They said that the lands above were pure and untouched, wild and uncontrolled as any land should be. It was supposed to be the true paradise for humans, a place unlike this one where there could only be suffering and pain, a place untouched by the Fal'Cie and their vision for humanity. The high country, the paradise had been regulated to fairy tales, stories to tell children to soothe them before they became the play toy of the Fal'Cie just like so many others. A place where life wasn't dictated and groomed, what they did was the same as putting a stick on an ivy plant to encourage it to grow upwards but all the worse because unlike plants humans were sentient.
He hefted his pack from his shoulders and looked out over the land he had quitted from the shelf weathered into the sheer cliff. As the sun sank below the opposite edge of the bowl that he'd lived in his entire life he tried to allay his fears for what was above, he'd been told like so many others upon reaching his prime that the lands above were hell –barren and long since without life. They claimed that there could be no life anywhere there were no Fal'Cie, that the Fal'Cie had created the world and in exchange for living in it they offered themselves up as tools to shape the world for the better.
The cynical, hateful part of his soul knew exactly what they were to the Fal'Cie: tools for their amusement that they would destroy when they tired of them. That was why some humans had quit the valley of their creation, headed into the uplands and at one point traded with those that had remained. Then the Fal'Cie drove the humans apart and those that remained in the uplands moved far away from the place of their birth and the hateful Fal'Cie in days long since forgotten.
While he had heard no cry, seen no sign and had no indication of life or even existence beyond the high cliffs of his home there was a part of him that just knew that there was a vast world beyond the borders of his cage. Metropolises like Cocoon –he'd imagined what Cocoon must truly be like with the aid of the remaining technology from the last war- built by humans for humans from villages into vast cities like Paddra before its fall. It was a world that he understood though he didn't know how.
Untold thousands had died doing exactly what he was doing, climbing to an uncertain fate instead of risking being chosen to be a l'Cie and receiving a mission they could not achieve. The last to receive a mission had been Yun Fang and Dia Vanille two years ago, they had left Oerba after being touched by Anima and days later a portion of Cocoon had been set aflame in the night sky. A portion of the smooth surface gone, exposing the ruff innards of the place with no way of knowing if the two had succeeded or had even survived.
After that many of the villagers in their prime had fled in hopes of escaping a similar unknown but likely gruesome fate. He had seen some bones scattered at the base of this wall though he was unsure of whether or not the bones belonged to anyone that he knew, the animals had been at them making identification impossible. How many had begun this climb believing they had the strength to make it to the top? How many had gone in search of the legendary passageway to the uplands? How many had succeeded?
He decided it was okay if the answer was just one, as long as that one person was him it didn't matter what the real success rate was. Cocoon and the Fal'Cie could have the land below, in the morning he would wake and climb to the top and make a life for himself in a world untouched by Fal'Cie cruelty.