As I emerged from the forest, I approached a courtyard forged from the scorched earth; a makeshift refuge for those majestic beings stripped of their former magnificence by the maleficence of their mortal manifestations. The evil born of their own minds had robbed them, completely, of their divinity. If only I could make them see that they are prisoners by personal compunction and need only awaken from this nightmare of their own creation in order to transcend this apparent captivity. I speak, and although my voice creates a sound familiar to my ears, they seem unable to hear my words, nor heed my advice. They continue on with their eternal duty of self-deprecating damnation. Either I, myself, am nonexistent, or their inability to perceive the obvious, and overwhelmingly apparent, is as literal as it is spiritual. Bliss has long since abandoned them all, but ignorance is their undying companion. They blatantly encourage one another to die, but death is a freedom, a release, a privilege, an ascension, of which they will never be worthy by virtue of the shackles with which they have bound their own souls. They have condemned themselves to eternal life, devoid of living. They are dying, with no hope for death…

Darkness has devoured the sky and has plunged this desolate scene into the midst of an endless night; a moonless night, one devoid of stars, of light, and of purpose. A night as fundamentally escapable as their fraudulent fate, but as profoundly permanent as the puerility that betrayed them. A chill lingers in the air, shamelessly taunting these weak minded, ill lauded, lethargic lunatics.