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         The freshly-mowed grass was sprinkled with morning dew on this morning in early July. The streets of this small town were bustling with people and had been since eight o'clock that morning. There would have been cause for concern had it not been. Curtisville was a tiny and ancient town, but that hadn't stopped it from changing with the times, just as naturally as the biggest of cities had. The annual summer festival was tonight, and that was evident in peering upon the town square. The sun wasn't as bright as usual, but it had poured heavily that night, and clouds could be spotted lingering, as if they were just on their lunch break. The temperature was almost perfect, though, and the smell of the air served as a warming sensation. Just for that, it could have been one beautiful day.
         Simon paid no heed to the scratches he was accumulating as he charged down the uneven terrain of his forest home. He didn't have very far, and he wouldn't falter now. His body was a brawny one, but on this day, he was as weightless as the air.
         The square was already bursting with people, whether it was a teenager getting in volunteer hours or the staff of the expensive catering service. It seemed like something that Simon's former self would have attended. Those days, those far away days, were little more than dreams now, consuming him while he slept. He was fully awake now.
         Then he saw her. Hair as black as the night ran down her slender back, quite a contrast against her fair Irish skin. Her eyes were dark and steely, and resonated the colors of the forest he was soon to abandon. She frightened him, but it was not a sinister fear; she struck in him a feeling that confirmed that he would soon be thrust out of this world, but it was not threatening. It only confirmed that he was right where he should be.
         He revealed himself. He stepped out of the woods that had served as his home for years, the woods that had been his training ground. All eyes were upon him now, upon his wild beard and tattered clothing, upon his blood-stained legs. But Simon had never been less aware of himself than he was in this moment, as a voice resonated through the crowd.
" I know I've never spoken one word to any of you." It was brimming with confidence, and yet coated with sorrow. "But there is no time for speculation, not now. There never was, not with all we've been given."His eyes were welling up with tears now, out of his control. "It's the beginning of the end, my dear brothers and sisters. I was sent here so you would know this. You must know this." His misty eyes scanned the crowd with resolve. "We are dying with the start of each new day. You all know of what I speak, because it is what you have been failures in ignoring for these long years of your lives."
         He saw her again. Her eyes mirrored his; her tears were just as genuine, as her heart was just as pure. She was the most silent one in the crowd, the only one who was neither ridiculing him nor cowering away. Those steely green eyes, bright with the same sort of passion he yet knew, stared right back at him. Neither of them paid heed to the light rain that was now mixing in with their tears. Neither of them paid heed to the dark clouds nor the faint sound of thunder. Neither of them expected lightning from so out of the nowhere, and neither of them expected it to result in Simon's demise. But both of them knew what his life had been for.