They say that the sword we live by, we die by. In the confines of black rock, suffocating for eternity but not being graced with the kiss of death, I contemplated that. As much as my mind could manage as it deteriorated.

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Could another man take that from you? Wrestle the pommel of your existence from your hand, strip you of the cutting edge which you employed to carve out your will unto the world?

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He lays with my wife now. In the eyes of my child, I have not been replaced. No. You cannot replace what never existed. I held his hand. A small, tender thing which collapsed into my gloved palm. I saw the wind playfully tug at the few wisp of hair which protruded from a newborn head. In the grey light of the dawn he saw me. Didn't comprehend me, but saw me.

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That's all been erased, though. Covered like frost might blanket an unsuspecting valley as the cruel winds of winter pounce upon a warm and unexpected summer field, too content with it's own infantility to grasp that all things might change in time.

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Of course, they don't know i'm free. The both of us. The oath stated that the minds of men may conquer that of a beast. Clearly they left out some tidbits. Yet, my mind is no longer my own. Not the mind of a man. Merely the shell that remains after the nut has been cracked. No mind - no prison. No beast.

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The beast spoke to me in the flaming tongue before he scampered off into the darkness. Made threat and promise, curse and lament. Where he went I do not care. Some will suffer. Many will die. I want to let loose an acrid laugh at the thought which struck me as I watched the receding light of its ember torso - that they'll blame ME for this. Somehow.

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That doesn't matter. So little does once amble your way to the peak of your soul and gaze out at the crashing sea of quandaries which encapsulate it. Watch the riptides of hate pull out what small flotsam of love and joy try to find purchase on the shore of the heart.

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As I walked through the midnight sun, I tried to feel some of the hatred. Some of that anger, so hot that it might thaw my receding mind. I bite my tongue, willing blood to pool. When it comes though, it bears all the weight of a rain drop in a maelstrom. Tactile upon impact but meaningless on soaked ground.

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When I find them, I shall grant two kindnesses and one justice. My wife and son need only be released from this miserable consciousness. Whether or not they realize it, their lives are already gone. Taken by the phantom hand of fate which was coerced and guided by the will of man. When they beg I hope that I will feel pity. Hope that the twangs of sorrow might play one last time from the worn and feeble strings in the harpsichord of my essence.

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I know that when I condemn him to the living earth, though, that I will not feel. His squirming figure will do nothing for sightless eyes. For that should bear no weight on one scale or the next. It will not be an act of scorn. Nor will it be the petty revenge of the man who was once was. It will only be the act of balance, ensuring that all things which once were made out of order are returned in kind.