Nothing is real but pain now. - Metallica, One.




...

There's a book I once read that dealt with a man who lost everything -- his arms, his legs, his sight, his speech -- and was tortured for years. Never dying, always living -- a man of personified purgatory.

I... remember those words.

I don't know whether I'm alive or dreaming or dead or remembering. How can you tell what's dream and what's real when you can't even tell whether you're awake or you're asleep?

... where am I?

I can relate.

Everything's obscure, blurry, and surreal. The world I once lived in vanished, and all I'm left with -- stuck with -- is this... forlorn... nothingness.

I can feel nothing, see nothing, taste nothing -- I am numb. I define it.

I've heard their cries, the ones who felt the ripples of his death and began to cry for him. Began to rip their souls. Began to destroy their controls over sanity. Began to shattered their own reality.

He always called me a crazy son of a bitch, and meant it lovingly. But he spoke the truth. He always did.

I am crazy.

These children nowadays, when they describe themselves, they abuse that fearful, philosophical word. They call themselves crazy, insane-- do they even understand the world of acromania? Naive, innocent souls, trying to perceive their ideals and ideas in the world -- they don't understand.

The term "crazy" is not a word to use for the innocent. It's used for those who have lost everything and anything, left only with an emptiness, a nothingness. It's a word produced by society for those who aren't apart of the norm, and who cannot function with the world.

It isn't a label on children or people. A person cannot act "crazy." They can portray themselves as unique from others, or different. Never crazy. It's children today that are destroying my sacred word, the word that he gave me, the word that just... paralleled to my soul.

To who am I.

I am crazy.

Sounds funny, doesn't it? My word has become a stereotype for the comical, the hilarious, the whimsical mirth of society. A person whose "crazy" is a ludicrous idiot who walks around and acts so stupid the populus laughs at him. Whatever that person does is so absurd, he's deemed "crazy."

If a child is labeled "crazy," or they label themselves that word, then they purposely act weird from others. To gain attention, to be the one that stands out the most, to feel like he or she is acting different from others and won't be succumbed to follow the norm like everyone else.

A person called "crazy" is someone who has radical thoughts, views, or ideals. Hitler was crazy. Hussien was crazy. The Wright Brothers were crazy. George Washington was crazy. Plato was crazy. Aristotle was crazy. Julius Caesar was crazy.

And even I want to smile and laugh at the word. "Crazy." It's a term of the humanity now, the side of humanity that everyone loves to visit. The one side of us all that has such happiness and mirth it's lovely to come there. Laughter is apart of the soul.

Steve... he called me "crazy." And for a while, I thought it was just a label, something he picked up from society. But now, now that I think about it...

He meant it.

He didn't think I was "crazy." He thought that I AM crazy.

He saw through my facade, the barrier that I put up around others. He saw the darkness in my heart, the carrying abyss, the crawling chaos that others have never seen. No man has dared gone there, the place that I've tried to stay away from my sanity.

He did. He saw it, and I know for a fact that I scared the living shit out of him. But he stayed true, he stayed with me... he was my friend. A guy that stayed with me, even when he saw it all, within my heart. He saw the darkness, and he just latched onto me. He wouldn't let me go.

Maybe he wanted to help me, but he never did. Maybe he knew that he couldn't do a damn thing to remove the darkness from my soul because it was apart of who I am. So maybe... maybe...

I don't know why he stayed with me.

If I ever went there... I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be who I am. I'd transform, let the ooze seep through my veins, the chaos enter my mind, and succumb to the numbing darkness. If I went through what Steve went through when he saw what I was deep down inside, I'd probably be traumatized for life.

He was a strong man. Stronger than I will ever be.

I'm already numb. And I'm already walking towards that dark light. Without Steve here, I don't have someone to confine everything. I don't have someone to actually look inside the real me, the one that no one can ever see, and tell me what he thought. He... he knew me.

He knew me.

He knew me.

He knew me.

He...

I'm imprisoned into my own body, and I'm dying inside. I'm starting to feel this darkness taking over my body, and I can't fight it off. I have no one to lean onto. Those who try to... stay away.

God, stay away.

Don't come near me.

Don't see me.

Don't.

I'm dead.

I'm dying.

I'm leaving.

It's taking over.

Bret's near me, but I'm not going to talk to him. I just might scare him. Scar him for life. I don't want to do that to someone I'm close to.

What will happen when I go back to my family? Will my wife tell how I've changed? Will my children? How about my other friends? Will they see the crawling chaos fall into my brain and slowly dominating who I am?

Will I even succumb?

I'm dying.

Steve, wherever you are, help me. Guide me. Be my guardian angel, be the voice of reason, be the person that can actually live in my darkness and keep it under control. It's an anarchy state, this darkness, taking over anything haphazardly.

Please, Steve, watch over me. I need you to.

YOU KNEW WHO I AM.