The Hymns of the Forgiven

In a circle sat the sentenced,
The thieves, the liars, the cheats,
All alone in a forsaken place.
Cast off from their former lives,
Fit only to live amongst each other,
Eternally forgotten;
And all at once their heads turned towards the fog.
As loud as thunder,
As soothing as rain,
A song began to play.
The Song of the Silenced,
The Ballad of the Broken,
In tune, the outcasts looked away in shameful tears;
But something led their gaze back.
In sync, they realized.
As one they rose and left their forever home,
For they knew now what was calling to them:
The Hymns of the Forgiven.

A scattered mess they began their trek,
Yearning for the song that blessed their ears.
In front walked a man of great poise,
Falsely accused of terrible crimes.
His heart,
Heavy from the life he was forced to live,
Raced with their pace,
Excited with Hope.

As the sun,
Dimmed by the untouched dust thrown up by their footsteps,
Passed beyond the horizon they parked their journey.

Still in front Innocence continued his walk,
Unaware of his comrades stop.
When finally he turned back,
His body weak,
He could see only the fires of their camp illuminating the sky with an orange glow.

“My friends!”
He called at the top of his lungs,
The words as loud as an army’s battle cry.
Without pause they all rushed to his side,
Eager for his great presence.
“Do not stall this journey for redemption!
Follow the music,
It will not let you rest.
Allow it to drive you so we all may once again laugh with our children,
Cry with our brothers,
And lie with our lovers.

His words,
As rejuvenating as sleep,
Drove them to continue their march.
The stars,
Free of clouds,
Lit their way as their ears and Innocence guided them.

All around them was desert,
A foreboding wasteland of blood red sand.
Scattered amongst the dunes were skeletons of men,
Constantly hopeful in their time,
But now a simple demonstration of the terrors of the guilty.

Their feet tired and heads heavy the party began slowing their walk.
Even Innocence,
His eyes still bold and limbs still strong,
Longed for a bed and a night with dreams.

Hidden away Sleep and his brother,
The Reaper,
Death himself,
Watched as the men settled by a fire to rest.
Ignorant to the doom that was lurking behind their eyelids,
The bold-eyed hero and his followers fell victim to Sleep’s cunning.

Death,
Excited by his newest victims,
Smiled wildly as he walked amongst the hopeful men,
Stealing five of forty and seven.

With their task done the two brothers,
Satisfied by their treachery,
Hurried off to crush another’s spirit.

As Her Majesty the moon neared the end of her route and her king rose up behind her,
A constant chase of doomed lovers destined only to be together when their cycles intertwine,
Great Innocence rose from his tampered slumber,
Mortified by the state of his fellows.

Death had made his mark and without Mercy’s embrace his cousins,
Chaos and Disorder,
Swept across the men,
Drowning them in Sorrow’s ocean.

“They won’t get away without fighting, brother.”
Death said to Sleep as they watched their relatives unleash upon the forsaken.
All but strong-limbed Justice were in a panic,
Running to and fro like excited children.
Innocence,
With all his grace and poise,
Could do nothing to settle the riot of fright.
He sat in the midst of the men he sought to bring with him to a new life,
Watching them come undone like a long-strained knot.

Finally,
His mind finally piecing together the treachery of the Powers,
He stood once more with his friends,
Calling their attention with a recently lost and recovered sense of optimism.
“The family of Perils is trying to keep us entrapped in this land of Chaos!
They’ve won our minds already with fright,
Driving us into madness and away from redemption!
Please, brothers and sisters!
Come back to sanity!”