Prologue: The First Lesson

#1-This world is cruel. It will not coddle you. It will not help you. It will not mourn your passing. The only way to mark your existence on this world is to forge your own path through it, no matter what stands in your way.

My eyes slowly open, the effort impossible despite the ease of the task. What was I doing here? Who is this man, whose smile speaks of joy I'd never known? What happened? All I can remember is… fire and… screams. Faces of anguish reaching out for aid. And me, trudging aimlessly through the destruction, unable to hear. Unable to respond. Unable to do anything but move forward in search of… something. What was I looking for? My family? Who were they? They were important to me, but they were… Me? My name. I can't remember. It's so close, just out of reach. I am…

The man begins speaking, his words heard but almost indecipherable. I can't understand, but I'm certain he was thanking something. I'm a little jealous that he could be so happy, just having found someone. I wonder how the joy I see on his face can exist in this ashen wasteland.

I watch, barely comprehending, as the man's chest explodes outward toward me, blood splattering my face and clothes already caked in soot and more dried blood. The smile wavers before the man is brushed aside.

Another man, his right arm red and dripping, stands in his place. He also has a smile, but it's something much different. The same joy plays across his face, far more malicious than the other's could have ever been. The smile fades as he lays his eyes on me, mild interest taking its place. He kicks the other man's body further away and knelt closer to me.

He looks deeply into my eyes. I'm not sure what he sees there, but what I see is strange. His eyes seem… empty. Devoid of purpose, emotion, or desire. No, that's not right. Maybe at another time, but now there's… something. A yearning. The will to seek out something true. Something worth fighting for. A wish for fulfillment. It's… familiar and… captivating.

The man suddenly begins to laugh, standing up and drawing his right hand over the side of his head as if he was afraid it would be shaken off by the convulsions. I don't know why, but I want to be closer to that. That happiness.

I weakly stretch out my right hand, reaching for something that I can't yet conceptualize. Something to bring me that joy.

The man looks down at me, the same smile from before dancing on his face, before drawing his right hand away from it, showing bloody smears streaking across, and reaching down to grasp my hand.

"Tell me, my son," he asks me, kneeling down once more to lift me from the rubble I didn't realized I lay in. "What is your name?"

His deep, clear voice cut through the murk of my mind, and I'm finally able to grasp the name that had slipped from my mind so easily before. A small glimmer of clarity in the fog of my past. I remember. I rasp out the words, my life forever linked to that singular name.

"My… name is…"