The End

Dedicated to Hind Rajab, Sonya Massey, and all the lives unjustly taken.

Trigger Warning: mentions of death and gore

The dust, the sand, the street. The ghost of a fleeting moment under my fingertips. The glass-stained shards of a mirror at my feet. The anguished, agonizing feeling of loss. The crumbled building, the frayed shoes, the craters full of dead bodies. There is nothing more here. There is nothing living in this place once called home, nothing living here. Whispers are all that are left, small epilogues of the dead, their souls haunting this place. Their lives were stolen from them, taken to the monsters who tend to and feed on the anguish and agony, those who suck up all the life force from another to feed themselves, those who gush in awe at the blood-soaked pain dripping off their fingertips. They take and take and take, until the whispers are no more. This place, once full of hopes and dreams, now a deserted oblivion of the broken hearted and dead.

I can only wish for the truth of what has been done to reach the ears of the living, those who walk among us but forget the bodies that lie at their feet. I can only hope and pray that the voices of those who are lost are never lost to the wicked tearing of the wind that I can still hear ringing in my ears. I can scream and scream and scream to the wind, this unjust loss of life should never be forgotten and ignored, but my screams can do nothing to comfort the dead. The despair reaches its end-how can I mourn for those who I can no longer help? How can I cry and cry and cry in the face of these monstrous deeds, knowing my futile attempts will only bring more death? But most of all, how can I give the dead their voice, how can I stand against the haunting call of the jaws that will feed and feed and feed, until there is no more of me? How can I let the blood drained from each and every hand be known to the world, to be respected, and to share the horrors of this place, this place full of what used to be? I must speak up. I have to say their names.