Darkness Preys on the Lonely

Darkness preys on the lonely.

It cleaves reality from clarity, often blurring the lines between shadow and shape. Its tendrils claw away at our notions of comfort and security, replacing truth with vulnerable subjectivity. A man caught lonesome in the dark falls powerless victim to nothing at all, plagued by fear, completely unscathed. Inside, panic takes charge, though outside no fiend may strike. Allied, one may yet dissipate the mist of the night, but alone no plight withstands that which weighs upon one's very breath.

Darkness preys on the lonely.

It amplifies sorrows and trivializes victories. Makes obsessions untameable and obstacles unmoveable. Lengths and depths no longer can be calculated, and what was once accurate measure becomes suggestive speculation. Judgement and discernment dissolve, as nothing and everything become the only descriptors.

Darkness preys on the lonely.

It amalgamates evil and good. Necessity and desire. Passion and perversion. What was once a fleeting thought becomes an invincible pull. Trivial thoughts, once easily dismissed, grow slowly in the background, until nature and notion become indistinguishable from each other. Fights are lost before beginning. Defeat and victory begin to lose their meaning, leaving only the passive silence of surrender. Night covers over day and persuades that it never was, luring further into destruction those who fall for its lies. Worst of all, it finishes off its victims with the fable that guilt and shame are all there is, that despair is the only natural thing, that man can only produce his own doom. That everything he suffers is merely brought upon himself, that eveything he suffers is everything he deserves.

Darkness preys on the lonely.

It carefully conceals that which brings light, distracting with shadows the very source that gives them form. Distortions become primary and sharp clarity fades into the background. It focuses on itself, screams noiselessly for attention, working with all its might to keep you in its grasp. You forget to turn away and let curiosity take the bridle, until all that fights against it simply loses its momentum. And at that moment, when the struggle is forgotten, when the hate becomes indifference and the fear becomes acceptance, it wins. Not when it trips you, not when it beats you, not when it tears you limb from limb. But when you let it.

Darkness preys on the lonely.