Netra (Decay)

"Time, to us, is all but conquered. Our sacred Kuva moves us on to new skin. We numb to our daily, yearly, trifles... and remedy those memories that bring lasting misery. With all our misdeeds, our excess, our indignity... we are haunted by nothing. But not for me. For each passing day, there grew a tumorous idea. It was minute in those early days: The pale reaching digits severed on the floor... studied with reverence, with greed. And it swelled in the latter days: the regal domes, the Rail dedications, the unholy Zariman parade. I had put the stars to reach, but at what cost? I never spoke of him, that man, trapped in the wall. And while there have been countless souls who have followed me through, with their light-skippers, and field-wave skins and vari-eyed instruments... not a single one ever saw him. Me. And so it is that I will not take the Kuva now. Or ever again. This is the last skin I'm in. Because of this idea: That I cannot be sure. That in all that smoked commotion, in all that panic and fear, in that bending light and blinding dark... was it I who escaped? Or the other?"