Lost in the Night

Death is too fine a wine for me to be worthy of tasting it. I have held the cup which contained my end more times than I can recall but each time it was someone else who drunk from it and I was spared. The sweetness of death is a subtle intoxicant, always demanding that I take another sip, never satiated by it. You may think that to live without fear of the ruination of age is a blessing, you would be wrong. I am held in this grey world by a terrible duty that imprisons me more surely than any chains could ever do. 

There are things in this world that you don't know about, that you can never be allowed to know about. You have the blessed luxury of innocence, the greatest opium the masses ever tasted. Ignorance is freedom. You are able to live your life free from the knowledge of how the world truly is, of what exists deep within the shadows and the things that fall through the cracks in the world.  I am the thing that stands between you and the dark terrors of night. I know, you don’t believe me. Why would you? Denial is so much easier.

Those feelings that make you think someone is there in the room with you, the noises that come from along the corridor, the fear to get out of bed at night in case something is there, waiting to grab you, they are all real. Fears built deep into us from a time when we believed in such things. Children know what the world is like, seeing what lives in the shadows and waits in the darkness. We teach them that there is nothing there, training them to deny what they know to be true. We do it too well. But ignorance and fear are what keep you safe. Denying the truth at a level so deep you have forgotten you are even doing it is the only thing that allows you live in the world you believe is real. You are asleep without even knowing it. I can never know such ignorance again, I have been taken captive by the truth. 

I didn't choose this life. Did you really think I would? Why would any sane person choose to live in the shadows, to risk their sanity against ancient horrors, when they could be living in the daylight with their friends? You can ignore me, disbelieve me, despise me all you want. Just remember, it wasn't my choice. I was chosen. By best friend tried to kill me, long, long ago, in an ancient burial mound deep under the dark soil of England. I was rescued, and the truth was revealed to me. That was the deal. Once my eyes were opened, I knew what I had to do, for the sake of our species. You can't handle the reality of this world, can't imagine the things I have done, to make sure that you can stay ignorant and safe. To make sure humanity gets to continue living on this decaying, burning, world.

Sometimes I wonder if it is all a dream, or if I have simply lost my mind. How would I know? There is no one left to tell me if I’m mad. But in this world, maybe madness is actually the only way to live in the truth. I've tried to die several times. Each time I failed; the angels wouldn't let me die. You must think me crazy now. You have no idea. Life is so fragile it cannot bear the weight of morality. It cannot afford to if the human species is going to survive what waits for us in the shadows. I bear the cost so that you never know about what hides in the shadows. No matter the cost, the great illusion must be maintained. What is one life against the entire species? 

The deaths are not the worst of it. They blur together with time; one life is much like another. Each one was necessary. Remember that when you judge me. Each one a person who knew too much or who had gone too far into the shadows. No, the deaths are not the issue. It's knowledge, infernal and arcane, that casts it's iron chains around my soul. To know the truth about the world is a heavy weight to bear. Knowledge is a burden, truth is a curse. I have seen the darkness, stared into the cold, endless depths of the void, and the truth was burned into me with all the cold clarity of a surgeon's blade excising a tumour. 

In the dark moments when I try to sleep, I tell myself the cold comfort of necessity, of duty to my species. I have willingly carried the cost for you, but I have spent the whole coin of courage and there is nothing left. Could you do what I have done for the sake of humanity? Why would you, when you don't even believe a word I've told you. Kant wrote that duty is the "sublime and mighty name that embraces nothing charming or insinuating but requires submission." That had been my life, driven by what is necessary before anything else. 

I do not know if I can go on, but I don’t know if I have a choice. The weight is too much to bear. If you have found this letter, then it's possible that I have finally been granted the gift of death. Pray that it is so. If I am still alive, then know that I am sorry for what comes next. You know too much. Make it quick and throw yourself in front of a train before the night descends. Don't listen to the noise outside your door. Ignore the chill down your spine. Ignorance is bliss. If I am alive, I will be adding another thorn to my already prickled conscience when I come for you. Just remember, it's for the good of the species. Cold comfort, but it's enough.

It’s enough.

It has to be.

Let it end.