Enderal:Yero's Memorial Book
Beloved Sira,
This is my final letter to you, and I'm writing it to ask you for your forgiveness. Forgiveness for murdering you ... because that's what I've done. I can very well imagine how you would react to this if you were still alive ... you'd smile, shake your head, and tell me that this was one of my "moments," when I tend to blow everything out of proportion. But as much as I would like to believe that -- you'd be mistaken.
No, it wasn't me who ended your life. But I still bear the responsibility, for it was I who let it come this far. Why? Because I was the one who deceived you. I was the one who told you those ridiculous tales of heros and idealists. It was I who told you that only cowards give up, and it was I who infected you with all these ideas of mine, which were no more than foolish illusions. I see it now, clearer than ever, but I didn't then, because I made a mistake: the mistake of thinking that this world wants to be saved.
It sounds trite, doesn't it? But the more you think about it, the more apparent it becomes: it doesn't. It never did and it never deserved it anyway. And yes, I can imagine what you'd say to that, too: that I became what we always loathed. But Sira, just look around! Look around, and confront reality; confront the world we live in! Look at how much we have and how little we appreciate it; look at how we could work together, but we fight wars instead; look at how we could choose love, but instead choose hatred. It's never been different, Sira - and no, there's no hope, no matter how much we tell ourselves there is. And... it hurts me to write this, it really does. But it's the truth, plain and simple, and I'm tired of clouding my mind with all of these lies we tell ourselves, again and again, just to avoid confronting the obvious: mankind is at its end.
A Qyranian philosopher once wrote that there's a point in our lives when we make a choice: the choice either to live valiantly, but in austerity, or to live corruptly, but in pleasure. The latter is what this philosopher calls "choosing the void," because that is what's behind the surface of the supposed "attractiveness" of it.
And do you see where I'm going, Sira? All of them, all of these numbheaded fools around us chose the void. We were among the few who didn't; among the few who dreamed of something more, and who were willing to sacrifice for it, and we might even have succeeded if we HADN'T BEEN ALONE! But we were, Sira. We were alone.
And now they all talk of a "Red Madness" that infects our minds! Madness? It's so simple, don't you see it? They realize what they have chosen; they realize that their lives are devoid of sense, of purpose, and they can no longer look away from the truth: that they and their cowardice, that they and their ignorance shaped a world with nothing in it worth living for!
And no, I do not say this lightly; you should know this better than anyone else. I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe that there's a way; that we had only to try hard enough ... but what I see here, your withered body, shows me that all of our plans were doomed from the start. We should have fled, to some remote island to become old together ... but we didn't, and now I'm here with your blood on my hands, all because I infected you with my folly. I'll go, Sira. I don't know whether something awaits me after death or whether it's just darkness, and to be honest - I don't care.
But before I go, I'll give this world what it deserves. Do you remember what I wrote? They had the choice between virtue and void, and they chose the latter.
They shall have it.
