Walking in this forest of darkness did nothing for the dark haired woman’s state of health. Hating the world and everything in it; only pain helped her to move forward. Every inch of her skin was burning, yet snow was all around. Her bones ached with such intensity, one would wonder how she continued to walk on. Her eyes took in the dark shapes of the trees which surrounded her. Each tree seemed to add to the pressure that continued to build in her head. Every part of her body was screaming to lay down where she was and die. Yet this was her biggest motivation to keep moving; to find something, anything, that could help her.

Stomping through this desert of light did little for the blond haired man’s state of mind. He hated the world and everything in it. His skin was icy cold, yet the hot sun was beating down on him. His body ached for something unknown to his mind. He watched the occasional cactus pass by him while he walked, wishing more than anything, he could die and leave this awful place. Yet he moved on, not knowing why.

The dark haired woman hung on the edge of insanity; the pain too much for her mind to comprehend. All she held was the hope that the pain would stop soon. She prayed that it would. But as the hours passed, her hope was fading. The thought of her laying down in the snow to die didn’t seem so bad now. All she wanted was the pain to end.
Something within her gave the urge to run. She followed the strange urge. Running through the forest with the wind against her face, she saw that the trees were beginning to thin out. Faster she went, faster the trees faded into nothing. When a road appeared in front of her, she came to a stop. The side of the road she stood on was the darkness that she treaded in throughout the night. But across the road was brightness with nothing but dry dirt on the ground; nothing she had ever witnessed before. Walking through this strange brightness was a blond haired man that seemed unaware of the dark haired woman staring at him with confused eyes.

The blond haired man had no hope. He followed the urge to continue with lifeless thoughts. His brain wasn’t right. It had only brought him misery throughout his life. The searing light that was always above him gave no rest to its victims. Even in sleep, the light seeped through his eyelids. It was a reminder that he was still alive, and still in definite pain.
Staring at the floor beneath him, he walked on with the same misery that was always with him. The man caught movement ahead of him that had temporarily cleared the misery from his mind. He looked up to find a road a little ways away from him. Behind the road was a forest of trees that took on a darkness that he had never seen before. On the ground was a white substance that reflected what little light shot from the sky. He remembered the movement that had caught his eye and searched until he found what it was. A dark haired woman was making her way across the strange street.

Both the dark haired woman and the blond haired man were walking toward each other with a weariness that neither tried to hide. They met in the middle of the street and stopped a foot away from each other. The man stared at the woman and the woman stared at the man; both seeing the differences in their pain. The man saw her physical pain. The woman saw his mental pain.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said with clear sympathy in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” the man said as he tried to choke back the tears that so often broke him.
With those simple words exchanged, both their pains vanished. The man was no longer broken inside. The woman was no longer in the circle of pain that always surrounded her.
The difference of night and day is clear in sight. But neither day nor night had ever acknowledged their differences. There can be no sympathy if their was never any acknowledgement. If there’s no sympathy, how can there be peace?