Like a moth to a flame

I can distinctly remember the moment I was mesmerizingly staring into the flame just one second shy of his sickle slitting my throat.

In that flame I say a great deal many things:

beauty expressed through my beloved walking through a barley field, the soft breeze gently swaying the picture with a loving caress.

Love through a fiery and sensuous night of carnal desire and uninhibited lust.

Promise, a small child slowly walking towards me, bright eyes, playful smile, not a worry in the world.

Peace

But as soon as those soothing images had vanished from my head, I saw the other side of the coin:

Famine: a small child starving as the obese walk past him, greasy food in their hands.

Ugliness: a corpse washed up by the shore, its entirety swelled up and putrid.

Loneliness: Myself strolling through the empty streets of the biggest metropolis imaginable

I saw all those things and more the moment before the sickle sliced my throat, and now I am trapped, condemned to relive that moment again and again along with the rest of the victims he claimed for his amusement.

Now and again we can avert our eyes from those visions and see the real world outside the lamp, the only distortion the green, eerie light that emanates from us and to the world of the living through the impenetrable glass of the lamp.

The world has changed.

He no longer inhabits the isles, he no longer murders for fun. He has yet again become a shadow of his former self, now fighting in the league for some bigger purpose than himself.

But here we are, trapped, for it was ruled that, since we give him power, we are to be the sacrifice made for the greater good.

We were attracted to the lamp like a moth to a flame, and now we shall inhabit it forever.