Survivor's Guilt

    His world opened up with light, but progressively ventured into the dark labyrinth of misery. There was no purpose for it, but his soul could not help but feel the suffering. And likewise, every moment he wasted trying to forget all the visions of pain, just reinstated the body parts lying in the field of forgetfulness — all which were distant from himself.
   He was stuck; stuck in this sanctuary of comfort where the pale, blank walls protected him from everything imaginable. Where every object that he wished to own was made available to him, and likewise, was meticulously placed in his house; all of them brought up to ease his pain, but to no avail.
   Why…
   That one word circled inside of his head ever since he was an adolescent, progressively growing louder until it provided him with as much dissonance as playing black notes in C Major. It tormented his soul, and picked apart every fiber of his skin, until all that was left were just marks of disdain on his body — marks that he could never erase.
   Why was I…
   More words propped into his head as he stared at the picture that was placed gently at the desk next to his person. The two figures that showed were almost hazy to him, but the love that he received from them was untaintable. Those mere reflections gave him everything that he could have hoped for, and likewise, provided him with a considerable amount of safety and comfort. They always ensured that he had green fields to run on, and that every school that he attended provided him with the best education. And when he grew up to be able to live on his own, they let him leave, but not without finances to aide him.
   Tears escaped from his eyes, gliding down his face at a snail-like procession. They matched the beating seconds of time that seemed to only slow down for his misery. But still, his thoughts moved swiftly inside of his head, racing for a place of recognition. They jumped and pranced around, only containing the images of disfigurations and filth and blood that tainted the ethereal beings that he saw on the screen infused with massive hues.
   He saw all of them motionless, being painted red from their own blood. He saw the gore that manifested from the knives of the perpetrators, and saw the eyes of nonchalance that protruded from their masks. Their demeanor screamed power and evil, that, when they walked up to him — when he was just a boy of eighteen — they all, one by one, kicked his tremulous body, so that his blood could also flow out with his brethren.
   When they were all exhausted, or when they became less entertained, the seeming leader knelt down to the frail body of the boy. The aura of death escaped the leader, and likewise, the smell was all that was needed to torment him.
   “It seems that you were on the wrong side of the gun boy,” said the leader with a gruff voice. “It’s a shame that a boy so young has to witness his brothers and sisters die alongside of him. You guys really didn’t come prepared, did you?” He asked that question with a smirk, but his comrades seemed to find the rhetoric to be hilarious. Their full laughter resonated the cold air around them, being the only thing audible to him.
But still, all that was able to escape his lips was silence. He wanted to speak, he wanted to tell the man to let him die in peace, but his whole body was frozen — only the dirt moved to make it their abode.
   “What should we do with this boy?” He directed that question towards his comrades.
   “Kill him.”
   “Take him as a prisoner.”
   One by one they all stated their suggestions until one of the blank-faced comrade said, “leave him to die out here all alone. That way his last vision would be of his dead brothers and sisters.”
   The whole congregation of soldiers agreed with that suggestion, and likewise, the leader turned once again to the boy, and muttered, “I hope that you had a nice life.” And with that, the whole battalion dispersed — the lingering scent of death still attacked his nose.
   “God please take me away,” he said barely audibly. “I also don’t deserve to breathe.”
   Those words left his clenched teeth slowly, but with tremendous passion. His tears kept streaming, and at that point, his wail attacked the sky around him, and brought it into despair also.
   “God please take me!” he screamed into the sky as the past suffused with the present. His body now laid at the shiny, wooden floors of his house, but his wail still took place in the past.
   “God, why did you let me live?! Why did you have to torment me with this burden of comfort?! I should be dead with all of them! Why?!”
   All of his questions were just met with deep silence. The lingering presence of the all-knowing seemed to have left him, and in frustration, he violently stood up from the ground, and punched the nearest mirror. All of the shards were laid out onto to the floor as a dirty blanket, and without thinking, he picked one of them up.
   “I should have died also, you know that. I’m just doing what you failed to do.” And at those words, he slowly brought the shard up to his wrist. Aligning it vertically from his veins, he slid the shard quickly, letting a pool of blood flow out from his person. He did not scream in pain though, rather, he smiled into the empty frame of the mirror.
   “I’m just doing what you failed to do. I should have been a victim also; not a survivor...”
   At those words, he fell to the ground; the furious momentum, and likewise the lost of blood, rendering him unconscious. And despite all the medical team’s best efforts, nobody could revive him.
   The guilt of the survivor had finally killed him, and likewise, left him all alone. Because, despite the two ghosts that were at his funeral, all the other seats were empty — even the reporters stopped coming to acknowledge the survivor. And no great effort, even from the silent all-knowing, would have engraved him in the least forgettable current of history.