I was alone in what could have been the darkest of forests ever seen. Was this it? Was I dead? I took a look up at the blackened sky as I placed my hand over my heart to feel if it was still beating. Considering that I was alone, I had to ask myself; what makes a man alive? Could it be his heart? Or could it possibly be the soul of a person that keeps him going. Many things classify a person as alive even if they are not. I believe the mind is what defines a person as living, because if you can see, and recognize that something is false, you can still live in that moment. The area I found myself in seemed to be a peaceful place to rest. The question is; what is this place? Last that I remembered, I had went to my room and got in bed. I stood up and looked around me, but saw nothing except dead trees and one singular dirt road, to which I was laying upon its beginning. Behind me there was a tainted darkness that not even the stars would dare inhabit. I wouldn't even attempt to think of what could lay beyond those shadows. What was I to do other than begin walking down the path I awoke next to? I started down the road of what was more than my eyes have met and have yet to meet. I sensed that I was being watched, but knowing that I was far from any person, I ignored the feeling. There was no sound... Just the noise my dragging feet created on the dirt path, and my rough breathing, that disrupted the silence. To keep myself from thinking about the blackened mist that surrounded me, my mind began to dwell on the memories of my past. My thoughts were focused on the best experiences of my life as I slowly shuffled through. I was content on being who I was, regardless of if I was cruel to others, but in life, nothing is definite. Things always change. Events that occured in a good nature always found a way to end. Such endings lead to new starts. I allowed my mind to browse its deepest, inner thoughts and set that notion on repeat.

I remember my first love, who had me twisted around her fingers like a puppet. Being with her made me feel like an immortal as I embraced the innocence of my youth. I was absolutely blind to what I had gotten myself into. I had her, and that's all I needed to have this feeling last. I should have seen it coming, but I was so blinded by the spell of lust that reality was kept from me. I had an uneasy feeling about some of the actions I had committed, but I always tried to become someone who would live off little needs. As if there was this sick survival side of me that always wanted to come out. That is the side that kept pushing me counter clock-wise of the tide we call life. That feeling continues to remain here as I speak of it. It desires to push the actual identity so far off into the shadows that people realize they've never known the person you truly are. This monster had me stay with her, and she was the true cause to my reality's weakness. I should have left after she shaved her head when I made her upset, but I had a rule that I would stay because I would not be the one to make a broken family. After time, our family became three; we had a child. We then moved to our own place and attempted to settle down. This is where our family had come to an end. I had given her a child, a home and my soul, and now there's nothing left today but a shell that still has the desire to restore that broken soul of his to what it once was. Young, and already has his dream been taken and left with that torn family. With a shattered heart, and aching soul, he searches for the woman in the dress.

That's not what broke me the final time, though. I had been damaged, but I had not died. By this time in my life, I had grown weak and was not as strong-willed as I had been in my past. Hell, I was so utterly depressed that I had been sent to talk to another about it. What was I to do after everything I knew had left me? My home, my child, my heart, and all that had made me happy. It took me months to even smile a full day, and I couldn't stop thinking of how I wanted to end it all, every single night. A level seven, deep depression, the doctor told me. I had medication to keep me happy, but it didn't work at all. It took me 3 months to realize that I had not made a single sentence in my own mind. I had stopped thinking because the medication took over my mind and I had become a zombie. That realization was frightening and I had immediately quit as soon as I snapped back into reality. That could possibly be why my depression never lightened and I did not heal. It makes you think that this world is finding its hellish end and we may not be able to fix it after so long. Is it honestly that bad to allow people to end themselves, any how? To me, I see it as filtering the strong from the weak. Maybe my mind just ends up thinking too much, because in this world, I could go on forever and tell of how these fools act. 

After months of being alone, I felt like someone had finally come to help me. A sweet-talking, little angel with black "emo" hair who had made me feel less alone. As with all first love, they are always present in your mind, in one way or another. She said she loved me and in my head, her words were true. A few months passed after we were together, and then she was gone as well. In the state that my mind and soul were in, I had collapsed. She said that I was, "trying too hard with her." That I was talking too much about how my life was. THAT I HAD NOT GOTTEN OVER HER. Who was she to talk about how she knew who I was and what I've been through. I had been picked up by what seemed to be an angel then played with like a doll of emotions. You make me sick. You are the reason that I am alone and walking this road. This dark, dead, and dusty road that YOU have sent me to walk by myself. I ask myself why. Why did they do this to me? Have they got nothing better to do then to toy with the one who was nice and only loyal to them. I just want to die. I have been nothing but good to all of you and now this is where I am; sick, lonely, and ready to take my own life. Why don't I just hand you the gun and you all may pull the trigger for me? You may just take me away from the game of life. I want to die. I've been walking this path for endless miles and all I can think about are the bad memories that keep me depressed. I just continue walking this road of what could, very well, be my death. What else do I even have? After she left in the midst of fixing me, I just collapsed... The ground under my feet shattered like glass, and I fell into the darkness. 

So now I summarize the absolute madness they've left behind. I lost everything I had ever built only to then be picked up by someone who had wished for nothing more than to finish me while I was down. I closed my eyes to see that my world of love had become dead and blackened as if it had collapsed. I named it after the change it had undergone. The world I walk now has become "The Collapsing" and I am its creator. This place only has purpose to pain me and it is the reason I'm being tortured with the memories I'm dealing with now. This is my punishment for being a fool. Every time I close my eyes, I am meant to suffer this dreadful walk down this horrid road. This valley of depression and sorrow is what I've made, not them. I am the weak one who needs to die and suffer for being a fool. 

At this point, my feet are bleeding from the long walk, and I am on my knees just to keep on the path. I have to keep going until I die. Do I truly want to die? I could do so much more with my life, but I'm already lost and I feel that I would never make it back when I've gone so far. Both my body and mind feel sick and I know I can not escape myself. My own thoughts and the memories entangled in them are the enemies that I shall never hurt or kill. I can only forget them while attempting to find something better. I know my body can't go on much longer so, for now, it falls down onto the dirt. 

I had saw something as my head rested upon the ground; one single black rose. The one thing that was actually alive in this valley was that black rose. I managed to get up from the ground and lean against the rough bark of a tree. My eyes admired the glistening beauty of the flower as I stared in amazement at the shine that was like nothing I'd ever seen before. My lips curved into a smile while at the same moment, tears flowed down my cheeks slowly. In the valley of the deathly road, one small, black rose survived. This was my black rose, and it was at that moment, I had knew it would die as once I moved on from my past.

How do you let go of that one thing that had meant so much? You keep moving until it's finally gone. So after taking in the pure beauty of what I had made, I began making my way along the road once more. I forced myself to go mile after mile before my body finally began to shut down. I started to vomit, and my chest felt like it was crushing itself. My gut was burning as if there was a blistering fire inside. I knew my time was coming to an end, so I accepted that this was it for me. I was to soon die, sad and alone, after walking a road that's only meaning was to taunt me into my own painful memories. My vision started to blur, and I had soon passed out. 

When I awoke, I had to wonder why I was not dead yet. I could possibly smash my head into a tree? No, that would take too much of the energy I didn't have. So I laid there to starve to death and drown in my pain. Memories swirled around my head and a peculiar feeling hit me slowly. This place was familiar. I've been here before, I know I have. When I was younger, I came here in my dreams to visit a woman in a black dress, who would hold and bite me until I bled. When I awoke from these dreams, I would feel as if I was in love, but not with somebody. I would be dazed in happiness and love the day because of the dream I'd had. She would bite me as I fell to the darkness she wrapped me in, all while she looked into my eyes. This is that same valley where we would meet. What snapped my mind away from this only good memory was the light that blazed off in the distance. I started moving toward this light with the little energy I gained from sleeping, and slowly trudged through the trees. What I had saw was the shining fire of a torch light down the road I was walking along. What could this that I'm seeing be? Was it real? Would it take my pain away?

I continued following the light I saw as I tried to force myself to awake. I realize I'm dying, but I'd like to find out what this is before my life slips away. The fire of the light was planted upon a wall. The thickness of the trees was fading thin, as if the dead road was coming to an end. The wall began growing the more I approached it and I kept questioning what it could be. It was more than anything I could think of because all I had seen in this land was my memories and that shining black rose I had came across a few miles back. I had been walking for hours upon hours, only to die in front of this wall. To die before seeing what may lay beyond it. This is the end. I had come to the end of the road and stopped moving only to hear footsteps come closer to me. My body began being dragged away.