A lone figure stood, a silhouette against an inky sky. Tranquility flowed as a stream from the scene around her. Peaceful thoughts lapped at walls of crumbling concrete will and passed by in search of those undefiled. Sorrow and self-hatred had taken up residence where majestic love and verve once reigned. A bond formed with the weeping willow whose branches encircled her in a comforting embrace. Entrancing waters flowed past yet she could not bring herself to look down, afraid of the hideous reflection that would stare back at her with those cold and empty onyx eyes. Those eyes frightened her. Those were the eyes of a broken veteran. Those eyes had seen it and knew the horrors of this world. They were the eyes of one who had peered into the depths of the soul, been shown the inner workings of humanity and had seen only an overwhelming darkness. It was that knowledge that haunted her dreams by night and stalked her mind in daylight. The darkness was always there waiting for her, reaching out to consume her entirety. A scene played through her head, a memory of a quiet life that she no longer had hope of returning to. His booming voice read the familiar passages, echoing through her subconscious. She uttered one line aloud.

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”