A Bit of Character and World Introduction

With each turn the world takes, it moves towards darkness and death –falling away from the sun and towards the depths of Hell. They call this the New World. People say that back in the Ancient Days the new world would be one of peace and that illness would be no more. They weren't even close.

I spin around; my head held high towards the sky, my arms open wide. I take a deep breath and close my eyes, feeling the world spin beneath my feet. When I was young I used to think that if I spun really fast and closed my eyes tight enough, I could go back to the Ancient Days. Go back to the time when the grass was green and the sky was blue. Each time I tried I would spin faster and faster until I would fall down hard onto the ground, dust picking up beneath me. I would cough and open my eyes to find that the sky was still grey and the grass still dirt. One time, I even went home and cried to my mother about how unfair it was. She told me that dreams were for fools. You won’t make it in a world like this with thoughts like that. That was the last time I fell down while spinning. Now I always stop myself before I fall, before I can crush my dream, and to convince myself that mother was wrong. I think there is some small part of me that still believes that if I can just spin fast enough, I can go back. But still, I stop myself and look up at the grey sky, and the dust that flies through the air carried by the wind. I realize it seems silly for someone who is nearly eighteen to have dreams that obviously can never happen. But for some reason, I just can’t stop doing something that I believed in so heartily when I was younger. Without the spinning, I feel like I will get dragged into the world that my mother has been consumed by. My father didn't even want to live in this world any more, a man who always tried to see the positive in any situation.