Prologue: Past and Future

I was looking for you in the war room.

The faint glow from the monitors cast a shadow on the central table. The seats were exactly as we left them, yet for some reason, I can still imagine everyone sitting around. Strange how memories bend and decay over time, emotions without shape. Even when you find it again, you can never convince yourself that it was exactly as you left it.

A call. Your name echoed off the fractured walls, leaving only the crackling of static, interrupted by the occasional beeping. The wires hung down from the ceiling, flowing, splintering. I think you were right— the flashing lights were always too bright for my eyes.

And to think it hasn’t been that long since I found you. Why is it that I feel like we’ve lived eons since? Picking up my worst habits. Staying up late, drinking, and talking to the sifting shadows. Laughing while cleaning the blood from your hands. Maybe I am a bad influence after all.

I wish someone would have told me that these things don’t announce themselves. After that day, I feel like I’ve been stuck with a strange sense of…emptiness. It floats and stumbles, just like the night sky breaking through the smog. I’m still hopeful that one day we’ll make it there—The Summit. I think I’m sick of this place. The grey sky and the miserable atmosphere like everyone's just waiting for the Scourge to take them. While you might not class it as reaching fulfilment, it sure as hell is freedom.

Everyone has things they can’t tell other people. Every human, monster, spirit, you name it. But I know you’re hiding things from me. And I know there’s probably a good reason, after all, sometimes things are better left unsaid. If you grab the thought and bury it deep, as deep as the very corners of your soul, and we tell ourselves things aren’t spiralling out of control, does that make them so?

I thought the world was losing its colour. The Scourge seeping through the cracks of the concrete walls. But ever since you came to this world, you’ve made me think, even for a second, if it was only the lens I was watching it through. It’s hard to find the right words. Thanks. I think that’s what I meant. Thanks for helping me get here.

I know you’re still searching. I hope that you never stop searching. I hope you wake up every day with that glint of hope that always shines in your eye. It kind of makes me jealous that you can see the world in such a…soulful way. But equally, I want you to give up one day. Sounds contradictory, doesn’t it? I want you to wake up one morning and simply let go.

Why? I want you to live for yourself. Not for anyone else. Just for you. If you spend your whole life searching, you’ll lose your chance to belong anywhere. 

There are still many questions. Maybe more questions than there are answers. But I’m confident you can find them and drag those secrets into the light.

It’s what you're best at after all.