Prologue

He desperately grasped at the darkness around him, but the dark, elusive tendrils slipped between his trembling hands. His muscles spasmed and turned stringent, before breaking and slacking like gossamer string, which caused his heart cringe in his chest. His body was no longer his own. He himself was no longer his own being. All because of the darkness. There was nothing there, and deep in the pit of his mind, he knew that. But he refused to believe it. He refused to accept the fact that there was no hope for him now. Despite his crumbling will, he knew that he would fall, and keep falling through the shadows down under.

And he'd fall hard.

There was no breath in this void, this god forsaken hell that had once brought him the utmost comfort. It had once eased his mind, the throbbing of the bruises, and whisked away tears and blood that stained his skin. In those now passed "dark days", he would fall back into the secluded recesses of his mind. It was beautiful and allowed him breath, which brought welcome relief. Though it never healed the wounds, the broken flesh, or the bruises, oh no; but it eased the pain. It numbed the burns and soothed the cuts along his cadaverous skin. He had once believed that this nameless dark could ease the burdens he carried, the weight he had humped up mountains and thick fields of jungle and uncertainty. From the weightlessness to one hundred and fifty pounds, he had walked and ran and sunk down deep into blood and traps that maimed and tore apart flesh. And this dark had given him a reprieve, a cherished moment of silence amongst everything that had pounded against his ears. It was peace. It was love. It was life.

But now, he felt the darkness seep into him, penetrating his entire being and draining the life that he once had. His soul was not his to keep anymore, as it belonged to the dark, systematic cloud around him. It swallowed him whole like crowded city streets, and from inside it pushed his fragile bones out against his tendons and flesh, stretching, straining until they either snapped or broke past the skin. No breath reached his aching lungs. His throat burned, and everything hurt- though that was an understatement. All of the pain and misery he had caused formed in this darkness. It exploded in his face, making its way through the entirety of his body and mind.

It. That was all the darkness that surrounded him was, an "it". And it that caused his lungs to retract and his heart to pump venomous blood through his veins.

It was a lurid sickness, and a contagion that could never be cured. He was cursed with this cancer that had latched itself onto him. At first, it had brought promise of something better than what his life had been. Now it was a thousand leeches, sucking him dry like they did in Vietnam. Only this wasn't a country's civil war, nor an invasion of thousands of men sent to a foreign front they hardly understood.

This was his war, and his cancerous monster that he created. He created its hunger, and now it would chew him into pieces, burn him in acids and chemicals before it spit him out in the end. Years stacked upon years as he had been unknowingly feeding it all along. It created a false paradise, and hope for just a small sliver of quiet- and he had been its willing, disillusioned host. It consumed him entirely, engulfed his being, and took over his mind. He could only barely handle the lose of control over his own person and mind. Only by a thread did he retain control; if he had any control left anymore. At best, that was simply wistful thinking. And because of that, there was rage inside as his immutable fate glowered straight at him.

His thoughts churned and tripped over each other, his mind no longer a blank slate of war and mindlessness, with the damning urge to kill. Those voices in his head were vehement, relentless. Everything that he had done, all of the agony he had caused, and all of the people he had lost along the way; it was all his fault. They died because of he hadn't meant to. He swore it upon everything he ever loved and cherished most. He swore that he didn't mean to let them die.

You should have never closed your eyes.

"I'm sorry."

Damn you, mother fucker!

"Please just fucking listen to me-!"

You killed them, all of 'em, they're all dead, dead, dead because of you! You turned your back, you did! Now look at you!

"I didn't mean to let you die!"

Fucking burn! Burn in hell!

And he knew, as he fell down into the oblivion of his karmic war, that he would lose.