Omen
We were warned of our vulnerability and inadequate preparedness for such a scenario.
We had more knowledge than ever, we should have known better than ever, yet many chose to dismiss the advice, warnings and urges to call for rationality, understanding and unity.
We learn about and remember the long-lasting trauma, suffering and consequences of the worlds' greatest wars, but in the grand scheme of things, we do not see the real reaper of lives that had claimed more lives than bullets and blades.
We paid no heed to the stories passed down from generations ago, most of which had been lost at some point in the period of a century.
People who experienced the horror… they died in the hands of their invisible tormentor, they died of old age, and all that was left were dull statistics which no one paid attention to, left to collect dust and rot.
History is replaying itself. We now see the past resurging, colourised and having more coverage than ever, after we had long thrown it into oblivion.
We have witnessed some form of its deadliness prior, we thought we had learned a thing or two from past experiences and mistakes.
Yet we had not.
We had forgotten history's lessons.
And to forget them is to be doomed to repeat them.
Unprecedented, an old foe had reawakened from its dead slumber in the whirlpool of history and struck back with a vengeance.
And we are now paying the price of ignorance and stubbornness, one way or another, perhaps less, perhaps more, or perhaps even costing valuable, innocent lives.
This stealthy assassin does not discriminate against any criteria; country, race, religion, social status, gender, personality, belief, nationality, age, language… It simply does not matter. Only we know how to discriminate, unfairly too at that, more often than not.
If anything, never underestimate an enemy you cannot see, nor should anyone shirk away from the responsibility in safeguarding oneself and others in this struggle of life and death.
For this is one shared calamity that no one can walk away from.