S1046C

People in gray walk aimlessly through the city of gray, their heads hanging low, lives devoid of purpose.

Grayscale offices in grayscale buildings in this City of gray - there they work, without ever understanding what any of that means. Rather than look toward the shining lighthouse, the people of the City seem intent on throwing themselves into the first blazing bonfire they see.

I know N Corp. doesn't speak for the whole City. I've seen Nests brimming with life, places where people are able to feel emotions heightened to their utmost.

But at heart, the rest of the City is no different from N Corp.

You become assimilated into that Nest's culture, its values, its taboos... and in the end, you find that you have joined the millions of other cogwheels clicking along to keep the City running.

The City - the Wings - keep provoking the emotion of the individual, bringing about fluctuations and endless rises and falls, because only human beings can produce emotional drops of such magnitude.

The Wings use that emotional drop to fuel each wingbeat... just as potential energy is converted into other forms. And with that power, the City, as a whole, is biding its time to take flight toward somewhere.

But wherever it may fly, what's the point of it if the destination can only be reached by means of alienation and exploitation of the self?

Unable to live according to their wishes, people exist in an indifferent world that will not tell them why they were born - they are deceived and tamed to believe in the lie that they have the freedom of choice, should they ever decide to do anything with it.

I couldn't stand by and watch it happen. Not with these eyes that have been opened.

I'll give them power. I'll help them hold their heads up high and look toward the distant light....

... so that each of us can simply be ourselves. So that our choices are in service of our true selves.

So that we can effloresce anew... in the image that we have chosen - true to the self we have envisioned for ourselves.