I must be trapped in this.

Everywhere I look twice and blink to rid myself of visions of the dead.

This isn't healthy, this chasing of the dead, this haunting. But someone follows me when I run and when I lie about why. Maybe one day, I'll join all of them. Then, I wouldn't have to chase anymore but rest along with.

That would be nice, wouldn't it?

My Tin Soldier showed up again. He'd cut his hair shorter than ever and it looked incredible. We played a game, using his house as our territory, climbing in and out of windows, using the pool, climbing up the walls and onto the roof.

His sister was there, too. She's never been in the dreams before, so now I'm wondering if she was one of those unlucky in Northern Israel.

I'm thinking of going again really soon if I'm able. Maybe next summer instead of Ireland. Maybe I'll apply to staff seminar or something. And it's weird. I suddenly feel the calling. To do something active about all of the shit there. The only downside is that I'll have to go in the army. Well, my heart and lungs might keep me out in which case they're a blessing. But perhaps Aliya is near for me. I never thought that would actually happen for me, but maybe it's time.

I'll see how it goes. You know I'll continue to look in every soldier's face. Every guy's face, probably, just to make sure. I'll probably run into El-Ad at the Kotel. Haha. It's true. All Jewish roads lead to Jerusalem and all Jerusalem roads lead to the Wall. Maybe I'm on one already.

New light shined from the morning's opalescent sky.

I hid in the scaffolding, molding my limbs to the contours of the platform, waiting, waiting for him to come.

I saw him enter, a brief deviance in the background. He scanned the room, the ceilings, the floors, the corners. The scaffolding. But I didn't move.

He walked to a spot directly under me. I took it as my cue to jump.

He sensed me a moment before I hit him, his hand drawing back to retrieve his sword. Mine, already drawn caught his hand with the tip and I felt him scream inwardly.

We fought swiftly, smoothly, invisible to the untrained human eye and to most of the trained. We were nothing but a background, chameleons. Onlookers would make nothing of us but for a slight blur of the air if they were so inclined to catch even that. Our sounds, however, would ricochet off their minds, sending them in the direction of ghosts and they would scatter.

I pinned him up against a wall, reached out my hand and yanked off his hood.

"You win," he said.
I didn't speak, but activated my voice cloaker.
"You win," he repeated. "I have failed."
"You never fail," I said, my voice coming out thick and foreign to my ears.
"Before you check mate, show me who you are."
I dug my sword harder into his neck.
"Please," he begged.
"I will not check mate," I replied.
He tried to swallow and stared, wide-eyed at me.
"But you are the Black Knight. You kill each one. You never let anyone survive."
"Perhaps the Black Knight can be surprising," I said, calculating my words.
"From everything I've learned of you, I should be dead already."
I deactivated each of his protective devices, including communication. He watched me do this, resignedly.
I tossed his sword to the floor and all of his gear.
"Now you," I said. "Show me yourself."
He deactivated Chameleon.
"What is this?" he asked. "I have studied you long and hard and you have never done this."
"It's different this time," I said through the voice cloaker.
"What is?"
"My victim."
"How?"
I deactivated my own Chameleon but kept my hood on.
"Goodness gracious, great balls of fire," I said. "Does he not understand?"
He gaped at me and went pale.
"You're twelve years old," I said. "Same as me. Don't you know, Mac?"
"You? You?" he screamed, pressing himself deeper and deeper into the wall.
I let my sword drop and pulled off my hood.
"I'm sorry, Mac," I whispered. "They made me."
For the first time since I'd known him, the strong, the brave, the brilliant MacKenzie Lawrence fell to his knees and cried.
I knocked his chin up with the dropped sword.
"Don't cry," I ordered.
"But Alyson...I trained with you. You were my...my..."
"Friend?"
He nodded shakily, still crying.
"It's been a long time since I've heard that word spoken and even longer since I've spoken it myself," I said. "They tricked you. I would train with you, pretending I didn't know."
"I see."
I stared down at the ground and put my sword back into my leg.
"You know they took me from a playground? I was one of the first of the new wave. We had parents. Did you?"
He nodded.
"They took me from a friend's backyard. I was three."
"So was I."
"Are you going to kill me now, Knight?"
I looked him in the eye but my vision was blurred with tears.
"No, Mac. You kill me."

I've never heard of a tree collecting dust but I suppose anything is possible.
But I've never heard of a mind cracking open the sky, either, although mine did today.
Perhaps this was the imminent disaster as your mind and my mind and our minds cover each other like the folds of a half-born leaf--or unti lthe end hatches a beginning where neither of us exist.
I'd like to say that darkness covers me but it's only the light of a street lamp that enfolkds me made possible by the lamp's engulfment by darkness.
In reality, the only thing that covers me is humidity and the promise of heat when the sun comes up, and ebcause of the combination my own irresistability to blood-sucking insects and the slight discomfort of an itch along the edges of my skin in the morning.

A storm is brewing and I hope it rains. It rained yesterday but not for very long. The storms haven't been very good this year and the storms haven't been much at all. We're under water restriction again and to tell the truth, I'm very tired of being in a drought.

I suppose the storm has hit all over the world in one form or another, though, and instead of raining water, it's raining human lives and propaganda from every millimeter of the circle.

I have officially given up on humanity. But I will not give up on individuals. There is hope there, I believe.

Sixteen days until I'm out of here. The room is almost done. And I know that I'm not alone, although that what it seems like at the moment. And that's my hope, and I guess hoping in itself gives me more reason to be hopeful.

Hope is the only thing I've ever possessed more than loneliness. And I guess that's a good starting point.