The world lives by chess, and chess lives by the world; on its silent squares, our fate is written.
My name is Angelo Nobell. I stand now at the edge of a mountain cliff. Only one step separates me from the path to heaven, to hell, to reincarnation, or some even more mysterious afterlife that a pitiful creature like a human cannot imagine. Yet the truth can only be known when it arrives: death.
Every newborn entering this world carries a pure, untainted soul and angelic wings of innocence, joy, and great ambition. But society and the system will do everything to clip those wings and plunge the child into eternal servitude.
Kindergarten, school, university, forming romantic ties, building families, raising children, work, retirement—this is the slave-like pattern by which almost all of humanity lives, and will continue to live.
From the very moment of my birth, they imposed their ideals and beliefs on me: what is good, what is bad; what to eat, what to drink; which God to worship; whom to love, and whom to hate.
Anyone could say I have achieved much, that I have become famous and influential. Yet I know the truth: all I have truly gained is not freedom, but just a small corner of this cage—a corner I could lose at any moment.
"What are you thinking, boy?"
A man's voice came from nowhere.
"You came, after all, Keller."
A faint, almost weary smile appeared on my face.