77 Shadow Street

One

Fear is the engine that drives the human animal. Humanity sees the world as a place of uncountable threats, and so the world becomes what humanity imagines it to be. They not only live in fear but use fear to control one another. Fearmongering is their true religion.

In my perfect kingdom, there is no fear. No human beings live here to compete with one another, to build empires, to start wars. Here, there is no permanent loss and no lasting death. Here, what is killed is reborn. I feed on everything imperfect that comes before me, which is not exploitation but purification, and I feed as well on myself, devouring myself in order to live anew.

The enemy of the Ruling Elite fears everything, though he doesn’t realize that the object of his greatest fear is himself. He fears living more than dying. He fears his money almost as much as he fears not having it. If he were to discover proof that his conspiracy theories are true, that the world is exactly as he imagines it, he would not have the courage to act upon that evidence. He thinks himself a potential hero, but he does not have the stuff of heroes. He is to the boy as a mouse is to a lion. Fittingly, such a man may play an important role in the history of the One.