There is a Sickness deep inside this place,

A cesspit of worn out dreams.

Like a drug, the dreams give people that glorious high, letting them ride up and far away from here. Yet those dreams never last; they never satisfy. They always come crashing back to reality, back into this hell-hole. And the people, they accept it.

I hate the Sickness, its lingering breathe corroding their minds, corroding my mind.
It makes the very air of the streets stale. It’s the cigarette smoke, the car exhaust, the wretched smell that comes rising up with the steam from the gutters. It wafts in with the wind, smelling of sewage, mud and mold. It is the dampness that seeps into everything that is here, and it leaves your nose raw. I can't take it anymore, how it invades you and makes you feel like the worn pavement you tread on, weary and cold to the bone.

And yet I know that I can't pull away from it; it has me. I am ensnared, and it draws me further towards its dark centre. This Sickness, it drives this place, but leaves it static; everything is in a limbo that no-one seems to know or care about.

Worst of all I am afraid of it. Whenever I try to fight the Sickness, it leaves me drained. I shut myself in my room in a hope to escape from its omnipotent gaze. I walk in the park at night, somewhere I hope to find solitude and calmness, trying to place a barrier between myself and its incessant pounding in my head. And I always despair at my hopeless battle.

And yet I already know the truth about the Sickness. That which has always been clear to me, but admitting it out loud was too difficult.

I know that the Sickness is everywhere, and I am the Sickness.