I sit there, lost in this burned wasteland. Surrounded by the pain and death of the innocent. Lost and drowning in the treacherous and bone chilling sea of hate, and neglect left by

demons, hidden skeletons thriving in the shadows of time that lie behind the living. I want to help, I reach out to save those who bob and sink beside me, but I get yanked into the

depths again. I'm cold... not just my body, but my soul shivers too. I have no fight left yet I am surrounded by those who have fought their last. Their pain becomes mine,

overwhelming me suffocating me... crushing me. Yet the broken, abandoned and anguished still continue to survive, not live, nor thrive but survive. I sit here waiting for a signal, a

flare, the shimmering light of a sliver of hope, anything that gives me any direction, any way to help. until then I ride the onyx waves lost in a fog of sorrow the color of pitch. Staring

at the flame of life, such vitality, so much innocent, yet all I am seeing is the darkness that plagues them, follows them like a hunter slinking in the shadows, stalking them as they live

their lives in utter ignorance of the hunt that they unknowingly participate in day after day. The flare of the flame reflects in my eyes but all I see is darkness, darkness in the past,

darkness now, and darkness to come.