How do you escape a nightmare when it haunts your every waking moment? What do you do when you can't get a wink of sleep or even shut your eyes because the images you know you'll see when you do scare you to death? How do you cope when the only people who could ever have a glimmer of hope of pulling you out of the suffocating depression you've locked yourself in aren't ever going to be there anymore? How do you move on from a traumatic experience when everything in your life that you ever knew has been ripped away? The answer is simple. You don't.

People always say that with time the pain goes away, or at least eases up on you. But it's not true. It gets worse. I can remember everything as clearly as the day it happened and the pain hasn't numbed one bit. I still feel like there's a gaping hole in my chest where my vital organs should be. It's been almost a decade since my happy little world burned around me while I could do nothing watch. Death doesn't give you a warning. It snatches people from this world to the next without caring about what is being left behind or the lives that it just shattered.

Sometimes it hits you like a moving train, leaving you to wallow in the agony it left behind for you. When you watch the people you cared about most in this life slip away from you, you never forget it. I never will. I'll never forget the fear on my mother's face as she screamed and reached up for a hand that she knew wasn't there. I'll never forget the choking sound I made as I almost dove off the platform after her. I'll never forget the sound of their bodies hitting the ground, snapping bones, turning organs to mush. In the back of my nine year old mind, I knew then they weren't coming back. I watched them die, the image of their mangled bodies covered in their own blood burned in my mind ever since. It hasn't left me and most likely it never will.

That was the day my childhood ended. Ever since then, I've woken up each morning and looked in the mirror, searching for that innocence that my eyes used to hold. I look each day for that little boy that once knew how to laugh, only to find that he's long gone. The eyes I see staring back at me have seen far too much for the short life they've lived.

I learned at nine years old that life isn't guaranteed. Sometimes you don't get a tomorrow. Second chances aren't always an option. When my family was ripped away from me, I learned life wasn't all rainbows and laughter. There are real monsters in the world, and if you don't keep yourself strong enough you'll get eaten alive.

So I trained. I pushed myself harder than I thought was ever possible and whenever I failed, I picked myself up and went right back at it. I didn't let myself cry or break down. I didn't let anyone in enough for them to hurt me. I wouldn't let myself break down and cry because that would mean that I wasn't strong enough. It would mean that I failed, and failure isn't an option.

I put on a mask so long ago that I don't even know what's underneath it anymore, but I know what isn't. Dick Grayson died a long time ago. I'm not him anymore, no matter how much I want to be.

Author's Note: This is an unfinished work that I've had sitting on my computer for ages. I don't plan on finishing it so don't ask me to. I feel like it's incomplete, and it's just going to have to stay that way.

I just thought I'd post it, since it's really going nowhere and I like the way I phrased certain things. Whatever.

It's one of my more angsty works, but I really like it. Hope you all enjoyed reading! Leave a review if you want. Hehe...