"The First Seed"

"The First Seed":
"I... I miss your mother and father dearly. Our family was... What happened to them was terrible.... Sometimes I feel a sadness creep into my heart and freeze the blood that warms the core of me. The sorrow swallows me completely and I am overcome by despair. But I see myself in the pools of the river and the sadness doesn't show anywhere on my face. Just a lack in my eyes that echoes the vacancy in the chambers of my aging heart. I feel hollow on the outside like a tree stripped bare of all its bark, each moment growing towards the sun but rotting from my outside..." (Rikoj's lament)