I was happy.

Exuding confidence with each breath. To a fault, but my favorite fault.

And eternal fire in my mind, kindling the holy rush that was my ego.

But I slipped. That one mistake, man's fatal flaw TEARING away the footing that once held me so high.

And there I descended.

Down the pit, each day I would feel the internal wind in my hair as a flew farther, and deeper from the light of my glorious perch.

Endless.

Or so I thought as I the crash from the bottom left me paralyzed.

Lying in the darkness, nothing but the memory of the light.

Each moment, each smile, RUSH of the pulse that I loved. That I lived for.

With no rescuer but myself to depend on the darkness consumed each memory.

My hero was vanquished and it was unbearable and unbelievable, his glory slain.

And then a step.

High above my pit, I watched and wondered if there would still be that heaven above, or if it had been so long the light had died.

After minutes, days, months, feeling like centuries passing by...

I began my climb.

Each grasp on the darkness I had come to live and breath brought a new pain with each step.

I climbed and fell, each fall more excruciating than the last.

Until, the game of chance gave me a wink.

Momentum, I began tunneling past the dead memories holding me captive.

I roared and began to feel the flame of hope.

As the monsters Shame, Misery, and hopelessness clutched at my heels,

I knew I had gone too far, too far to look back.

I held my breath as I came on the last strides of the climb, hardly believing I was almost there, that it was even still there.

Like a corpse rising from the cold Earth, I blew through the once seemingly I breakable barrier.

No need to gasp for air as I exploded through the top, I am invincible.

I have seen hell, and I have fought it with all my might.

Victory, as I finally sit atop my pe^ak once more.

The ecstasy I had once come to know so well it was forgotten returned to my soul, frying my body of the unbearable coldness.

I feel the warm embraces of my guardians.
Love, Joy, and Pride reveling in my return.

I have won

I am home