WARNING: The photos below contain graphic content that some may find morbid and disturbing. I tried to lay the photos out from less troubling to most devastating but if you are even slightly sensitive, this may be one Geek Slop article you may wish to skip.

15 photos that will shatter your heart and scar your soul forever

The collection of emotional photos below are devastatingly heartbreaking for various reasons. Some portray horrifyingly sad human situations while some capture the distressing brutality of mankind. In some the story behind the photo reveals a poignant situation that may not be immediately recognized from the photo alone. In all, the photograph will be permanently etched into your mind becoming a part of your soul forever.

The photo below shows Beatles savant, John Lennon, signing an autograph for Mark David Chapman just three hours before Chapman shot him dead.

The photo below was shot in 2009 and shows a fireman, who was in the midst of battling the Black Saturday brushfires in Victoria, Australia, stopping to give a distressed koala bear a much-needed drink of water.

A polar bear in captivity.

A giraffe in captivity mistakes a mural on the wall for a real tree.

The photo below was shot within minutes of the conclusion of a 23-hour heart transplant surgery and shows an exhausted heart surgeon just moments after the successful surgery. His assistant is sleeping in the back corner of the room.

Photographer Anne Berry spent years travelling to small zoos from Germany to South Africa photographing intimate portraits of captive primates. The photo below shows a young primate waiting in an enclosure before being locked in his new home (a cage).

A young girl who was a regular at this restaurant had noticed that the man below ate lunch at the restaurant each day. She noted that before he began each meal, he removed a picture and placed it on the table. The young girl summoned enough nerve to approach the man and ask about the situation. The photo is of course, a picture of him and his wife, who had died five years ago.

This photo captured a dog mourning on the grave of its deceased owner.

The girl below grew up in a concentration camp in Poland in 1948. After being rescued from the horrors of the camp, she was placed in a home for “disturbed children”. The photo below captured the moment she was asked to “draw a picture of home”.

Terri Gurrola is reunited with her daughter after serving in Iraq for 7 months.

This heartbreaking photo was captured in 2012 in Zhangzhou, China and depicts a loyal male dog who refused to leave the side of his dead companion. Witnesses say the male dog stood guard for six hours, nudging her with his nose and trying to revive her by licking her head.

Archaeologists in Italy unearthed two 5,000-year-old skeletons locked in a love embrace forever freezing the moment in time that they perished together.

A news photographer captured this photo of World Trade Center victims hanging from the windows of Tower 1 on 9-11, pleading for help. Many jumped to their deaths before being burned or crushed in the collapse of the tower.

The photo below won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 and depicts a starving girl in South Sudan crouched in pain. Journalists were instructed not to touch any of the victims of the famine in order to avoid transmission of disease. The photographer who captured the event, Kevin Carter, was so overcome with sadness and guilt, he committed suicide 3 months later.