The cold spring air stung at his nose as he walked. The stinging thrilled him, invigorating him with a new feeling of life – of meaning. Each footfall across the soft, pebbled walk resonated in his ears, and each bird singing left its song impressed on his soul. He felt the wind weaving its cold, intricate web over his fingers, chilling his skin as armor perfectly fitted to his hand. As he looked blankly ahead, he could see everything around him. The trees were in perfect season with the winds, blanketing the earth with its coat of many colors. As he walked forward, he was filled with a joy he had never met before. For the first time in his life, he felt alive. He felt he was a part of something, something worth any price. And he was prepared to pay. He hardly noticed his armed escorts, or the stares of the people along the path. Their piercing eyes, blunted and dwarfed by the powerful display made by the entire universe around him, fell wasted to the ground, and the former scowl of the crowd was slowly replaced by a curious interest and awe. The anger they held against him slipped from their grasp, and they could only watch from affair as passive observers. As he walked, he saw a butterfly frolicking in the flowers, dancing through the air. As it fluttered joyfully, the fire adorning its wings burned into his vision. He could no longer look at the butterfly, for fear of defiling its innocence and beauty with his unclean heart. Yet, even as he turned away, the butterfly danced. It stayed within his vision, and each movement blurred in together, until there was no butterfly left to watch, and all that remained was a happy flurry of bright colors, blazing in the morning glow. As he boarded the shuttle which would steal him away to his fate, he looked back. All the colors that had inspired him so much had gone and fled, leaving his sight as he left their world. But, in the bleak scene which laid behind him, so brilliant and overwhelming when first he saw them, contained none of the things that had so impressed themselves upon his soul. Instead, in the landscape so insignificant compared to what it had been, there grew a rose. Amidst all the brilliance he had witnessed before, he had completely overlooked it. Now it held him, gripped his thoughts, his mind, his soul. Its thorns along its sides menacing, even in the beauty it protects. Surrounded and dwarfed by the surrounding glory, as he saw it now, he could not remember having ever seen anything so beautiful.
The door to the shuttle closed. Even though the flower was no longer there, it was all he could see. It was all he cared to see. He smiled.

The door opened again, revealing a large, circular building. He was pushed from the shuttle, and escorted through the building. They led him into a small cell on the far side of the building. They left him there.