I feel so small in the emptiness....

Snow is all that covers the ground for everywhere I can see. And the sky is that unchanging black like it is on any other day it snows, stark and harsh against the bright white below it. Normally, I can find that peaceful and welcoming, cause the world slows down and everyone stops for a moment to watch the beauty....except, this isn't a world. It's a waste land, and it's not beautiful, and I am alone.

My lungs ache, my heart is heavy, and I have no more tears...beaten and defeated.

I am cold and this madness is not mad, only silent. It makes no exceptions, has no sympathy, simply moves on neither willing me to live nor willing me to die.
Somewhere there is lightning behind the clouds of black, but it makes no noise. I feel cold, and I pull my jacket tighter, feebily attempting to block it all out. I stand, my knees buried in shiny crystals. The wind travels slowly across the ice. Caressing the ice and the sky and the clouds like a lover's touch and then suddenly, it slams into me, beating my body mercilessly as I feel nothing but cold numbness...

I wait to die.

How did I get here I wonder...Have I always been here? If I have, why am I only now waiting to die? I feel numb. I sink down and close my eyes, willing fate to finally take me and bury me as it wishes. I welcome death with open arms.

Sad peace...."Why did it have to be this way?"

Wind cuts across the land once more, hitting me hard again as I wait for eternity. It stings and cuts into me and suddenly I taste blood. My heart picks up and I am angry. "Why did it have to be this way?" I open my eyes and see lightning flash again, brighter this time, seeming to cut the clouds and slamming into the ice shattering it. I feel shrapnel cut into my flesh and ear-piercing thunder crackles just behind the lightning. Pain lights behind my eyes for the first time in a long time.

I am not numb. I am angry and you have cut me. So I stand and fight.

I look around and feel scared. I know this place and yet do not. Where once I'd felt numb and quiet, I now feel raw and bloody. I cannot stay here. I feel my lungs burn as I stand and scream. Each muscle fights in protest, but I continue. Lightning fractures ice again, and tears away more flesh. Suddenly the world erupts in a war within itself.

Fuck this, fuck you, fuck the world......I WILL NOT DIE HERE.

Clouds churn angry as lightning cuts through it and into the frozen tundra. The very earth itself seems to creak and moan as it finally being awoken and forced to feel pain again. The wind rips at me and tears away my jacket. It tears at my arms like razors and I bleed. I take a step and the ice cuts away at me. Lightning crashes around me, thunder splits open my head and ice shards tear away cloth and skin, flaying away muscle and chipping, cutting, snapping bone. Pain over takes me and blood stains broken ice. White light overtakes me and I am gone.

I take a breath....and then another...and then another...

I am shaken from my memories as the wind hits me...gentle, loving and warm. Wrapping around me and holding me. I open my eyes to a baby blue sky...to a bright sun and I smile in greeting. It neither smiles or frowns back...neither willing me to live nor willing me to die.
I lean back on to lush, green grass, feeling it caress my bare back and then inhale the sweetness of the air. Absently, I run a hand over my scars still somewhat reminiscent until I hear laughter in the distance. The voices continue, but get closer, finally coming into my view as they wave and say hi's and finally come to rest in the grass beside me. I laugh with them.

Tears slip down my face, my heart beats quickly...




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