I had a dream last night

Oh, the most extraordinary dream it was

Full of serenity and indescribable light

Of happiness

Upon sleeping

I knew it was to be like no other,

For there were people laughing

Merrily; their voices permeating the air like thunder

Traces of darkness, they were naught.

Visions of playgrounds and snow

Were caught

Up and down, high and low

Went children on swings and seesaws

Though ‘twas cold, but sunny it illuminated

On the snow, fresh fallen

Now trampled by the clapping feet

Of children,

Their youth and innocence not faded.

I join in the stampede, a feat

Easily accomplished

Enveloped by heartwarming music and sleet

A girl stands uncertainly by the aluminum shed

Colour of hope lost on her face

I stop in the tracks, a sacrifice

On my part

For the children had long gone been past

With a hop and a spring in my step

Join in, I shout, and linking my arm with hers

The tracks are made deep

As we leap ahead of them further and further

Alive we felt,

Dangling from monkey bar to monkey bar

And splashing on the white ground

Certainly the snow will not melt

For eons to come

Never was a place like home.

Then—silence falls on the merry-go-round

Images are replaced with horror

Children no longer singing

As a man appears on the scene with a gun

A figure menacing

His eyes as cold as death

Full of malice and evil

Gone was the honeycomb music of laughter and fun

The playground then explodes in fire

Heaven turns into a nightmare

Deteriorated becomes of the innocents’ healths

Somewhere, seemingly in a distance, the devil

Laughs, and laughs again.

Shoelaces untied, tears wept, colliding feet in every direction

No! I cry out in pain

When my eyes do not deceive

A familiar girl imprisoned in a snare-like invention.

How that came about, I do not perceive

Fixated on my new found friend

I struggle to reach out to the girl trapped in the very core of hell

But an attempt in vain, for the frozen pond

Was all that was between us, an obstacle.

Destruction in the spectacle

Waits for time not to be still

Echoing cries of life lost make even branches of the trees curl

Newborn blood stains the ground

That will forever never cease to exist.

An horrible sound

So frightening, so intense

It tears apart the very mist

That floats in the burning air

Standing on the back of my neck, did the hair

As realisation comes a moment too late

For that monster, eyes burning with incense

Has just claimed another fate

In the form of my dear friend.

Another gunshot, each breath she gasps; I knew near would be the end

And as more wounds ripple through her dying body on the deathbed

I felt her; the torment and infliction she feels, I feel

White soaks into red

And along with her, the scars not healed

I knew then I would die too

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

And again.