You stand there looking over the edge of what was once your reality, and the only thing left within your reach to grasp is a thought. The thought of what if or what could, if only for that moment encompasses your mind. You fight the whispering temptations of the future yet carved in stone by what or might become. You’re sitting there in that simple stance that you’ve found yourself in, stone cold, so many times before this current moment. You know what is next to come, though you’re unsure of how you got here, for your memories are blurred and the chamber housing you is dark.

Almost following that thought, the once plaguing darkness of the now familiar chamber scatters away as the bright light floods in from the seam of a rising slab door. The light only continues to place up the walls of the chamber as the door continues to scale up into the void in which it originated. The light claws at your eyes as it makes its conquest into the chamber, now filling it with the brightness that only a benevolent sun could bestow. You glance down at yourself to find your body sealed within the arms of the cold plate and rusted chain.

Your gaze raises to the outside world, and, as it does, this pull towards it sweeps up your being as if to welcome you. You brave it as your feet guide you deeper into which the light was born. The world you enter is one you’ve seen only in your darkest hours, yet manipulative by the ever present burning rays of this place. Moments pass as the air grows thick around you, causing wave after wave of turn to play within your gut. Instantly, the welcome from the warmth is shattered by the exposure of a blade-wielding figure.

The figure stands tall and mighty, towering, as their mask holds an eternal grin. You ready yourself with only your wit and confidence. The figure moves with a speed unforeseen by any ounce of your being almost as if shifting within the strands of light between you. You’re ready to give it all you got as the blade of the one whose only task is clearly to end your existence drives forward with the passion of new-found love. The blade slips through your flesh as the being you are churning within a darkness you’ve felt only once or twice before. Angered, your hands grip the blade that now resides within your body. Forcing it out with the might and grit only seen within the heroes of roman myth. You scream as the souls of those you’ve once slain come to aid you, working as layers of colorful artillery for your now open position to strike, and strike you do. A blow, a blow that sends the waves of light fleeing for themselves in any direction they saw best. Now in darkness, you start to see only one ray of light remaining.

This light did not live with the others nor flee as the other, but this light came forth from the grinning mask of the blade wielder. The light snares your name as the crack within the mask continues to cascade its way down to the edge of this mask, causing a scatter of light to bust through the mask, blinding you. You recoil from the assault at first, though curious, you’d peer back to see the light an image of a face. You fight harder against the blinding of the light, only to quickly realize that this light was not blind, but the opposite.

Through this pure light, you can see now the face of the one you hold dear…it was them. The one you swore to protect, to love, and to fight for! Not against! What was this? You stammered backward in disbelief as the darkness turns to a liquid that slowly drips from the walls of your imagination. Revealing a living room, your living room, you look down and see the same fate for your armor. Looking up you see also the once bladed warrior is but a sobbing mess of the one you claimed to love. The one you claimed to protect and the one you claimed to fight for…now hopelessly defeated by your own blinded hands.

You’ve done it, you won the fight, the fight against a war with your ally. Remember this day, for this day will be the tool you need to keep those ever blinding lights from your truth. Never forget this.