My mind is a swirling whirlpool of emotions, as it always is. It’s a dark, deep, stormy sea in the middle of a starless night. I know, logically, that things might get better one day, that I might have an actually happy life one day, but I don’t believe that in my heart. My emotions tell me otherwise.

I want to die. I want to die. I want to die.

But still, it feels good sitting here, along with my brand new friends, friends who want to die just as much as I do, friends who know what it is to feel the jagged, clawing edges of life just as much as I do. They don’t deserve it. They don’t deserve it at all. They don’t deserve any of what I’m going through. And they don’t deserve anything but for the happiest of lives. I hope I can make their lives a bit happier, as they are making mine. They are my beacon in the inky black poison dark. They are my stability in the middle of a hurricane. I am so glad that I have met them.

“What stories do you guys like?” Nova asks us all as we sit around the table of the congregation room of the hospital wing. It’s nice here. Much nicer than what I’m used to. The room is big, and there is a large hallway connected to it. There isn’t anything very technologically advanced, but there are absolutely gorgeous pieces of art up on the walls, and the whole place has a quaint yet elegant feeling to it. Too bad that we’re locked in here.

Nova is so kind. The world has given her barely anything. It hasn’t given her acceptance, it hasn’t given her understanding. It hasn’t given her company, it hasn’t given her belonging. It hasn’t given her freedom or unconditional love. It hasn’t given her purpose, but she has found her own purpose by herself, she has wrest it from the world, from a world that has always been so happy and satisfied to give us/her nothing. We are her purpose, and she is ours, and that is beautiful.

“I like old stories,” Camden replies, something wistful in their voice. They are bright, are cheerful on the outside. Even though they are bright and cheerful on the outside, I know they are barely holding on to their crumbling pieces on the inside. I can see it in their dark eyes. I can see it in the frozen deepnness behind their voice. They try to be cheerful to make the rest of us cheerful. But I can see through it, we all can. They are sweet.

“I like old stories too,” Miochol agrees. “There is something, something just magical about them. Though I can’t really put my finger down on what. Old stories, they, they just have this element to them, that makes them feel transcendent.” Miochol has an old soul, despite not being very old. There is just something about the way that he interacts with the world, there’s something about the way that he looks at everything and really tries to look, really tries to understand, that makes him somber and mature beyond his years. It’s a hard life, living like that. But it’s so important, to have people like him in this world. It’s so important to have people who go so deep into everything, who always try to see beyond the surface. I’m glad that he’s an old soul.

All the people in this hospital wing are younger than me. Some of them are just teenagers, sixteen or seventeen years old. Some are in their twenties, are just exploring adulthood for the first time. Some are in their thirties and forties, and even though society expects them to have a grip on life by now, they do not in fact have a grip on life by now. And it’s not their fault. Not their fault at all. Society has just made things far too hard for people like us. At fifty-three years old, I am the oldest person here, and I suppose that makes me a sort of mother figure to all these people here.

“What’s your favourite old story?” Davelen asks all of us. His eyes are dark. They’re always dark. Everything about him is dark. But not dark in a bad way. Dark in a glorious way. Dark in a beautiful way. Like a warm, rich, smokey night, covered in clouds and reaching out in every direction. Dark like the rich, life-giving, nurturing forest earth after a rainstorm. Dark like the womb filled with water and blood, the beginning of all life.

“I love the story of the girl who fell in love with the captured god,” Kaycen replies. They are a hopeless romantic. And, far more importantly, more importantly than them being a hopeless romantic, they care so very deeply for the people of the world who are othered, who are pushed down, who are told that they are less. They hate it when people are hurt, they feel it so deeply, so intensely, as if it is they themselves who are getting hurt. And they always love it so deeply whenever anyone who is being hurt, being othered, being pushed down, when they rise up and reclaim their strength and they reclaim their power. We need far more people like them in this world. We can’t have them leave us. We can’t have any of us leave us.

“I like the story about the animals and the moon and the first man,” Nova tells us.

“Oh yes, that’s an amazing story,” Miochol agrees. “Too bad I can’t remember it completely.”

“I remember it,” I tell them.

“Can you tell us?” Davelen begs, eyes wide in excitement.

So I tell them. I tell them about the first man, who was selfish and greedy. I tell them about the songbird that gathered all the animals, and the moon who let them project their worries from her, so that the first man could hear. I tell them about the change of heart that the first man had, and the wife that he met. I tell them about each of the heartbreaks and injustices that each animal faced, and how they all came together to speak their grievances. I tell them about how ashamed the man felt, and how much he vowed to do better.

“That was amazing,” Camden whispers as I am done my story.

“The moon was so powerful, so strong,” Davelen breathes out, “now it’s so …”

“Hurt,” Nova finishes, “hurt just like we are.”

I look out of the window to see the moon in the crowded nighttime sky. It has a long, twisting black scar reaching across it, and a splotchy pink bruise. In the story, the moon represented power. And the moon still has power now, I can still feel it. But I can also feel rage, I can feel horror, I can feel desolation, I can feel death. It can’t save us anymore, like it used to do in the stories long since gone by. It can’t give us its strength, its courage, its wisdom, its protection. All it can do is cry with us, grieve with us, and show us all that we have lost.