[ WP ] `` Of course Hell is real . You 've been in it this whole time . ''

I guess I should start this off by saying that, I tried. I really, really did. 
 
 I tried being positive. I tried taking all of the few things that I had left, and making them last, and making what I have left of this life last. I swear. Ask any of the two folks I was traveling with. 
 
 My family... where do I even start? After my older brother went off to go and fight, things were quiet for about a week or so. Then, the bombings started. Rebels started showing up in our neighborhood, and many of them were wounded. Bloody, awful wounds, and their screams were so loud. My younger siblings would cover their ears and hide in the corner whenever they heard them, with their ungodly wails. 
 
 No one ever told us what happened to my brother... but, after two weeks, it did n't even matter. You know what happened. Everyone knows what happened. After they dropped that gas, my family was killed within a matter of hours. Half of the fucking neighborhood. I guess I should be lucky that I got trapped in the basement, under the wreckage of the stairs. But fuck, I could hear them after the ringing in my ears stopped. They were yelling, and then they started making horrible sounds. I did n't find out what it was until they rescued me two days later. A nerve gas, or something. I'm just happy I was n't able to see them. And that they do n't have to suffer anymore. 
 
 And now I'm here, family is gone, I do n't know where my older brother is, and they gassed us. All of us. Men, women, children. Many of the adults, they were n't even supporting the rebels. They were pro-regime. Seriously. Once the government forces had been recalled, however, everyone went quiet. Is that why they killed them? 
 
 Fuck. It does n't even matter. Anyways, I picked up a gun... I mean, what choice did I have? Remember that story, in the Bible, about Job? How God uses him as a fucking pawn in a little game? Well, you might as well call me Job. 
 
 I picked up a gun, and for the next two months, I fought. I do n't remember who I fought with. I think I had stopped caring about anyone else at this point. I could n't contain what I felt. I feel like I'd be doing these feelings a disservice if I just called them anger. When you have nothing left to lose after the rebels and the regime have taken it all away... honestly, whoever is there, you just pick up a gun and fight with them. Even if it was the government, I would've fought with them. I did n't care. I did n't care about any cause. I was just furious. Anyone I could make pay for what had been done to me, to all of us... I'd let them have it. The rebels just got lucky to make my acquaintance, I guess. 
 
 After they pulled me out of what was once our cellar, they took me to the hospital they'd set up around the corner, in the old plaza. I was sitting next to some woman, in her early 30's. She had been fighting with and supporting these people. Of course, at this time I was still processing everything, and no one would stick around long enough to even ask me who I was. They knew my name, but honestly I was just one in another in a thousand potential young men there. Just another'Ali'. They knew, and this woman knew. She had fair skin, and deep, icy blue eyes. Angry blue eyes. She had received a shrapnel wound in her side, and what they could do during those times was just keep changing out the bandages and the clothes used to clog up the wound. 
 
 Since she was the only one around, I got to talking to her. Her name was Sumar, and she had very pretty, curly and silky black hair. Her skin was a handsome tan and her face was benign, if not a bit homely. She had come from a separate suburb, on the other side of town, but that's where the fighting initially was when it reached our city. I like her, and her fighting spirit, and her fighting words against the regime. Or some other rebel group. I ca n't remember which. 
 
 Whoever it was, she hated them. It seemed that hate was all that was keeping her going. I had seen some twisted people in my time fighting, I had. But just sitting and talking with this woman... I was terrified of her. And she was glorious. I wanted something to stand me up like she had. I think I finally ended up taking some of her hate... she asked me, on the day that she died, if I believed in Hell, in Paradise, in all that about the virgins and the rewards of Heaven. By the day she had died, I had started to share in some of her misanthropy for anyone and everyone who crossed her path of vengeance. I said something like, `` Of course not. Hell is just an imaginary nightmare meant to keep us in check.'' And she stared at me, and I will never forget that burning steel her eyes gave me when she said: `` Of course Hell is real. You've been in it this whole time.'' 
 
 She died an hour or two later. They took her body away, and I was alone for I do n't know how long. When I could stand, I fought with them. I killed a man, and to be frank I regret nothing. It was as if that very man was the one who had dropped those bombs, who had hoarded all of that woman's desire for vengeance, and who eventually shared my rage. It was pathetic. I shot him twice, and he just stopped moving. I did n't know that revenge would be so banal, so un-cathartic. 
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 Do you remember that myth about Sisyphus? The one that the more liberal imams would have us read in school so that we could fight against its message of existential realization? Well, after I killed that man, and released everything I had in two anonymous and unimportant bullets, I saw that we were all Sisyphus, just climbing up some mountain day in and day out that we'd never stop climbing up, that we'd go at until the stone we were pushing up would one day crush us. 
 
 So I left. I do n't know how long I had been without food, when you found me in the bush. It's been at least ten or eleven days since this all happened. And you know what doctor? That woman is right. I've seen, and cheered, and praised God at the slaughter of so many people. We're all screaming, `` God is good.'' Well whose side is He fucking on? Who is God really good for? Because he has n't been good to anyone as far as my life has shown me. 
 
 I do n't know what I believe in more, but I'll say it again: that woman is right. Hell is just another name for here and now.
