I could feel the knife piercing my skin. One creature's love is another creature's misery. I was in pain, but I couldn't move. I couldn't help myself. I couldn't scream. I was in utter agony, but life is cruel. I never expected to suffer like this. I was born without the possibility of killing myself. Without the choice to continue or give up. I wasn't capable of giving up. No, I was created to continue a greater idea. A balance in life. A harmony. Yet, each one of us suffers. Can you hear the sound of misery in unison. It's hard to miss. There is talk of hell. I'd like to see what hell is. I'd like to see how anything could possibly be worse than this. The knife is just another item of my forever destruction. I can't be destroyed. My body may be burnt and cut, but I feel every single flame, and every single slice of my exterior. A heart on my skin. Two names engraved permanently on my soul. I have been marked. I have been humiliated and left for nothing. Life is so cruel that I cannot die. I cannot leave this planet.

I have seen brothers die. I have watched my surroundings disappear. I have experienced torture and the inevitable truth of nature. Everyone dies, but I cannot. Creatures use me as devices to improve their lives. My body is no longer mine. My hands cut off, and my feet stepped on. I stand together with my brothers, but never have I felt so alone. I am always tense. I live in a constant state of depression. My family was cut up before my eyes. Sliced. I could see their sad eyes. So still and sorrowful. Full of emotion no one can understand. The feeling of dying. I have seen those eyes before. My neighbors burnt alive. One by one dying. No help was given, no creature cared. And I have seen young ones eager to start a new life move in to their plots of land. Never knowing what had happened to the previous occupants. I stare death in the eye, but it avoids me. It knows I am old, but seems to ignore this.


I was introduced to my surroundings at an early age. As soon as I could open my eyes, I could see light and creatures around me. My family was near me. Feeding me and nurturing me. But my family never held me. When it thundered at night, I had no comfort. No words or feelings. Just the sound of weather running its course. I saw in the distance when I was young, a neighbor struck by lightning. His body was bathed in flames, and I could tell his soul was leaving. But the others pretended he was not there. That was the first time I questioned life.


The second time was a few years later. Creatures that could stand on two legs had arrived in my area by a moving corpse. They killed my family around me and left me. Why did they leave me. They cut up their bodies and built structures next to me. For many years I was forced to look at my family's corpses stacked atop each other. It wasn't that I didn't want to look away, it was that I couldn't. My face was stuck in the position. As the torture continued, I wondered why I was even born. Why I was put into this world just to suffer. Why I was born to die. A chain of birth followed by a chain of death.


I learned from these creatures. They had the ability to function together. As a family. I learned of growth. I watched young creatures grow old and continue the vicious cycle of death. I learned of happiness. Something that comes with innocence and leaves with experience. I never had the ability of studying my own growth. Now I could watch emotions appear on the faces of these creatures. But the emotion that influenced me the most is the sense of beauty. I have seen the soul come and go. The soul is true beauty. Nothing is hidden, nothing is forced, nothing is written. And the soul is the only thing on this planet that is free.

When I was as comfortable as I could be, I was struck with pain once again. There was another fire, however this fire surrounded the structure of my family's corpses. And encompassed the area next to me. After the debris was cleared by rain, and any trace of nature's cruel hand was eliminated, the cycle of life continued. A road was built where a family had once lived. More structures were created as more neighbors were killed. And I had to see every one of their eye's. The same emotion of fear plaguing the area. The creatures on two legs multiplied, and soon enough there were more of those creatures than of my neighbors in my area. We were overpowered even from the first appearance of the creatures. Like these creatures needed the control, yet I saw their soul. Each and every creature that had a rough mask of an exterior could not hide their soul's from me.

And so I watched. I watched lives. I watched when the light traveled to darkness, and I watched when the weather changed. As I watched I learned. And as I learned, I grew sadder. It was revealed that life was cruel. Yes, life was cruel. I saw structures come up and down, but soon enough they weren't using my neighbors to create the structures. Yet my neighbors were still killed. Killed anyway to fill their structures with objects. The creatures became more greedy for power and objects. As they became more greedy, they took more lives from my neighbors. The disturbing part was that they were the lucky ones.

I am merely just a stone in a river. Life passing me, while I watch. The stone has not a choice to stay. The stone will follow the water only if an outside source allows it to do so. I have helped many creatures find their way. I have listened to sounds so beautiful traveling from a piece of my neighbor's corpse. I have comforted souls, and sheltered souls. I have been only good. Then why do I suffer? Life is a game, and there is no winning. You are forced to play the game, even when the factor of losing is inevitable. You gain the experiences, then what? What good do the experiences have for you?

I can feel my end is near. I have fallen on a hypocrite. As a creature was killing me, I fell onto it. Perhaps my purpose for living was to kill this creature. My sole purpose was to help the cycle. As I lay here, I contemplate my journey through the years. I have left a mark. My own life used as an example of future lives. Just as the stone is used for me. As I stand still, life goes forward. I can see a newborn neighbor looking at me. And I can't help but feel sorry for him. Perhaps the look on my fellow dead neighbor's eyes weren't the look of fear, but of pity for me and the others who have yet to live a life of pain. Perhaps what this young one is viewing is fear in my eyes. The innocence distorts the mind to help the soul learn. Learn for what? Learn for nothing. And so I take one last look at the world around me, and finally I continue the cycle of life.