Candles on Asphalt
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It is cold, the wind is howling and a storm is coming, yet here I am in the middle of an empty and dark street. Another year rolled around. The third time the clock would pass October 31th, since I entered into the Insurgency. When I look back at what happen since than, it feels like time stands still, with just more and more people dying, frozen in time.

Normally, when you look back you count the losses and are silent for a moment, then think of all the positive changes these losses have bought. But the price that was paid is definitely not worth it and I refuse to be silent when silence rules over these parts all year, save for a few screams here and there. I don't have much to my name. Not enough power to make the impact appropriate. In this I mirror the organisation I serve.

We dream of grandeur, but hide in our holes for we can not even hope to face the storm outside. We would be snuffed out. Petty infighting, large outside invasions or my personal 'favourite' asphyxiating in our holes, while the storm sucks away our oxygen. People don't open their mouths anymore. We sit and wait while we lose the very source of what brought us together.

Once the Insurgency was a large beast. It grew new fangs and claws daily. New teams, new members, new anomalies. The future seemed bright. We would lead humanity out of the darkness, out of the fear of the unknown.

But than the storm hit us. Many deserted as soon as they thought to no longer be on the winning site. Some saw their work and their progress destroyed and wandered off, broken.

Those that stayed, stayed underground. Insurgents going home, back into a normal life. Maybe there are hundreds waiting out there, waiting for the day that someone has build them a shelter against the storm, a mechanism to protect them and there families against the scares the fight against the storm would leave on them, ready to serve the Insurgency once more. Maybe they will return when the storm passes, maybe they won't. Maybe they are all dead.

I have to push away the thought of me being the late Insurgent out here. I don't think that I could rebuild the Insurgency from nothing. But even if I am the last, that would only mean I would have to try harder.

So here I am. October 31th. In the middle of an abandoned street of an abandoned town, I draw my gift for the Insurgency.

I light my candle and stick it onto the asphalt. A gust of wind blows against the candle, it flickers, but continuous to burn. I turn my back and walk away, leaving just a small anomaly. In the days when thousands of insurgents worked here, for the future of mankind, this flame could have been extinguished and the candle could have been thrown away as useless, but in the days of deafening silence and a storm that has snuffed out so many hopes and colleges this anomaly will burn.

I just hope someone sees the light and places more candles here. May this flame show that storms are not unbeatable. It is a small light, a useless anomaly, yet it defies the storm. May it help others to find there way back into the Light, back to the Chaos Insurgency.

Maybe the storm will level the city, maybe the storm will finally rip me off my feet, but I am sure that this candle will burn until it has burned itself into the asphalt. I will be here, next year, to place a new candle here, not only for those that we lost, but for those who are still to come.

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