-Ethan's Garden-
by Cyrus Grayson
Prologue: Letter to Ethan
{Background image for this chapter: Tarot card 0 – The Fool}
Dear Ethan, you must surely have sensed that I have once stopped looking after you, but what you do not know is how much I loathed this parting of ways for, believe me, I would have never intended so.
You may have been in pain, but know that I was too; you may have been lonely, but know that I was too. I did blame myself but never you. I still don't, never will, and I've finally learned not to blame myself either, for it was but chance's playfulness over our lives, and as painful as this sometimes may be, I've learned that not even chance itself is to bear punishment.
I have found you, not today but days ago; I did find you, but I've found also that you had found your garden and so I must have taken your fate for completed; as if you were right where you had to be; as if you were already being looked for, somehow. I was overwhelmed and just couldn't know how to present myself to you there… Ethan, my search for you has done things to me, and I couldn't be there – at the garden – That place gave me the final bit of wisdom that still lacked in me. At that garden I saw the true face of chance; what it really aims to be but can hardly ever achieve. But you did it, Ethan; or through you it did. And I couldn't risk ruin it with my own decay; that's why I could never meet you in there. In fact, I should say right away, to avoid false hopes, that you will likely never see me again; at least not in flesh, but know that through the beauty you've shown me whatever beauty I still had in my heart… will be, in essence always with you. Ethan. It turns out that at the very end it was you who was looking after me…
What follows next is my account of my journey towards you. Read it with care, Ethan, for all that's left of me now may be nothing more than ink on a paper. I hope it will be a cathartic reading for you as much as it has been a cathartic writing for me...
Your faithful brother,
Cyrus Grayson.