My name is faril.
I am 12 years old.
The world I live in... is ruined.
Full of life, but without soul or beauty.
Everything in it is savage creatures — creatures driven by one instinct: to kill.
I lived with my grandfather, flogo.
He told me the old world used to be beautiful before people who wanted its fake beauty destroyed it.
They caused the Black Catastrophe that took the world's beauty away.
It was hard to believe what he said, because all that exists in this world are deserts that stretch to the horizon with their black sands.
Beauty wasn't the only thing my grandfather spoke of that I found hard to believe. There were other things I couldn't accept.
Oceans... mountains... forests... and he spoke especially of things he called flowers, and he said they were among the most beautiful things in the world.
I didn't find it hard to believe those things because I had never seen them — but because I didn't understand why, if such beautiful things existed, anyone would destroy them.
My grandfather told me that my parents worked in a profession from the old world called a gardener, and what they did was care for those things he called plants, and that flowers were plants.
I didn't like hearing his stories.
I didn't care about my parents — I had never seen them.
I couldn't stand it when he spoke of beautiful things.
Why did he tell me?
Did he want me to be jealous that I never saw that beauty?
I didn't love my grandfather.
But I didn't hate him either.
I think that's the feeling people call attachment.
I didn't love him, I didn't hate him, but I didn't mind staying with him forever.
We lived by a fire we lit with the dead, black wood of trees in a tent made from cloth he had sewn himself; it was relatively large.
We ate small furry animals that were common, which I named the faliz. My grandfather said they resembled creatures called squirrels, but the Black Catastrophe had changed their shape like it had changed the rest of the world.
We drank black water that came from black rain; it was drinkable but it tasted bad and bitter.
I had lived like that since I was born.
Where were my parents?
I didn't know.
And I didn't care.
As long as I lived, I wouldn't ask things that didn't matter to me.
I wanted to live like that forever... with my grandfather.
But my grandfather betrayed me.
He died.
His last words on his deathbed were about the flowers and telling me once more about the beauty of the old world.
I hated sitting and listening to him all that time.
I wanted him to change the subject.
And he did.
He coughed and said, "Faril, I know this life is enough for you, and that you don't want to know anything about your parents, but if you want to learn more about beauty, there is a letter from your father under my bed. Read it after I die and make your choice."
Those were his last words.
I couldn't dig a grave as deep as I should have, but I did what I could and surrounded it with stones.
Then I went to his bed and found a box; inside was that letter.
I didn't understand why.
I don't want to know more about beauty, or about my parents, but my body moved on its own.
I think this is what they call curiosity.
What did my father want me to know?
What is in the letter?
To be continued...
Next chapter: faril's oasis