The Darkness They Call Light

I watched as the sun set behind the hills. It was getting dark and that was a good thing, it hid the truth of what lay before me. It hid the mess, it hid the blood and the bodies, but even though it would also hide the smoke it did not hide the smell of it that filled your lungs and tried to kill you from within just like the flames it had risen from had killed so many others.

This was how a battle looked, this was what a war looked like and we had lost.

How come I was still there? I didn’t know. I could barely stand, let alone walk. My blood poured down from my wounds as if to remind me how quickly life can rush from you and all I was thinking was Have I really survived? Is this what surviving looks like? Or is this just me slowly drowning into the darkness they call light?

Do you know that feeling you get when you suddenly realise something? Like you’ve woken from a daze and suddenly things become clear? It feels like a pang, if that can even describe a feeling. It also feels like something quickly sinking and then dissolving into your stomach but deep…deep inside and then your mind processes it and suddenly it’s even worse than it was less than a second before.

Suddenly, it was real.

What if she was dead? What if she was sitting like me, bleeding out and I could save her? Was she fine? Panic…that’s what I felt because even if I did die, could I ever rest in peace not knowing if I could have saved her.

I desperately looked around for something to help me get up, grabbing onto a burnt post and pulling myself up only to fall back down. My whole body screamed at me and echoed up my throat and out of my mouth as I tried again. I had to find her. My arms dragged the rest of my body up once more; body still screaming, mouth still screaming but my mind was screaming something else, I had to find her. I had to find her. I had to find her.

I got up and clung to the post, I could not go back down again. I could not fail again, because I knew that my next fall would be my last.

Now the blood wasn’t the only thing that poured from me, I was sweating and my eyes were watering. I looked down at myself, was this all my blood? Was it someone else’s?

My eyes darted around, where should I look first? Where would she be?

I threw my body towards a pile of rocks what once might have been a wall, I screamed again but it cut short and became a whimper as I clung on to the rocks like it was all I had.

I would never be able to find her like this. She was probably already dead. Quiet sobs slipped out as I imagined my nightmare. Then my mind frame changed and my deluded self decided that she must be looking for me too.

I screamed her name as I slowly edged around the rocks, my back against them for support. I screamed her name again. I didn’t care who heard me, she had to know where I was…We had to be together in these final moments.

She couldn't be far, I told myself, she must be near. She was by me before, before….before…..When was before? How long had it been.

Then I saw it, a body… Is that her? Suddenly I got scared and with this fear comes a new burst of life. I had to check, I had to make sure it wasn’t her. I looked around for something, anything to use as support and I saw something. It was only a short metal pole, I didn’t know what it was or what it had been before but I pulled it out from some ruins and tested it before boldly using it to drag my crumpling form across to the body. I leaned over to push the body over, half falling onto it as I did so.

It wasn’t her. The relief washed through me like the sun hits you on a summer day…although I still didn't know if she was safe. I looked around once more, spotting more and more bodies. My relief turned to despair, I would never find her in this endless plain of death and destruction.

Then I saw another body that could have once been her, I tried to hop over but suddenly my once found energy was gone as quickly as it had appeared and I collapsed to the burnt ground. No noise escaped me, I was beyond pain now. I was empty.

That is when the darkness came and everything faded out into nothing.

Then I woke up, nothing had moved…Nothing had changed.

I focused my eyes on a figure standing over me. A beautiful woman all in white, it was her, it was my love. She'd found me.

She was uninjured and her clothes were spotless, I didn't understand why but I didn't care.

I stood up effortlessly and held her in my arms. After a while she stepped back and took my hand and together we walked away into the ruins of our once magnificent homeland.

We walked away from the blood, away from ruins, away from the smoke and away from my body still crumpled on the floor.

War ripped our home a part, war ripped our people apart, war ripped our bodies apart but war did not rip our love apart.

Together with our new burst of life, we walked towards the darkness they call light.