I've always been a reasonable man. I used to know myself. Yet now I feel quite… unsure.

My face hasn't changed since I've arrived on this forsaken island but I can feel that something has changed within me. And I can't quite… place it. Sometimes I even question if it actually IS there and on these rare times I feel great relief. 'Stupid Dunmeri superstition' I say and it makes me free. At least: it makes me feel free.I know I can shape myself the way I wish. There are no prophecies and surely no great planes for me. Just my personal choices. These times I proudly walk the land, taste bitter water and listen to the foreign howling of the wind. And certainly my head and soul belong to me. I know them both to the core.

But sometimes there comes a moment or two. A second or more. Less than a blink or more than infinity. I feel not quite there, not quite… alive.

Once I walked a misty road in the morning. It could be west coast or rather south. It doesn't matter. Suddenly some scent in the air brought ghostly resemblance of a day from the past I couldn't place. It was there and then gone but it left me with sudden emptiness and confusion that was lasting for long hours.

Or there was time when I talked to somebody and suddenly my own voice appeared unfamiliar to me. I had to look quite confused at that moment because I was actually asked if something had happened. I wanted to say: 'hell no, but I might be a stranger in my own house if you know what I mean'. They wouldn't know, I suppose.

And there were another times but I prefer not to think about them too often. Not to think and surely not to talk. I'm a reasonable man, am I not? I came here as such. I was proud of it.

I was given orders I followed. I did things – I got reward. I gathered information, I made friends and finally I came to this world forgotten cavern where I lost something and got something and now I just don't know what to think anymore.

There is that thing on my finger. That one, little ring I can't take my eyes from.

Oh, there were dreams before. There were words spoken to me by mad, mad people I have seen for the first time. But that meant nothing except that 'Sharmat' considered me his long dead friend. I suppose it isnot something I should trust.

But now there is also this ring and I just don't know why I am so deeply concerned about it, really. It's just a piece of metal. Some gold and silver. Nothing sophisticated.

They say it is cursed. It kills. You put it on your finger and you fall dead within a second. It does it, they say, to everybody except for its owner who has been dead for such a long time that now there is not even dust left from his body.

And yet I am wearing this cursed piece of metal. Wearing it and being still alive. Of course, that thing is probably not cursed at all. But I definitely would not ask anybody to put it on and check it.

Whoever came up with this whole idea - was really a clever guy I must say.

I catch myself still looking at the ring, thinking 'was it worn by many or has it always been worn by just one'?

I fall asleep like that. I don't have any dreams that night and I wake up to blue, empty sky. Looking at it makes my thoughts strangely clear. I gaze uponthe land and think to myself how beautiful can it be without choking smoke. The Red Mountain spits it day after day bringing people Sharmat's 'gift' of corpus. I myself remember it. I remember it burning me from the inside. And I know it's still there even if now I cannot feel it and it can't really harm me.

Then I think that there are these less fortunate than me. These who lose their minds and bodies to a deadly disease. Dying or turning into mindless monsters

I listen to the wind as I decide that I don't care anymore. It's not important who I possibly was or wasn't. Because now and here I am a reasonable man and I need to stop this whole madness.