Part 1: Living in the Darkness

I don’t even know what’s going on anymore. I have a vague blur of memories and flashbacks but they all just turn into nightmares that are too much for me to remember. My insanity is slowly fading away and the more I survive the less I know about anything anymore. I’m in trenches. I appear to be in the middle of some kind of war, but I don’t even remember which side I was on. I’m wearing black clothes, which I feel was the clothes of one side of the war but I remember wearing brown clothes a lot as well. I don’t know why but I feel like I’ve worn both clothes many times and have pretended to be on both sides. In the end, I’ve lost most of my memories of everything and don’t even know which side I am on.

            I am weak and tired. Every time I try to sleep I have the same nightmares that are too much for me to be able to remember when I wake up. I keep moving forward. I don’t know why or where I’m going but staying where I am just means that people will catch up to me if I’m running away or if I’m not then it just means that I’ll be stuck in this cursed hell hole for the rest of my life. The only thing I know is that I’m trying to survive, but I don’t even know why and wonder if I should just end my life and get it over with.

            The scariest thing is the unknown. I don’t know anything, I can’t see anything and it’s all terrifying. The people I used to know and started this all with are all probably dead. But even that I don’t know. There were probably people that I was close to that meant a lot to me but got killed right in front of me. There were probably people I was running away with that I got separated from and will never meet again. There was probably a plan and reason behind all of this that I will never know again. This life is surrounded by darkness. You can’t see or know anything anymore. And even if it were possible to figure out what to do and where to go everyone’s way too weak and mentally dead to be able to.

            It’s night time. This world is strange and for some reason it’s always dark. The only difference between night and day is that the stars and moon are out during the night. During the day there is no sun, and it’s still as dark as night time but for some reason not pitch black even though there’s no noticeable source of light. It probably was just basic knowledge as to why it’s like that but I can no longer remember any of it. I just lie on my back in one of the trenches staring at the stars and moon. Sleeping was impossible and even if you could lose consciousness you would have nightmares and wake up more exhausted than when you went to sleep. My eyes were dying. They were at their limit and wanted to just close and never open again. They are always like that now. They’re forever in pain and suffering, and probably will be for the rest of their lives.

            I turn my brain off. It’s all I can do. The only way to survive is to stop thinking. The things that have happened are too much for anyone to be able to cope with so it’s best to not think about even that. I look up at the top of the trenches. They seem to go up way too high, and are impossible to climb. A strange way of looking at it is that I’m stuck in a giant, oddly shaped hole. I wonder what you would see if you got up to the surface. But to be honest I don’t want to see, because I’ll probably just see endless trenches and tunnels in every direction going off forever.

            The stars go away and I find myself back in the day time. I get up and keep walking forward. My legs are dying and barely able to lift my body anymore but it’s the kind of pain that I put up with every day so I’m used to it. I turn around a corner just to see someone else turn around another corner into view a few metres ahead of me. We both quickly step back and hide behind the corners we came from. I take out my pistol and peek out from behind the corner to see if he’s following me. I see him hiding behind his corner around ten metres ahead of me. He’s got a gun in his hand aimed at me, just like how mine was aimed at him. He didn’t look like he had any intention to shoot though, and looked like he just wanted to stay away from others. It was strange because he looked just like me.

            He looked a lot more nervous though. Maybe that was a sign that he had more energy than me or maybe I looked like that too. I haven’t seen a mirror in ages, and can’t even remember seeing one to be honest. I don’t even know what I look like anymore. But he looked like me so I figured I would take the chance. I stepped out and walked straight towards him into the narrow path with no exits. If he was going to shoot me then there would be no where for me to run. I put my gun back into my pocket and just walked towards him slowly. He started getting more nervous and his hands were shaking as he was holding his gun.

            The thing is I’ve been in the trenches for a very long time. People had guns and weapons, but with no way to get more ammo they all ran out a long time ago. The only use for them was to pretend that you had ammo and could fight back. They were to scare people away and avoid conflicts, and this person was using it in the same way that I was. I knew I was safe and that he had no bullets and by now he knew it too.

            I wasn’t going to hurt him. He looked a lot like me so I wondered if I found someone who I could trust and travel with. I was about to speak when I see him turn around and hear a loud gunshot.

            I just stand there shocked as he falls straight in front of me and hits the ground with a loud thump. I turn around and run back from where I came from. You don’t know what to expect in these trenches but apparently there are people who still have ammo left. The unknown is best not seen so the only way to live is to be a coward. I’ll never see them again and I won’t even know who it was that killed him. There is so much uncertainty and things that I don’t know, and it terrifies me. I start heading back the way I came. I want to get as far away from them as possible because it would be impossible to be able to fight someone who still has ammo. All of those long days and nights that I have travelled all seem pointless now. I just go back in the direction that I came from and undo all the work that I’ve done. I want to take a different path and start going right or left but I don’t know where the paths will go and want to make sure that I never see that person again.

            I think back to his face though. It had something about it, but now I’ll never know. He reminded me of myself. He probably survived the same way that I did. But now he’s gone, and I’ll never know anything else about him. I’ll never find out what he was like or what would have happened if I got closer to him. I don’t know if we would have fought it out with our bare hands, or if we would have just left each other on the spot, or even if we would have travelled together. You don’t see people much anymore, so there is so much that could happen from a simple encounter with someone. It could be the end of your life or it could make your life infinitely better. But the way that this life of ours works is that we’ll never know.

            The scariest thing is the unknown. The things you don’t see and never will get answers or closure about is what causes the most pain and suffering. In this world we live in the darkness and can’t see anything so we will never find answers to anything. We are cursed into a world where we see nothing.