The old man cried every time he went to the cemetery.

He would stand at the top of a hill every midnight, and look out at the endless rows of headstones, which were just barely visible in the moonlight. As he glanced from grave to grave, his tears would begin to flow, running down his withered cheek and disappearing into his snow white goatee. Without realizing it, he would reach into the pocket of his overcoat with his left hand, and fidget with a locket that lay inside.

The old man knew every single person that had been laid to rest in this place. He had memorized the lives and deaths of several hundred people, and he'd performed this nightly ritual for so long that even in the total darkness of a cloudy, moonless night, he could point from grave to unseen grave, describing its occupant and how they were a unique and wonderful person, and -- with sadness and heartache in his voice -- listing every reason why their death was unfair and undeserved.

Naturally, few ever accompanied him in his melancholy routine.

On the rare occasions when a curious fellow or two ventured up to the hill to join the man in his ritual, he would often describe some of the cemetery's inhabitants to them, reciting their family members, habits, likes and dislikes, and causes of death. On some nights, he could, when accompanied, fully describe hundreds of ended lives, and without ever seeming to tire or grow thirsty. Beyond these descriptions, however, he never spoke during his ritual, and would ignore anyone who attempted to talk with him.

He would examine the cemetery and its graves for hours, often until well after sunrise. He would look from headstone to headstone, nodding occasionally, as if to tell those interred that they were not forgotten.

A very careful observer accompanying the old man in his routine might've noticed that there was always one grave that the elder would skip over, and pay no attention to. This grave was plain, marked by a cross-shaped headstone with nothing carved on it; its occupant was, for all intents and purposes, anonymous. When asked about that grave, the old man would pause suddenly, as if slapped in the face, before continuing to recite information about the other graves' occupants from memory.

A week ago, the old man was found dead in his bed. His eyes were closed, and his face was covered in tears. The locket, open, lay in the upturned palm of his right hand; the picture inside had faded from age, and the face in that picture was no longer visible. The locket looked as though it hadn't been opened in decades, and had to be forced open.

Every so often, he would glance at the woman in the back of the van. The woman, a redhead wearing a dark blue hoodie and jeans, lay slumped against one of the vehicle's walls, unconscious; he had had to knock her out to maintain a low profile.

He drove carefully through the street; one had to drive at a very precise speed to avoid attracting the attention of criminals or law enforcement. He didn't dare to observe his surroundings; he kept his eyes on the road. People with wandering eyes often met a very grisly fate here. He was choosing a long, winding path; his priority was not a rapid arrival at his destination. He preferred to sacrifice speed in exchange for solitude, so he drove on roads that tended to have very little traffic; he knew that people were dangerous, and that it was better to avoid them as much as possible.

It was of critical importance that he find an isolated, secluded place, somewhere that people tended to avoid. Privacy and solitude were necessary for him to accomplish his goal.

It was raining heavily, but he spotted not a single pedestrian wearing a raincoat or using an umbrella. Neither the people nor their accompanying evil seemed troubled by the downpour. Many of them seemed to be in denial, complaining about how blindingly bright and cloudless the sky was. It reminded him of a time months ago, when he'd seen a small girl -- no more than eight years old -- stand and wait in the rain and bitter cold for several hours without displaying even the slightest bit of discomfort. He'd worried that she'd catch hypothermia, but nothing of the sort happened. She was perfectly fine. Eventually, however, she was spotted a few gang members who happened to be more sadistic than the norm, and he was too far away to intervene...

(He later learned that the girl had been waiting for her mother. She hadn't known that her mother had been shot to death after witnessing a murder hours earlier.)

But this time, he had intervened. He'd felt the dread several minutes before they came, and saw the evils long before their hosts arrived on the scene. By the time the criminals had got there, he'd managed to find a tire iron. When they ambushed the woman in the alley, he made short work of most of them... but one managed to escape. The woman tried to run as well; a fast but light blow to the head curtailed the attempt. After that, all he'd had to do was steal an unattended van, and in a city where the average citizen is too afraid to contact the authorities for any reason, such a task was ridiculously easy.

In the interest of maintaining their own physical safety, the helpless sheep in this city deliberately ignored crime and therefore evil. He, however, watched it, unafraid. He bore witness to the heartlessness and malignance of the criminals here. He'd watched such travesties for so long that he began to see evil itself. He could smell the sulfurous stench of sin as he drove through the city streets, and he could see the sickening spirits and shades of violence, rape, and death. He could see evil, and avoid it much more effectively than the sighted-yet-blind fools that called this city "home".

He was forced to observe evil day after day, and yet through willful ignorance, the average Joe was free to simply ignore it. So long as a person kept their head down, their eyes closed, and their mouth shut, they could remain safe and protected -- but he did not have that privilege. He had to watch the horrible things that people did to one another. He couldn't look away. The masses, the average ones, though, they could -- and he resented them for it. Furthermore, he believed that by looking the other way, these blind imbeciles condoned -- if not encouraged -- such horrors. It was that fact that had, years ago, turned his resentment into bitter hatred.

He resented the woman in the backseat of the van. He hated her. She was just another privileged, stupid fool. She knew nothing of evil. He had no sympathy for such people.

The sadists that had attacked the woman were members of an extremely ruthless street gang known for indiscriminate brutality and unprovoked attacks on women and children. This group was extremely organized and powerful, having corrupted or extorted at least two thirds of the city's police force. By rescuing the woman -- and, more significantly, killing multiple members of this gang, and accidentally allowing one of them to witness the attack and survive -- he had made her and himself targets. Had she managed to flee, the criminal organization would have easily and quickly tracked her down, for she knew nothing of evil, and hence did not know how to hide from it. (The fact that the witness had escaped with her wallet didn't help matters.)

He knew of a safe place where they could hide. It was an abandoned and dilapidated warehouse that he had stumbled upon eight months ago. It was a place devoid of human activity and hence of human evil. He planned to take the woman there, and keep her safe until he thought of a way to take out her hunters. The two were about fifteen minutes away from the warehouse; they simply had to drive around a nearby construction site.

He thought he heard a noise coming from the back of the van. He turned around to look, and did so just in time to see the woman's foot slam into his face. The van swerved, narrowly missed a thick steel pillar, and came to a sudden stop.

Every morning, the old man would walk down to the pier. He'd sit on a small wooden chair and stare out at the horizon.

When the sun was just starting to rise, he'd leave his home -- a small, single-story wooden house -- and walk down to his seat. It took him exactly fifteen minutes to arrive at the pier. When he got there, he'd just stand, motionlessly, gazing out at the sea. He'd stare, moving his eyes, inspecting the waters as if looking for something.

After several minutes, he'd look away, and slowly, he'd stagger over to his chair and sit. He'd remain in that chair for hours, never leaving for any reason. He'd arranged things so that he never had to leave; he paid local kids to bring him meals from nearby stores, and he kept a small radio near the chair, to keep up with the news. Everything was planned so that he could simply stare at the sunlit sea for hours.

Sometimes, he'd chat briefly with others who visited the pier. I've spoken to him a few times. It seems like he genuinely tries to make conversation, but he has trouble with it. When asked things, he always gives short answers that seem to raise more mysteries than they solve. He seemed lonely. More than anything else, I got the impression that he was waiting for something. Even when talking to me, he never took his eyes off the sea. The way he sat, the look in his eyes... It was like he was expecting something, something important. Something he couldn't afford to miss. This pier and these waters were his world, and he was waiting for it to change.

He would sit there -- waiting, staring intently at the ocean -- until nightfall. He'd watch the sunset, and then walk back up to his home to go to sleep.

...

The last time I saw him, he was sitting out on that chair, watching the sunset. A small boy ran up to him and gave him an envelope. He opened it, and read the letter inside. About halfway through, he froze. He stood up, slowly; it looked as though it took great effort just to avoid collapsing back into the chair. He stumbled up the hill and back to his house, walking slowly, as though his feet were made of lead and he barely had the strength to lift them.

That was two months ago. I haven't seen him on the pier since then.

He was a witness to the world.

He stayed in a large loft in an apartment building; windows on every side of the loft gave him a spectacular view of the urban decay that surrounded him. He had the eyes of a hawk, and spent his days just sitting at these windows, watching the streets below him. He never left the loft; his food was delivered to him from a local diner, and he paid for it and for his rent by working online. He'd made special arrangements with the diner's owner; money would be removed from his account, and food would be left at his door.

He was notorious to the local police; they knew him as a man who saw everything and said nothing. This man had witnessed more crimes than anyone else in the area, and yet he never once bothered to contact or cooperate with the authorities. Whenever a crime was committed around the loft, the man could always be seen at one of his windows, watching intently as a spectacle of utter brutality unfolded beneath him. And yet when questioned by police, he never said a word about the things he'd seen.

It seemed as though nothing could sway this man's inaction. Many times, the police had tried to convince the man to talk by showing him the aftermaths of what they knew he'd witnessed. He'd been shown photographs of bloodstains and bulletholes, of beaten and mangled bodies, of charred and burnt corpses, and though every photograph seemed to renew the deep sadness in his eyes, the only response the images ever provoked was, "I'm sorry, officers, but there's nothing I can do." Not even the tears of parents whose children had been kidnapped, not even the urgings of murder victims' loved ones, not even the desparate pleas of rape victims could lift the man's silence.

It was always the same response every time. The same words. The same sadness and emptiness in the man's eyes. He would always stare at the floor, lip quivering as if he were about to cry, and say, "I'm sorry, officers, but there's nothing I can do." Slowly, his hands shaking, he would reach up to the doorknob; he'd grasp it delicately, as if his bones were brittle and weak, and close the door with all the hesitance and caution of an old man whose body and mind had been ravaged by life itself.

From what I've been told, no one has seen the man since two weeks. He hasn't been spotted at any of his windows. No one has seen him leaving or entering his loft, and the door has always been locked.

Today, I was sent to deliver food to his loft; though no one had seen him in weeks, he still had money in his bank account, and he'd never canceled the food deliveries. When I arrived, I saw that envelopes -- presumably unread mail -- were overflowing out of the mail slot in his door. The door was slightly ajar.

I knocked once, waited, and heard no response. At this point, my curiosity had been thoroughly aroused; I pushed the door open, and walked inside. There was very little furniture in the loft. A single chair sat at each window. A desk, a chair, and a bed were positioned at the center of the room. A single picture and a stack of spiral notebooks lay on the desk.

I walked up to the desk and looked at the photo. It was burnt around the edges. The photo was vibrant and colorful, a sharp contrast to the other items in the loft; it showed the man sitting next to a woman. The two seemed happy and carefree. I turned the picture over; on the back, the man had scrawled in pen, "THERE'S NO USE".

I turned my attention to the stack of notebooks. The notebook at the top of the stack had had the word "CRIMES" scribbled on the top. I opened it and began to read. Each page described -- in vivid detail -- some terrible crime that the man had witnessed on the streets below. Realizing that the notebooks had been stacked in chronological order, I moved the book at the bottom of the stack to an empty part of the desk, and began to read it. The first page read,



Several burnt, twisted chunks of metal had been left in the margins of this page. A few of them were curved, and seemed to have been part of a wedding ring.

What I am is not what I wanna be
In the mirror is not what I wanna see
In my solitude's not where I wanna sleep
In the shadows is not where I wanna creep
For your pity is not where I wanna reach
An example is not what I wanna teach
On your patience is not what I wanna leech
On your happiness ain't what I wanna leech
For my future is not what I wanna fear
On this lonely road ain't where I wanna steer
My self-pity is not what I wanna hear
My self-pity is not what you wanna hear
For the darkness is not what I wanna cheer
Up for battle is not what I wanna gear
Up from sadness is not what I wanna tear
All I want is to get myself outta here
Just get outta here
Just get outta this place
All I want is to get outta this place
All I want is to get outta this face
All I want is to get outta this race

█████████████▓▓▒░

Sometimes at night
Or early morning
When I lie in my bed
I position my hand
And let it rest
Next to my head,
Palm upturned.

I try to imagine
What it would be like
To feel the hand of a lover
Lay in my hand.

I can't imagine it.

Every so often, he would glance at the woman in the back of the van. The woman, a redhead wearing a dark blue hoodie and jeans,A beautiful red-haired girl lay slumped against one of the vehicle's walls. Though dressed modestly, her simple everyday-jeans showcased her slender figure, and her over sized hoodie failed to mask her heaving chest. At first he felt bad about what he did, but he had had to knock her out.to maintain a low profile.

He drove carefully through the street; one had to drive at a very precise speed to avoid attracting the attention of criminals or law enforcement. He didn't dare to observe his surroundings; he kept his eyes on the road. (It's rather ugly looking to use two semicolon-sentences right next to each other, but no biggie) People with wandering eyes often met a very grisly fate here. He was choosing a long, winding path;(you seriously need to space your use of these out...) his priority was not a rapid arrival at his destination. He preferred to sacrifice speed in exchange for solitude, so he drove on roads that tended to have very little traffic; he knew that people were dangerous, and that it was better to avoid them as much as possible.

It was of critical importance that he find an isolated, secluded place, somewhere that people tended to avoid. Privacy and solitude were necessary for him to accomplish his goal. He chuckled to himself thinking of the ideas people would get seeing him right now. They would never guess him to be the good guy.

It was raining heavily, but he spotted not a single pedestrian wearing a raincoat or using an umbrella. Neither the people nor their accompanying evil seemed troubled by the downpour. Many of them seemed to be in denial, complaining about how blindingly bright and cloudless the sky was. It reminded him of a time months ago, when he'd seen a small girl -- no more than twelve years old -- stand and wait in the rain and bitter cold for several hours without displaying even the slightest bit of discomfort. He'd worried that she'd catch hypothermia, but nothing of the sort happened. She was perfectly fine. Eventually, however, bats began to encircle her. It was his first time seeing this type of Sign, so he didn't actually take it as one. When he saw what happened to her on the news, it was obviously too late.she was spotted by a few gang members who happened to be more sadistic than the norm, and he was too far away to intervene...

(He later learned that the girl had been waiting for her mother. She hadn't known that her mother had been shot to death after witnessing a murder hours earlier.)totally unnecessary

But this time, he had intervened knew what the bats meant as they circled the redhead. He saw them several minutes before their hosts arrived on the scene. By the time the criminals had got there, he'd managed to find a tire iron. When they ambushed the woman in the alley, he made short work of most of them... but one managed to escape there might have been more nearby. The woman tried to run as well; a fast but light blow to the head curtailed the attempt. he had to do it - the bats were still around her! After that, he had to steal an unattended van, and in a city where the average citizen is too afraid to contact the authorities for any reason, such a task was ridiculously easy.

In the interest of maintaining their own physical safety, the helpless sheep in this city deliberately ignored crime and therefore evil. He, however, watched it, unafraid. He bore witness to the heartlessness and malignance(not a word) of the criminals here. He'd watched such travesties for so long that he began to see evil itself. He could smell the sulfurous stench of sin as he drove through the city streets, and he could see the sickening spirits and shades of violence, rape, and death. He could see evil, and avoid it much more effectively than the sighted-yet-blind fools that called this city "home".

He was forced to observe evil day after day, and yet through willful ignorance, the average Joe was free to simply ignore it. So long as a person kept their head down, their eyes closed, and their mouth shut, they could remain safe and protected -- but he did not have that privilege. He had to watch the horrible things that people did to one another. He couldn't look away. The masses, the average ones, though, they could -- and he resented them for it. Furthermore, he believed that by looking the other way, these blind imbeciles condoned -- if not encouraged -- such horrors. It was that fact that had, years ago, turned his resentment into bitter hatred.

He resented the woman in the backseat of the van. He hated her. She was just another privileged, stupid fool. She knew nothing of evil. He had no sympathy for such people.

The sadists that had attacked the woman were members of an extremely ruthless street gang known for indiscriminate brutality and unprovoked attacks on women and children. This group was extremely organized and powerful, having corrupted or extorted at least two thirds of the city's police force. (get real) By rescuing the woman -- and, more significantly, killing multiple members of this gang, and accidentally allowing one of them to witness the attack and survive -- he had made her and himself targets. Had she managed to flee, the criminal organization gang would have easily and quickly tracked her down, for she knew nothing of evil, and hence did not know how to hide from it. (The fact that the witness had escaped with her wallet didn't help matters.)(we get it already)

He couldn't take her the police out of fear of what ideas they might have of him with an injured women he sort of kidnapped. He knew of a safe place where they could hide. It was an abandoned and dilapidated warehouse that he had stumbled upon eight months ago. It was a place devoid of human activity and hence of human evil. He planned to take the woman there, and keep her safe until he thought of a way to take out her hunters she woke up and could tell him how to drive her home. The two were about fifteen minutes away from the warehouse; they simply had to drive around a nearby construction site.

Taking her out of the car, he looked around to make sure they hadn't been followed. A smile briefly flashed across his face as he pictured what people would think if they saw him now, when it couldn't be more the opposite. Now looking down at her in his arms, he knew he underestimated just how attractive she was. While still unconscious being carried inside, she stirred a little relieving him that she was alright. A moan escaped her closed mouth has he set her on the floor, and her hand subconsciously grabbed his arm, sending a chill down his spine before she let go. He went around to secured the room, all the while glancing over at the girl. At first it was a look of love, but that quickly faded as the reality of the situation crept in. "She's going to freak out when she comes around. No 'thanks', just fear. She probably won't even remember exactly what happened, and blame me somehow. I had to do what I did! She's just like the rest of them, ignorant to the evil. It's not fair! She owes me for -" His train of thought is broken as bats begin to envelope the room. His instincts snap him back into that familiar state of mind. He runs to the window to see who has followed them, but how could they have? He was so careful! The empty landscape outside tells him that they weren't followed. He turns back in confusion. So it was just him and the redhead alone?

He begins to have ideas.