Time: 0300\

March 3, 2532\

Greydowns

I've heard people say that darkness is something scary. According to them, a fear of the dark is entirely normal and nothing to really stress over. I admit...I'm confused. Darkness has never been something that I've found discomfort in. Darkness...shadows...lack of light...it's almost soothing. A protective blanket that hides you from that which could harm you. People argue that the dark also hides your dangers, but I guess I just don't see it that way. It has no favorites; it doesn't protect someone from you but expose you to them. It's equality and protection and...yeah, I guess it's pretty obvious that I like it. Darkness just...isn't scary.

Silence, though...silence is terrifying.

Life is noise. It's the sound of breathing, the beat of your heart, the rush of the blood through your body. It's the rustle of the wind and the call of the creatures and talking and laughing and...noise. Where there is noise, there is life. They're impossibly interwoven, unable to be separated from each other. Even in the dark, noise persists, which means there is life in the dark.

It therefore goes without saying that silence is the exact opposite. Silence is a corpse. The deepest reaches of empty space. It's the absence of everything that confirms that we are alive. In older times, animals knew when predators were near because everything went silent around them. Silence is fear and terror and the sudden realization that your life is in jeopardy. It's isolation and conformity and...

How strange is it that I can face the darkest, scariest, creepiest places known to man but I balk when things are too quiet? That I can walk onto bloody battlefields and be surrounded by the sight and stench of war without even the slightest hesitation, yet I can't stand to sit inside an empty base? Maybe my view of what is disturbing really does need adjustment.

I'm not even sure this entry will make sense if I ever read it again. I mean, here I am, trapped on a planet at war and waxing poetic about darkness and silence. For someone that complained about having this damn journal, I sure am using it pretty regularly. It's just...a dream I had has been bothering me and keeping me up. As we're going to stage a large push as soon as dawn comes around, I figured the only way I could get back to sleep is to write things out. However, all I'm doing is confusing myself even more.

To be fair, it was a confusing dream. I was walking down a really dark street; it looked old and worn, like some of the streets in London that my grandfather used to show me when I would visit. There's a streetlamp, the only light to be seen, and I stop there for a moment to adjust my coat against the rain, but while I'm standing there there's a bright flash of light, like the Covenant's glassing weapons. The light hurts my eyes, but I still clearly see this huge horde of people all around me, living life like anyone else, but they're all silent. It's almost like they're afraid to break the silence that is suddenly stifling me; crushing me with the weight. I try to scream, I try to tell them how dangerous the silence is, but I just can't make a sound. All I can do is watch as they all bow down to the light beam, like it's some bizarre god that they'd created.

Li always liked to talk about the meaning of dreams. He once told John that his dream of eating an entire cow was based in his need to win and consume everything that he is presented with. I've always thought that dream analysis was pointless; an exercise in imagination and gullibility. But this dream...it won't go away. It's lurking on the edge of my mind, like a patch of weeds that wants to strangle everything I've become. Each time I close my eyes, I can see it all again, as though it were seared into my very mind. It's bright and cold and honestly terrifies me more than anything I have ever seen. Maybe because of what I saw, or maybe because I can't understand it. Seriously, where is Li when he's actually needed?

But everything is fading a bit now. There's still a couple hours before dawn, so I'm going to try to sleep once more. With any luck, none of us will be falling silent any time soon.

Hello darkness, my old friend.

...oh dammit, Vincent's programing is glitching again. Argh, hold on! Dictation end!


Babble Time: The song used in this chapter is Sound of Silence by Disturbed.