Last Rose in a Desert Garden : A Poem of Sadness by Jonas Kyratzes Inspiration for the PC Game of the Same Title * * * When I was but a child in my mother's lap, the world was a place of beauty so great that it could not be put into words, a beauty so complete that a man's eyes could see only pieces of it, for his mind would shatter if he saw it whole. Perhaps it was that which caused the beauty of the world to be broken. I remember how I sat in a green garden with my mother and listened to her voice as she told me of the many wonders of the world. Her eyes are all that I can recall -blue like the sea- and a poem that she used to read to me in those misty mornings of my life. It was a poem that brought joy to the heart and the mind, as it talked of the world as a garden of life in which man was the rose. But alas, that poem has been forgotten and only an echo of its beauty remains, hidden in the depths of my soul. But those beautiful first days of my life were shattered far too soon and now nothing remains of them but whispers blown away like ashes by the wind. That fateful day my mother held me in her arms singing a lullaby, a song of peace and love, as she walked around that beautiful and seemingly eternal garden. She stood like the prey in front of the predator, knowing there was no escape when the fires came. Fires from the hearts of men without souls, that devoured the earth, leaving a dead wasteland. When the great fires died away, taking with them all memories of peace, love and hope, darkness rose ; not the darkness of the night that covers like a warm blanket, but a darkness that enveloped everything with a cold and sinister touch. In those years of night and despair, my mother gave her last drops of life so that I might live - for she was of the old world and still believed in hope .When she passed away, finally finding peace in a land that was torn apart by the last remnants of a once great race, with her died the last glimmer of hope. In the new world, pain and fear ruled. Hate became a way of life. The garden of life, once so full of beauty, had been turned into a desert. One day, a long time after the day the flames came, the sky started crying, and it wept for the earth and all its creatures for more than a year. The few of those creatures that had not been scorched believed that now the garden would grow anew. And when they saw that it did not, they were angered and turned on each other. I had been a lonely wanderer since the cold darkness had claimed my mother. The days of the rain were the ones that made my heart turn to steel engraved with a single word, blazing in hot fire : LIVE. That absolute purpose in my life made me keep on looking for food in the ruins, made me find the last plants still alive. I traveled from village to village, trading what I found on my travels across the desert for scraps of food. I rarely talked and rarely thought, for if my heart could feel the sadness of the world, it would die of pain and sorrow. Slowly emotions were ground to dust and forgotten. There was no meaning in the world and I was only a husk, a ghost or a ghoul forced to travel the burned earth forever. During the first days after the fiery genesis of the new world I still encountered villages on my travels. Yet every time I found another one of those small havens of life, they were smaller and smaller. Disease and hunger were the end of the last roses in the desert garden. On the day that the sky went dry of tears, I found my way back to a village that I had always believed a place of safety, and found nothing - emptiness. Since that day twenty long and meaningless years have passed, and there is no soul on the earth but me and my ghosts. I walk. Endless desert. Red sand everywhere. The sun is hot and burning my skin, but I do not feel it. I feel nothing but emptiness and a certain sadness. I walk for hours without end, but time means nothing to me. There is no end to my pain. I walk. Endless desert. Red sand everywhere. The sun is setting slowly, painting the sky red as blood. It is getting colder as the last light dies away. I walk. Endless desert. Blankets of cold cover the earth. I walk. Endless desert. Eternal loneliness. I sit. The sand is warm and I cover myself with it, encase myself in the womb of the world. I wait. My body is warm in the sand but my head is still outside in the cold. I wish I could become one with the sand, be warm and forgotten. I walk. Endless desert. I find a plant and consume it, destroying another one of earth's chances to live again. I am no different than my ancestors. I am a cold fire scorching everything alive in its way. I am death. I walk. Endless desert. Then I see something to the east. The sun burns through my eyes into my mind, but indeed it seems that there is a building. A single building in the red desert. I feel an indefinable feeling inside me. It feels as if something is trying to come out, a spring hidden beneath the dry ground. I run. Infinity seems to pass until I reach my destination. Tears fill my eyes for the first time in two decades. When I see the building rising out of the ground like a metal mountain, the spring is born, water breaks free and I feel a river of cold sparkling water inside me. A rose blooms - the last rose, more beautiful than anything in the wide world. Hope. During the first days I had heard legends of it. Madmen had come out of the deep desert, speaking of it, a place of safety built by the people of the Old World. The Vault. Slowly I approach the entry, a metal door that seems to be the gateway to heaven. It slides open with a screeching sound that rings in my ears like the singing of angels. This is my destination. After so long, I have finally found my kin again and I will no longer be alone. As mankind was wiped out in a second, so are my hopes when I enter the vault. What seemed like an entrance to heaven, was nothing but an illusion, the way back to the hell of loneliness. Inside lie skeletons, old, dry shapes ground to sand by the wheel of time. Around them lie their tools of death - guns. I will never know why and how they killed each other, but one thing is certain - I am the last one. Mankind had many blessings, but our single curse followed us until our very end - hate. The rose dies, as all things must. I walk on through the endless desert. Perhaps once there was a destiny for man, bright and beautiful ; now it is gone. Love is dead. Hope is no more. Joy has been forgotten. Life is pointless. I continue my journey through the wasteland, the long-lost garden of life. I have one single hope left - that one day I will die. End "Jonas Kyratzes is a computer game designer and writer."

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