Prologue

Have you ever noticed how words look like their meanings? Intellectual, for example, is long, with consonants together and almost totally unpronounceable to those still learning. Simple. Smile. Laugh. Cry. Sob. Scream. Sigh. Take the time, and after while things take on the image of what they stand for. Next time you feel some indescribable thing or an emotion you have never felt before, name it yourself. See if it takes on the image of the meaning you have given it.

Hate and Love. One closed, harsh looking. Hate. Hate. Hate. Then comes Love. Notice the open sound. Love. They could be mantras. Two of the strongest emotions, and yet both are used so casually. Whole worlds can be created, on personal or huge scales, around these two small four letter words. Both can cause death, destruction, and although maybe not peace, both can give an inner satisfaction. Love can make the good times great, the bad times bearable, but also the good and bad times unbearable and hellish. Unrequited love. Loss of love. Loss of the one you love.

Hate is complex. It gives satisfaction. To hate is to have someone or something on which all your woes, anger and aggression can be blamed. All that is bad, all that you wish were gone. To have something to hate with such passion as I have known is to dissolve all your blame, consume all sadness, to be replaced with a fiery anger that is easier to deal with and something that can be reacted against. To hate something truly you don't need a reason. More often than not, when people really hate, there is no reason, or else they can't remember it. To hate this much needs love. The hatred I knew was not justified hatred. I had no right to hate like this. I did not even know why. I had never met those I hated, until that moment in battle where my sword would greet them with a swift kiss of death. But I loved it. To hate like this takes training. And I got it. I learned to fall madly in love with the bitter feeling. To be all consumed by it and to see everything through rose coloured glasses because I needed that feeling. It is a safety blanket that you rely on to dictate all other emotions and relationships. It becomes a wonderful drug, your faith and religion and world. And my world was turned upside down. I thought my life was hard. But it hadn't mattered before; I had my hate to power me on. I still loved, or so I thought. I had my friends. But we were only linked by common loathing and cowardice.

When you face up to that cowardice, when you make your first decision not dictated by hate, it is the hardest, most confusing decision of you life and the deepest turmoil of hell does not compare to your mind. I thank my stars that not everyone goes through it. I don't think many would survive.