Before me spread a vast plain. The land was a dark green, verdant but nevertheless undernourished, not as fertile as it perhaps had been in the past. But I was a ghost, a mere observer of the lights far below, the towns spread before over the plain as the winding river and its distributaries that were a mere series of tubes at this point. I was on a barren, rocky mountain, high above the land, on a ledge that was sloping downwards slightly. As I turned slightly, I saw a door not far ahead of me. Despite the darkness of the surrounding rock, it was a pure white door, with what appeared to be a small, dark blue booklet on it, an arrow from the white surrounding cutting across the booklet from the left to the right. I looked down at my body. Or rather, where my body should have been; there was nothing there. I urged myself forwards towards the door, and soon passed through the near-luminous portal. I felt a body materialise around my being, a head that turned, a torso that breathed, arms with hands that clenched and legs and feet that could walk. I looked down again, my pale, thin arms wrapped in tattered brown sleeves. I was a teenage boy. The sound of shouting from far below alerted me, though it was ultimately nothing to be alarmed about. The nearest town, a huge, ramshackle mass of huts spreading out from a murky stretch of river, some buildings built on top of others, was ablaze with lights in the gathering darkness. From what I could see, squinting down into the valley, a figure was being thrown out of a well-lit, crowded building, wooden like the rest of the town. The man who had thrown him out appeared to be tall, with short dark hair and dark skin. For an instant his armour glinted with a circular symbol, like an insect with legs protruding from the centre, before it flickered away again. The figure on the ground was a stunted creature. It rolled in the mud momentarily before throwing itself on its front and crawling away. I swallowed. Clearly these were some unpleasant times for the inhabitants, or at least one. Perhaps now was the time for me to join them. Bring peace and happiness to these unsettled inhabitants of the flood plain. The land stretched for as far as I could see, bordered to the left and right by mountains. I nodded and began my descent.