dark red, it pools around me (I’m surprised I held so much of it), surrounding me
No visible wounds on me, but the feeling of being skinned alive justifies it.
I remember vaguely the happiness that once used to fill me every time I thought of home.
They all exists, those memories. It pains to much to remember, now.
Now, when it’s all gone, and when I know with certainty that I will never experience any of it anymore.
Not in this lifetime.
The finality is huge, larger than life.
I will never feel joy again,
and I refuse to have it any other way.
All of it now lies in the past.
My vision blurs, the deep red coloring the corners of my view.
It’s been months. I haven’t shied away from my thoughts.
Every nook and cranny has been visited, all the beasts there are my friends now.
I’ve tamed them - they now obey me, and me only. Oh, my lovely little beasts.

First, it was betrayal.
What did you feel, after torturing and crushing those who had nothing against you in their hearts?
How did you feel, after seeing the suffering suffer more, driving them to their limits?
How do you feel, cutting off the hands and legs of those who were already battle-worn, those who had nothing but a tiny bit of hope in their eyes, that maybe you, yes YOU must JUST take their side?
I hope you got what you wanted. Resentment. Anger. Pride (wounded).
How could you. Betray me like this.
You thought you could attack the unarmed, from the back, like a coward, and I would fall. Didn’t you?
Well, I have news for you, dear One. I have not fallen.
Anger, oh so much anger. Sometimes it’s so unbearable, I almost forget to breathe. You didn’t play fair.
Everyone will pay for this.

Then, it was just plain old grief.
I am truly so alone, ain’t I?
I cared so less about people and their shitty unjustifiable reactions, ONLY because I had something to go back to.
I had a safe haven, a piece of paradise waiting for me back home.
A nest full of love and comfort. I would always return, no matter where I go.
I had nothing, but I still had everything, because I had this. And now, you’ve taken that away from me too.
Yes, forgive me. Forgive me for I hadn’t known suffering until now. And now, I am being dragged on my face through a bed full of knives.
I remember the love, the warmth, the kind eyes, and simmer in that pain for long hours. Boiling hot, blisters all over me, but sitting still. Letting it happen, and pass. However long it takes.
Eyes closed, streaming fresh tears, silent sniffs. Hands wrapped around my knees, rocking back and forth.
I know now where hell on earth is.

After that, I began waiting.
Waiting for the curtains on my stage to close. Awareness, that I am but an actor.
I am an actor, and sometimes we get so carried away in our acts, that we forget that we are only here playing a character.
This act has ended, and the next one began. It didn’t wait for me to realize, get myself back together, didn’t wait for me to recover.
It began long back, and everyone is busy doing their parts.
We ought not to get so involved in the act, that we forget the whole picture.
My resentment died down. I don’t hold it against the Dude in the Sky anymore. I don’t care who did it and why, it doesn’t matter to me. It happened, and now, because I am still breathing, its on me to decide what to do with the time I have remaining here.
I might have aged a hundred years in these few months, because it sure feels like it.
As I sat and watched, the scenes changed a thousand times, new actors came and went, new acts began and ended. Chapters ended, time flew, and life went on.
For everyone but me.
And yet, I am still here. My world ended, but I am still here. How? My time still remains.
And because my time still remains, I have a duty -
One last duty -
To live.

For all the beauty I experienced in my childhood,
For all the joy that I had lived through in my life so far,
For all the good luck and bliss I was surrounded by -
I will have to live on.
A tribute to it all.