Phoenix: A Caged Battlefield

There he stands, alone atop hillside. The land, barren and a cool breeze brings the stench of blood wherever it blows. You see, this is a battlefield and while the war is long over, he can still remember, as vividly as if it was yesterday, the horrors that occured. As he looks down he can recall how the corpses of the fallen had littered the landscape, their mouths twisted and gaped in a final plea for mercy, yet none had been found. Their cries had, instead, been met with the cold steel of a blade. He can recall throats slit, limbs torn off, and the curling screams that echoed through the air.

This is his battlefield, his home. This is the land on which he first learned to walk, where he first learned to fight. This is where all those lives were taken, but what right does he have to mourn when it was he who had been the one to take them.

As pain, grief, and guilt slowly consume him, tears begin to stream down his face. He did not want this, these people, all those whom he had killed, they were those he had fought to protect. They were those whom he had given up his mind, body, and soul for in hopes that he could protect them. Yet here they lay, their lives ended by his hand.

Falling to his knees, with hands clutching his head, he prayed for it all to end. Let him wake from this nightmare, let him be freed from this agonizing pain that forever pierces his heart.

With a start and a jump, she wakes. I suppose, she was never truly asleep yet all that had occurred seemed much like a dream. A question slowly forms in her mind, "Who am I really?"

"Here I stand, conscious and clear in mind, yet moments ago I was on my battlefield."

"Here I stand, as myself, yet my heart is heavy with pain and grief."

"Here I stand, pure and content, yet I can feel his tears slide down my face."
"No, not his tears, those tears are mine and mine alone. This pain, this grief, it belongs to me. Why else would I feel it if it wasn't mine to bear?"

As my tears subside I look down at my palms. As though it were a memory of my own I can remember how their blood, a glistening ruby, had coated and dripped of my extended fingers.

I had done this, I had killed them. And yet, despite all of this, I was left with one question: 'Who am I?'"

Am I him? He who fights in the night and kills without choice? He who has given everything he can and then some to protect those whom he cares for?

Or am I her? She who is left shaking from the events that have unfolded? She who fears when the night comes for she knows the battle that comes with it?

She knows only too well how this battle plays out. When the night comes, she is lost, her identity fades away and once again, he steps out onto the battlefield; ready to face the events that lay ahead. If this is his home, it is also hers. As his tears slide down her face and his pain pierces her heart, the two become one. His past shapes her present and he remains her little nightmare. A tortured trauma to be hidden away until someone comes to drag him out.