there's nothing to be done. life takes its course, exposing you to the noxious air. in the wasteland, there are scattered about hazmat suits, oxygen masks, protective gear, all worn and abandoned by previous survivors. most of them are dead.

occasionally, you will run into people like you. blinded by the mist but well intentioned, scrambling to survive more than a few seconds at a time. trying to find reason in this all; doing their very very best to, in fact. you bump heads and shoulders with them. maybe you will find one or two who, like you, want the perfect companionship of an imperfect mate.

the sun sets and the mist grows denser, more palpable. it starts to burn. eventually it will stop, you reason, but you still run into the bandits. the highwaymen. the creatures, identical to you in every way, scarred, torn, with a drop of empathy in their heart. something stirs in you, and you don't know what it is. you want to forgive the treachery, the sense of destruction they portend. you empathize with it somehow. you can see this wasteland was born to make one destroy, and yet you create, but others will destroy. this is simply it.

or perhaps you're the velvet rogue, the armed companion of death. you see in this a sacrifice to be made, a price to pay, perhaps. a dowry to the progenitors, leaving you alone and motherless in this painful fugue state of reality. so you decide to pay it back with destruction, with horror, with guts touched by raw metal. lead. glass.

so, you consider, the whole world is a weapon. a weapon to destroy itself. a tool to build and soon erode its own presence. so you are here.

and you pray. you wish, you meditate, but somehow, in your toxin laden mind and soul, you find it in you to pray. you don't find substance in the prayers of others, but your own ooze with your spirit, and so you pray as much as you can. because one day this will all be over, you wonder, in amazement and worry and horror and wonder and hope, all at once.