the forest. A once thriving ecosystem, now a burnt and blackened wasteland. What could possibly thrive here now?? Hard to believe anything was ever able to exist here. Even the insects seem to have gone into permanent hibernation. Dry, yellow grass and hardened dirt beneath heavy boots / heavy boots come down on a skull / the skull cracks and squelches and there’s a small trail of dirty boot prints in the hardened dirt. The trees that didn’t succumb to whatever force blazed through here are gnarled, blackened, twisted branches against a dirty brown sky. Plumes of smoke on the other side of a river that’s only sludge now, rotted away by years of pollution and the tragedy that struck this forest in particular. It’s nearly the same color as the blood pulsing from the wound in his leg. A body floats there in the water. Facedown.

Stop. Look around you. Take in your surroundings. Where are you now?? How much time has passed?? Time’s a funny thing, isn’t it?? We assigned numbers and dates to the passing of the planets and held the world to those standards. The Earth itself likely didn’t care how many hours or days or months it took to revolve around the sun once. The passing of time doesn’t mean much now. Time hardly matters when you’re--

--crouched over a man with his rib cage and skull cracked wide open, his mouth still agape from whatever final sound he made / words he spoke / breath he took, his eyes glassy and wet from tears of fear / of anger / of sorrow / of relief. And you, with his blood staining your fingers, your lips, your teeth, your face, that vital organ that was supposedly so evolved it differentiated humans from the other mammal species, so evolved that we declared humans to be the superior species. So if you’re supposedly more evolved then the mighty wolf yet completely lacking the human ego and superego--the id has completely overlapped both of these--what does that make you??

A man?? A person?? An animal?? Hardly!! Something else entirely!! Sink your teeth into that. Pull in that rare breath when this man’s life hits your brain and lights it up like fireworks on the fourth of July.

Stop. Blink this person’s memories from your vision. You’re a killer!! You’re a thief in the night!! How many more lives must you take to feel satiated?? To fill whatever gaping hole you feel in your chest?? Why do you even keep going?? What is keeping you going?? Your life has already ended. You’re already--

“Me.”

He avoids reflective surfaces but he can’t avoid all of them and every now and then, he’s forced to look at himself, if only for a brief moment. Never long enough to really take in the intricacies of his face, to count the scars and the lines and the contusions. He runs a palm over someone’s blood that smeared itself into his cheek, vibrant red against dull, pale skin. 

He likes to think his eyes aren’t as empty as the ones staring back at him. Who is this staring back at him?? Who do these eyes belong to?? Not a person. Not an animal. What else is left??

He could laugh. He could laugh. He could laugh.

This is what you are--an imposter. Something else piloting around the body of a man with the mind and the instinct of an animal.