"Child of the Cataclysm"

[Embracing the darkness within and accepting the past for what it is]

"His spirit stirs, roused by a fractured dawn, spreading wings wrought not of feathers but fragile illusions. They carry him—just barely—into another relentless battle, waged between the crumbling edges of this world and the veiled realms beyond.

Isolation, his chosen weapon, cradles his restless heart, a tenuous armor against the unseen artillery of a shadowed existence. In its embrace, he finds solace, yet it carves him hollow.

The angelic light of hope and reason beckons, persistent in its pursuit, but he retreats to the seductive chaos of nefarious psychosis. There, in the darkened whispers of his mind, lies a strange comfort, a lullaby of madness tinged with the sweetness of uncertainty.

For most, the unknown is a vast chasm, its terror urging them to toe the fragile line between good and evil, to tread lightly, lest they become another casualty in the endless war.But they do not see the truth. Fear is only a master as long as one believes in the gilded lie of light’s salvation.

Once you trespass into the abyss—whether by choice or by cruel design—you learn its secret: darkness, far from being the enemy, is the great equalizer. It strips you bare, revealing a clarity unspoken. In its boundless void, illusions of good and evil dissolve into mere shadows, cast by the same indifferent flame.

He is not broken, though the world often mistakes his scars for fractures. They are maps—etched in pain—charting the treacherous terrain he has traversed. The cataclysm he carries within is not a wound but a crucible, forging resilience from despair.

In his isolation, he finds a paradoxical strength: the ability to face the chaos of existence without flinching. For in the dance of light and dark, he has learned the most profound truth of all: survival is not a battle, but a symphony, where dissonance and harmony are merely notes in an eternal composition.

The child of the cataclysm stands alone, not by choice, but by fate. He wears his scars as banners, his isolation a fortress against the chaos he once fled but now claims as his own. For beyond the veil, beyond the battles of men and gods, lies only the truth: to endure is to embrace both light and dark, to carry their weight until wings—no matter how artificial—become strong enough to rise."

Most of my life, I've felt like I didn't belong. Externally I embodied chameleon like tendencies, able to shift and change into whatever social construct necessary for survival, but internally, I've felt like an alien in a foreign land. As any young person does, I assumed these feelings were a reflection of my obvious inherent deficiencies as a person. Naturally, when one internalizes the identity of being the "odd man out", I projected this to the world, thus making it a self fulfilling prophecy. "I feel different, so I must be different, and because I must be different, I will avoid others in an attempt to avoid reinforcing these negative feelings of myself which might arise in the form of rejection, abandonment, or betrayal." Sadly, this subconscious narrative, though categorically false but very real to me at the time, helped direct my path into social, emotional, mental, and physical darkness. I've experienced and witnessed many dark things in my life, some by no fault of my own, and some due to my choices. However, the darkness that isolation behests the human soul is unmatched, in my opinion. We are social creatures, and are not meant to be completely alone in all facets of our lives.

Not long ago, I found myself at the crossroads of freedom and continued suffering. The road of continued suffering required nothing of me except business as usual, more of the same, something that had become supremely enticing. In my experience, sometimes misery is preferable to freedom, due the comforting nature of familiarity. The fear of the unknown, which certainly is a guaranteed hallmark of freedom, can prove to be too excruciatingly difficult for some to stomach, as I can attest. However, for me, the road of continued suffering was no longer an option.

Surprisingly, choosing to walk the freedom road didn't entail abandoning my past transgressions, feelings, and emotions. Quite the opposite in fact. It meant choosing to reassign them for a new "tour of duty". It meant embracing the darkness for what it is, what it was, what it valiantly did for me at the time, and what it sadistically robbed me of forever. It meant choosing to dwell on the strengths—using every emotion, feeling, and experience as a stepping stone towards a better self—and take responsibility for the failures. I have come to believe that nothing is truly lost, nor is any experience ever in vain, no matter how devastating it may seem—if we choose to transform it, embrace its lessons, and refuse to let it define our defeat.

[Spencer Brooks Otto]