I remember trees, trees upon trees. Heh… I was a boy when it happened, my father had entrusted me to a maid of unparalleled cruelty. My mother had died before my birth, Heh… actually it’s true… the birth had been too much for her, when I made my first cry, she had long since passed, by my standards at least. My father had been absent mainly, and the Maid had been a monster from the start, her silent abuses whispered into my wondering and wrinkled face were the first, I cannot remember the words… but her face, and her eyes, and the way she grinned like a grimace. As I grew the abuse continued, my bruises were blamed upon the age old fashionable story. “Boys will be boys” “That nasty boy Thomas, what did he do to you?”. Thomas; well... actually… No, that’s long in the past. I was a young man before she was released from my father’s service, she had seemed only disappointed, and my father had seemed only pleased. I’ll never forget the look in his eye… Like he knew. And then… *Flash* No more trees Everything was gone, and everyone with it and I became what I am in this waste-heap of filth and toxic decay. Today, I hiked for what I estimate is 9 miles. I am 65 years old by suns reckoning. How the radiation and elements haven’t killed me yet, I don’t know. But I have known, only freedom because of it. Freedom, to see the death of the world and to wonder how the few survived, I feel so cheated… I hated them, I hated them all. Those that let my life be what it is. In every aspect of the world, I feel no love for humanity, no devil, angel or human could dissuade the black and unholy hatred in my breast for all people. and funnily enough when my heart had truly blackened did I find a door, and vile gods… It spoke to me. I waited by the door. It’s earthen, almost mystical. I wonder what could have made such a thing. Two massive doors of ochre rock, symbols and inscriptions line its pillar-frame… And it keeps whispering to me, asking me to open it. I asked it what it wanted but it spoke only in strange cryptic riddles, I have no idea how to open such a thing, nor am I capable. But, something inside me says I have found something truly remarkable, could this be a way out? Out of what? This world? I have weapons that could easily do the trick with a single slug; and what of the whisper? What would I be letting out… The cave is still warmer, and I’ve gathered enough firewood for today. I’ll camp here for the night. And still it keeps whispering, and now it knows my name... that wretched name that my father gave me when he first lifted me with a smoldering anger in his eyes. I don't know what it wants but it asks wonders of a meager tool.