The New Crusades

The West had fallen. Not in a single, cataclysmic event, but through a slow, rotting decay of hubris and corruption. The great cities, once beacons of progress, had crumbled into lawless ruins, their streets overrun by crime and despair. The people, for so long pacified by lies and empty promises, found themselves abandoned by the very leaders who had sworn to protect them. Politicians had become nothing more than grifters, parasites who fed on the last vestiges of a dying civilization, selling their people’s future for wealth and power.

What remained was ruin. The world had regressed into a second Dark Age, where knowledge was lost, and might made right. Gangs ruled the streets where laws had once reigned. The strong took what they wanted, while the weak either perished or served. Those who still remembered what civilization had once been clung to scraps of history, whispering of a time when justice meant something.

But despair did not reign forever. As the suffering deepened, so too did the will to fight. From the ashes of the fallen nations, a new movement began to rise—one that did not seek negotiation or compromise. The time for words had long passed. What the West had lost in complacency, it would reclaim in steel and fire. And so, the Crusades returned.

This was no holy war in the name of gods or kings. This was a war of survival, a war to take back what had been stolen. Across the broken land, warriors gathered—not soldiers of forgotten nations, but men and women who had nothing left to lose. They armed themselves with whatever they could find: rusted swords, scavenged rifles, makeshift armor crafted from the ruins of their past.

They rode under no single banner, but they fought with a single purpose: to reclaim the world that had been taken from them. They marched through the broken streets, through the wastelands of shattered cities, bringing swift justice to the corrupt, the tyrants, and the parasites that had bled civilization dry. Their battle cries echoed through the night, shaking the ruins with the fury of the forgotten.

The old order had led the world into ruin. The new order would rise from its ashes. And this time, the people would not be so easily deceived. The Crusades had begun again—not for a god, not for a nation, but for the very soul of the fallen West.

 

Disruption

The streets were no longer safe—not because of crime in the traditional sense, but because of something far more insidious. Paid agitators were everywhere, dispatched like a plague to disrupt the lives of ordinary citizens. They flooded grocery stores, blocking aisles and creating chaos at checkout lines. They staged riots at fuel stations, turning every gas run into a potential battleground. They obstructed traffic, surrounding cars with snarling faces and slogans that changed by the day, each one carefully designed to incite anger and despair.

The goal was never justice, nor reform, nor even protest in its true form. It was disruption. The kind that ground daily life to a halt and made people long for order—any order, no matter how oppressive. Fear crept into the hearts of the populace like a sickness, and soon, they whispered among themselves about how things used to be. How life was once predictable. How they used to walk their streets without the risk of being confronted, harassed, or attacked for no reason other than existing.

But that was the point. The architects of this new chaos wanted people to feel helpless, to long for someone—anyone—to step in and take control. They wanted to wear them down, make them beg for relief, so that when the answer finally came, wrapped in the guise of authority, the people would welcome it with open arms.

And so, the agitators continued their work. Paid well, protected by those in power, and untouchable by the law. They had become the foot soldiers of a revolution that was never meant to be for the people, but against them.

 

Grifter's Last Stand

The grand halls of the Capitol, once echoing with rehearsed speeches and empty promises, had become the stage for a full-blown panic. The air was thick with desperation as career politicians, their pockets lined with taxpayer money funneled through shell agencies and bloated bureaucracies, scrambled to preserve their cash cow.

The reform movement had started as a whisper—a quiet demand for accountability—but it had grown into a storm. Auditors, armed with ledgers and subpoenas, marched through government offices like an occupying force, peeling back layers of corruption so deep that even seasoned grifters were caught off guard.

For decades, these agencies had existed as nothing more than glorified money pits, siphoning billions under the guise of public service. Fake initiatives, redundant programs, and consulting contracts that led nowhere—each was a carefully crafted scheme to reward allies and secure endless reelection funds. Now, with every audit, another lifeline was severed.

The reaction from the guilty was as predictable as it was pathetic. In the Senate chamber, filibusters dragged on for hours, not out of principle, but out of sheer terror. Red-faced politicians spewed nonsense, stalling votes with rants about manufactured crises and impending doom should their pet agencies be shut down. In the streets, paid agitators—riled up by backdoor deals with activist groups—were unleashed, their chants conveniently aligning with the interests of those who had looted the nation for years.

The media, ever obedient to the hand that fed it, parroted the narrative of “dangerous extremism” against those daring to expose the corruption. Talking heads screeched about "attacks on democracy" while conveniently ignoring the fact that the agencies in question had done nothing but drain the public dry.

But the people had seen too much. They had watched their wealth disappear, their communities crumble, and their futures be sold off piece by piece. The reformers were relentless, and no amount of screaming, stalling, or manufactured outrage could stop what was coming. The golden era of unchecked grift was crumbling, and the rats in the system knew it.

 

Serenity on the Open Sea

Upon the tide so vast and free,

A tallship sails with quiet grace,

Her canvas full, her bow cuts clean,

Through sapphire waves in calm embrace.

The wind it whispers through the shrouds,

A lullaby both soft and deep,

The masthead points to drifting clouds,

As sun-kissed waters rock to sleep.

The salted air, so fresh and pure,

Doth fill the lungs with ocean's breath,

A sailor's heart beats strong and sure,

As worries fade to peaceful death.

The creaking timbers hum a tune,

A song of journeys yet untold,

Beneath the watchful eye of moon,

The sea bestows her gifts of gold.

No tempest roars, no breakers call,

Just endless blue in boundless sweep,

A world where time itself stands still,

Where dreams and waking silence meet.

At dusk, the sky ignites with fire,

A canvas brushed in crimson hue,

The ship sails on, her heart inspired,

Beneath a vault of starry blue.

O gentle sea, so vast, so wide,

Your tranquil arms embrace the brave,

Who ride the wind and trust the tide,

Upon your ever-rolling wave.

 

Solitude of the Sea

The waves arrive, then fade away,

no voice to call, no need to stay.

A breathless hush, a whispered sigh,

beneath the vast and empty sky.

The moonlight shimmers, cold and bright,

a silver path through endless night.

Yet none may walk, nor none may be,

the keeper of this silent sea.

The rocks stand firm, the tides still turn,

old lessons lost, no soul to learn.

The echoes crash, then fade to none—

a song unsung, a race unrun.

No footprints grace the shifting sand,

no grasping mind, no reaching hand.

Only the gull, adrift, alone,

rides on the wind, a ghost unknown.

No past to mourn, no fate to find,

no weight of hope, no tethered mind.

The sea just is—no less, no more,

no distant dream, no distant shore.

And so it waits, untouched, untamed,

with nothing held and none to blame.

It needs no watcher, seeks no name,

forever vast, forever same.

A drifting soul may stand and stare,

yet silence speaks—no wisdom there.

The sea does not, the sea will be,

a boundless thought, a thought set free.