Everything around is black.
I'm floating weightlessly in the endless darkness.
Too late.
I was too late again.
I failed again.
The memory of flames and screams consumes my mind.
Of hope and broken trust.
Of glowing eyes and twisted smiles.
I want to cry.
I want to cry to my pain.
But no tears fall.
My cheeks stay dry.
Everything is cold and dark and I'm empty.
Dull.
As if everything is far away.
Out of my hands, my view, my heart.
I close my eyes.
There is nothing left.
Nothing worth fighting for any more.
I don't know how long I just drift.
Drift and wait for something, anything to happen.
Wait to disappear, to melt into the shadows, become part of the darkness surrounding me till not even my soul is left.
Suddenly a orange spot appears beneath my closed eyelids.
Did I press them closed to tight?
I open them, only a fraction of a fraction, wanting the light to go away, to leave me alone to melt into the darkness.
But the small spark of light doesn't leave.
Instead my eyes catch the sight of countless pictures, like screens of glass hanging suspended in the air, floating as weightless as myself.
And they show me.
Show me my mistake.
My failure.
Show me the flames and cries and ruins.
Charred wooden skeletons where once warm homes existed.
Sadness where once happiness reigned.
A broken world.
How could anyone ever see anything else? There is no hope left to see?
I want to cry out loud again, but no sound leaves my lips.
Screams, words, whispers, they all don't exist here where the enteral, endless silence has its palace.
Only on the screens exists the outline of voices, cries, faint memories of Echos of the actual sounds.
I close my eyes again (When did I open them? Why was I ever so drawn to the small spark of light?) but just before the darkness returns, the light once again catches my sight (my mind). As I follow it it I see that it isn't just one but dozens, no hundreds, thousands, Millions of them.
They fly in and out of the glass frames, leaving one picture only to reappear in the next.
I stare at them until my vision zooms in, starts blurring from focusing and finally, finally I understand what they are.
Wonders.
Every single light is a miracle, a spark of a Golden Age.
But how?
Why?
From where?
my gaze is glued to them, follows them and then I catch sight of it.
See that the lights keep getting brighter, more hopeful, attach themselves to certain people.
To children.
A small group playing hopscotch among the charred ruins of a building.
An older sibling telling a story to their younger ones.
A boy winging a rope together with a girl and singing a childish rhyme while a second girl jumps over the rope, her bare feet hitting the trampled ground where once a rich field was.
A girl and a boy marching through a plain, stony field that seems endless, escaping from unspeakable terror all on their own but still able to grant each other smiles over finding clothes to switch with their old rags.
Every time a laugh escapes innocent lips, every step they take forward while the adults are stuck makes the lights glow brighter.
They are small miracles growing admits the ruins of my failures.
Wonders that give me hope.
Give it so freely, even thought their owns need it so much, desperate survivors that they are, that I feel my heart warm.
Feel the darkness become less cold, less oppressing.
Feel the first few tears fall down my cheeks.
Tears of sadness, of pain but also joy.
Survivors.
There are survivors among all the devils roaming the world.
Ah, I understand.
I know now.
There still exists a reason to try again.
To fight again.
To save again.
To wipe the fear away.
There is still a chance.
A chance to right the wrongs.
To unite the people.
To reach out my hand and do good.
Because I saw them.
Saw the wonders beneath the dirt, in the ruins, all around the world.
Wonders getting stronger for every boy and girl.