Warriors (gotta rewrite this when I have time, maybe as a free verse poem)

 Ever since my mind invented the concept of the Warriors, my young heart wanted nothing more than to abandon my stressful life as a university student in an overcrowded, polluted city to run away to the forest and join them. Everything about them was appealing to my rebellious, nonconformist mind. They wore camouflage. They had masks. And guns. Even though they were a band of outlaws, they had wonderful morals and guiding principles. I fell in love with them because I simply didn’t want to cry anymore. I didn’t want to stress about my finances, my grades, my relationships with other people or my abysmally low levels of self-esteem. I just wanted to live off the land and fight for justice. I wanted to prevent cruelty and evil things from befalling good, innocent people. The Warriors were the fantasy that got me through the awful, lonely nights. I was convinced that such a group must exist somewhere- an armed resistance against capitalism, the state, and everything else I didn’t like that caused me to worry about my future. 

At first, it was great that I had something to motivate me. I tried to keep my grades up and exercise regularly so that I could impress the Warriors in my head. When men broke up with me, I decided the reason was because they weren’t anything like the Warriors. And I found it easy to recover emotionally from those situations because I decided they weren’t good enough for me. Or they would’ve had long hair, strong arms, and known how to fight yet still have amazing levels of emotional intelligence and could say exactly the right words to make me feel better when I was sad. Yet what initially started off as a coping method for feelings of hopelessness and shame started to develop into something I believed as fiercely as some defend religious dogma. Friends started thinking I was going too far with the whole warrior fantasy thing and started pushing me away. 
Yet for about a year, the girls in my class obsessed over kpop stars while I worshipped the Warriors.
But a voice inside my head somehow held me back from venturing out in the woods in search of the heroic antifascist militia. Part of me knew I had my own life to live in the city. My own duties and responsibilities. I had a family and school. I had a part time job and a small but closely-knit circle of friends. What would become of them if I cut them all off to indulge in my escapist fantasy? 
I came to my senses after about a year or so of dreaming about the Warriors each night. I was still in love with the idea of them, but I expressed my devotion through my writing and art rather than actually believing they exist and making fiction interfere with my everyday life. My friends and family members were relieved that I seemed to regain the ability to distinguish reality from fantasy. My therapist told me that periods of change were especially hard for me to deal with, which is why this strange coping mechanism developed during my first year of university. Now that my situation was more stable, the thoughts about the warriors went away. 
So for a time the only instances in which I would mention the Warriors would be if someone asked me what my ideal kind of guy was. Or if I was in a creative writing or art club and I was brainstorming for ideas.
But then the Plague of 2020 came. It was slow at first. Many people died, but the government still managed to maintain order. All over the world, scientists scrambled to create a vaccine. But their effort was fruitless. The virus spread until it was impossible to even go to a grocery store for essential items without catching it. It mutated rapidly, becoming both more contagious and deadly. By 2023, it had become difficult to protect the law and order. It was not uncommon for armed break-ins into people’s houses to occur. The worst part was, you couldn’t even really hate some of the criminals. They were just trying to provide for their family in a world where food was scarce and you had to steal to survive. But violence also grew widespread as people competed for resources. Even if the virus didn’t kill me, I expected that something else would.
I wasn’t prepared for when a group of robbers broke into my house. I hid in a closet, silent enough to hear my own racing heartbeat. I felt like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. One by one, the bodies of my family hit the floor when they tried to resist. They were no match for an armed band of thieves. I am an atheist, but I still prayed. 
I had to jump out of a window when they set the building on fire to escape. 
When I withdrew into my fantasy again, it was because I had nothing left except for Hope. And Hope for me was the Warriors. 
I set out into the forest, ill-prepared and clueless. I no longer feared death, so I acted recklessly. I made no effort to protect myself from the elements. My skin was ravaged by insect bites. Soon I was on the brink of starvation and I looked like a walking corpse. My skin was pale enough to see every vein in my body. My hair was thin as cobwebs. My tongue was swollen and I longed for water.
When I was found, my words were delirious and incoherent. Yet I still spoke of the Warriors with every breath. 
My vision was blurry, and when I came to my senses I noticed that the men who discovered me were large and muscular. They dressed in camouflage. They wore masks. And they had guns. It was the Warriors! I knew they had to exist somewhere. 
They were well-stocked with supplies. I reached out my arm in the direction of their water. But they didn’t offer me any. 
It was then that it struck me that these men only looked like the Warriors of my dreams. They did not act like them. And they did not have any strong convictions as I imagined. They were just opportunists.
The biggest one barked a command to the others to take me as a prisoner rather than to welcome me as a guest. That’s not how the Warriors are supposed to work. They aren’t supposed to have a leader. In my vision, every one of them is equal. 
No one ever made me feel so humiliated. Not even the burglars who attacked my house. It felt like the whole universe was playing a cruel joke on me. And now I didn’t even have a sliver of Hope left.