I’ve stood here waiting for years. I’ve stayed forever changed: it’s impossible. I can’t feel anything, not even the freezing time. Not even the pain of the knife through my heart. Not the pain of the bullet through my brain. Why? Why can I hear my silent scream? It’s a raging, ominous sound that can’t be heard. Then why is it so loud? Why does it never stop? The ticking of the clock goes on, but still, time doesn’t pass. It changes around me, a world once beautiful. My eyes are blank, staring into the nothingness I see. How does everyone live so contently? There are killers on the loose, driven insane by a scream that no one can hear. My scream. I was wrong. I’m not standing, I’m falling. Falling to the ground, breathing heavily. I’m exhausted, and it feels like I’ve been running. Because I was. Running from the death that engulfs me every day, the memories of chaos and darkness that scrape through my mind painfully. I’m not insane. I’m the only sane one. I’m not dead. I’m not dying. So why do I not feel the pain that’s there? Why does the pain feel me? How? Why can’t I stand? Why is my hand reaching for the handle of the knife in my chest? It’s blade is stained with my own blood, which suddenly comes out of my mouth without any warning. I kneel there in a pool of my blood, my blood. And still no pain. What has this place become? No, what have I become? Become… but I’ve always been this way… or have I? I’m the puppet of another, I can feel it through my body. This isn’t my choice. I’m ripping the space between death and life, the knife is in my hand. But now it isn’t my blood that I see. This is the blood of another. The blood of one of The Fallen. The blood not of my body, but of my soul. It’s not a deep crimson, it’s a pitch black color. How do they live so carelessly? I remain, a shred of society that has fallen prey to themselves. I looked down to my blade, dripping black. But now I don’t see black. I’ve killed another soul. A soul and a body. The blood I now see is a pure, shining white, with the crimson red of a human’s blood. The white blood has dripped onto the ground in a puddle. I stare into the puddle, and it reflects me. I see what I’ve been longing to see: myself. I’m satisfied with what I’ve done. I can finally see what I truly am. Inside me, I hear a scream. It regrets and hates what it sees. A part of me that still feels. But why? This part of me: it’s weak. I hate this part 0f me. I fall to my knees. Why am I still weak like this? I cough up more blood. I thought that part of me was gone. I’m sitting no longer in a pool of blood: this is a lake. The cold, dead body next to me is drowning in my blood, still being coughed up. I try to hold it back. The pure part of me that is left will not succeed. It cannot and will not. But the blood is still coming up still. I refuse to surrender to such a weak force. For the first time, I release a scream. The scream was piercing, even through the blood flowing out of my mouth. The first scream I’ve ever screamed. Tears leak out of my eyes, burning through my skin, slowly and excruciatingly. This was the first time I had ever felt pain, and it was horrible. Every movement I made only hurt me more. I had given into the weakness. I continued, still, to hack up the blood, all the while screaming. And for the first time, I knew something. That there was still a shred of hope. I knew what my name was. It stabbed through me. In my mind I heard a raging scream. Repeating over and over again, it screeched “Shiro”. Through my migraine and pain, I heard this clear as day, scraping through me with the worst possible noise. I fell even further, from me knees to lying on my side in the pool of blood. Human blood. My blood. Blood of The Fallen. Blood of The Pure. Blood of The Lost.
