I thought I knew what pain felt like. How sorrow could weigh me down. How the world could crush me in an instant. Oh how little I knew...

I was born to a family of no status, but a decent standing regardless. All was well for years, but I have not spent them wisely. I took my time for granted, I wasted every opportunity and squandered every minute. I was a failure. It was not long after that I lost my mother, and my father's service had become indefinite.

Devastation hit me. But alcohol brought me back. It brought me back higher but it could not fill the void, the void of my own shame, of my own complascency. But even then, what more could I do?

A drunkard I went around the town, wasting my days, sleeping under rubble, all to pity myself. Blame everything but myself for the misfortune I was causing. How could the world abandon me like that?

Pity turned to sadness. Sadness turned to anger. Anger turned to apathy. Apathy, eventually, turned into action. Whatever action a drunkard like me could muster.

I enlisted as a soldier in Grastagg. I tried whatever I could, I begged to be let in. So they did, they accepted me out of pity. But in the end they could not keep me out of pity, they could not help me, and, I thought, I was too late to help myself.

And so I wandered. I wandered into my mud pile of sorrow, a trash heap of discarded rubble and everything rejected by the world. It was my home. The only place I would ever belong.

A sharp pain coursed through my body as I slept. And then it repeated in several places. It was a bite, no doubt. My muscles sprung up out of instinct but in my shock I could not coordinate. I could not do anything but endure.

Everything I've felt so far had turned into anger. I had no control anymore. Only instinct and a fleeting memory of a world that abandoned me. This was the end, I was sure of it. I was just hoping it would be swift.

But I wasn't killed. In a sorry state I was the world decided to have mercy. In one moment where I desired nothing but an end to my pain I was given mercy. It was a sick joke. But there I was. I saw, two people. I could not see their faces clearly but one held me down with stregth and the other threw something at me and fed me something. Something both soft and crunchy.They held me in place. It burned. Every bit of my body had felt like it was in boiling hot water. But it would not last long.

I was seeing clearly again. They let me go. "Job well done", they said. They gave me food and crimin. Enough for me to get by for for months. Without saying a name, they left as quickly as they came.

I still think about that day. The day when I began to truly value life. The day I obtained true freedom, freedom from my past, freedom from my own flaw, freedom from all the thoughts keeping me down, demons keeping me pinned and unable to move. And so I lived again, and I made sure to make every day count. Once in my life I was sober, and honestly? I prefer it that way.