The place that we had called home no longer remained. It now laid in ruins... large heaps of concrete, steel, ash and dust.

And although the city (and the rest of the world) was gone.. the memories were forever etched into our minds, burned into the back of our skulls until we could see nothing else.

Everyone except us were dead. Defeated like the land in which they resided.

Him and I were the only ones left to inhabit the ruined lands of this world.. left alone, in the remains of a forgotten place... left alone, our hopes rotting away like the charred ruins that we came to see almost every day now...and somehow despite all of the unforgivable events of the universe, he still managed to keep a smile on his face.

His eyes still ablaze with life, the embers still burning bright in him despite the extinguished flames that settled across this ruined moor.. no evidence that the land had been on fire except for the black, charred ground and the smoke that lazily drifted upwards around it.

I asked him one day..

Why he still had hope despite the situation we had come to find ourselves in. He had pondered the thought for a moment and then with a calm voice he answered

"Because.. even in the hardest times.. there is no such thing as darkness, if only one remembers to turn on the light."

His answer had shocked me for 15 year old guys were not supposed to say this complex of a phrase, much less live by it.

A short time following our discussion I was sitting on the hard, lifeless ground in thought. It was a moment before I realized that this man.. well this boy.. was no longer him.. but in some twisted way was him.. This young boy had grown up.. forced by the cruel universe to grow up too quickly.. without ever truly experiencing the ways and wonders of childhood..

I sigh slightly.. shaking my thoughts away..

One night I had another discussion with him.. being too terrified to go to sleep. For if I did I feared the icy claws of the night would grab me tightly, never again to see the light of the rising sun. I had asked him a simple question

"Are you afraid of the dark?"

I expected a simple response of yes or no, so of course I was surprised when he answered..

"I truly love the light.. for it shows me the way, but I will endure the darkness.. it shows me the stars."

I had become quite angry at his response for once again a 15 year old boy had said something quite unimaginative for a 15 year old to say. I yelled at him in a quite rude-like manor.

"What is wrong with you?!" I had said.

I expected him to make a snark comment or for him to get mad at me, but her did neither. He turned to me and had said something that seemed to break my heart in two.

"My problem?" he said "Tragedy."

"For tragedy is like a strong wind.. it takes everything to do with the idea of childhood.. taking away everything but a realization of what we are and not what we want to be like."

And then he had stood up and walked the other way with nothing but the ghost of his words echoing through my mind.