"Darkest Visions"

Breathe.

Take a breath and fill your lungs, giving your body the life source it needs. This is just a dream,
nothing here is real, and nothing can hurt you. Just breathe.

Light so bright it hurt to look but then when you closed your eyes, they left the images dancing in the
darkness that you thought was your safe retreat. Strobes of color swirling, circling, passing through
fingers like the softest finest silks. Nothing here seemed tangible, nothing seemed to hold any
substance. Flesh was made into air, everything passed through like a river flowing to the awaiting
sea. The sound of your heart pounding in your ears, so loud it set the rhythm for your soul.
Everything is so loud, the blood rushing through your veins, only to come full circle and do it again, no
known destination.

Where was here? Why was I brought here? The noise, the sights, bittersweet agony, yet somehow
fulfilling, refreshing. Visions began to curl in like the fog on the sea, creeping stealthily, whispering so
faint to strain to listen just made it disperse. Relax. Breathe. Open your eyes and look.

The visions that lay folded out like so much parchment were the most vile ever seen. Death,
destruction, suffering, chaos. No hope, any faith was lost and nothing would ever turn events to the
way they were meant to go. In the middle of it all was a stone. It pulsated with sickly red light,
almost the color of blood, and it sat atop a charred mass of bones that oozed a foul liquid. This, this
is what lay in store, this is what the future held and there were those who reveled in this, who
danced and sang praises of glory to the one on high who had taken them to this plateau. To the dark
and sinister man with the glowing orb, the one who called himself a god, for he had brought this chaos
upon those who opposed him, and fed them to those who remained loyal and worshipful.

Blink.

Close your eyes, erase this vision, seek one of a better purpose, just make this go away. Make the
filth disappear and turn the stench into one sweeter, like roses. Make him go away. Bring in the light,
and if not the light, bring in the gray, bring in the balance! This is no way to live a life, if you would
even call it living, there is so much more to experience than just pain and anguish. So much more that
demands to be felt, smelled, seen and heard. A lover's caress, the sweet smell of a delicate flower,
children's laughter.

Breathe, take in a breath, even if it is foul, and create that essence that the body needs. Don't let
this vision, this nightmare continue. Open your eyes, make it all disappear. Blink.

Nothing. An endless gray canvas sits before me, a palette of colors so rich and vibrant as to make a
blind man weep upon being able to see them. A brush in my hand, a decision to make. But I am no
artist, I do not have the talent nor the power to create. Guidance, somewhere, somehow there needs
to be guidance, gentle as the hand of a mother to an infant. Somehow, events must turn. Something
must be done.

The first color to be applied, however will be the darkest red and it will flow freely wherever it deems
necessary. This canvas, this future will be tainted and dark. Friends and loved ones will die, to be
replaced but not within the heart. Bonds will be made, a fragile thing, as frail as the Robin's egg that
lies broken on the ground, shattered. A delicate balance stands between the darkness and the light,
but which way it will go depends upon humanity.

Choose, make a decision, apply the next colors to the canvas and let visions fall where they may for
only Fate can give those dreams substance and make them reality.