My first story in forever. I may be rusty, but thats up to you.

Silence enveloped me. Hope had vanished and nothing had come to fill the void it left. Everything was taken in without emotion, the scenery was just that: scenery. Nothing had been tainted with sorrow or grief. Everything just was. Nothing could be, for everything just was.

Nothing had meaning. Nothing had life. It was all dead, just dead. No in between. One of the other. The latter. Dead. Just dead. It was eating everything, the air, the ground, inside of me. Nothing was spared. Nothing could be saved. Only pieces remained of what was before.

But I couldn't feel a thing. This was supposed to have meaning. This was supposed to be a victory. A triumph. We won. We defeated them. Our enemies.

So why did I not feel victorious?

How could I not feel something, anything. Not a flicker or a glimpse. Nothing was there. There wasn't a wall blocking everything out, holding back the tidal wave of emotions that were finding ways through the clacks so they could break through and overwhelm my human mind.

There was nothing.

The emptiness. It was overwhelming. Smothering. Engulfing. I couldn't want to feel, I just didn't. But I knew that I needed to. It's what I had to do.

So why couldn't I do it?
Why couldn't I feel?

Was something wrong?

I couldn't worry. I couldn't panic.

Nothing.

I knew what I should have been doing. I should have been on the ground screaming until my voice was hoarse and gone, and then sobbing silently so hard that my breaths would be cut off, my air would have been vanishing, as if there weren't enough. I would be on the ground chocking and gasping silently screaming.

I should have been begging for life. Anything at all. A breath, a movement, anything would be cherished. It would be my lifeline as I fought the grief that held a threaded noose around my throat.

But nothing.

I couldn't find anything.

And so I did the only thing I could.

I gave up.