I didn't have be told where I was, when I was…

The flames and dying screams of my people told me enough.

I was in back…back in my nightmares.

Ashes floated around me, a cruel reminder that what I once had was lost.

The trees and plants around me, once so green and full of life, were like I was. Dead and hollow. They were grey, covered in the remains of their fallen brethren of the forest.

I climbed a hill only to find destruction as far as the eye could see. I stifled back a sob as I fell to my knees.

My home.

My family.

My life.

In an instant, it had vanished.

A haunted voice filled my ears, my people, begging for mercy. The sound drifted through ashes as they floated through the sky. But they were just a memory now. Remnants of a lost time.

My breath hitched in my throat, and I had difficulty swallowing past the lump in my throat. Unbidden, my hands wrapped around my midsection, and I crouched over, the pain seeming to manifest itself there. The feeling threatened to overwhelm me.

I once was a warrior. I dreamed that for my people, peace would always be there. I fought for them; I would have died for them. I dreamed that no matter what, they would always be there.

But what I didn't know is that eventually, we all have to wake up.

A tear slipped down my cheek, and once that one single tear broke free, the rest followed in an unbroken stream.

All at once, I came unraveled, and in an instant, everything I had worked so hard to never show, was revealed.

I was exactly as Morgarath wanted me.

I was finally, and utterly, broken.