To whom it may concern.
You may find this anywhere. Perhaps I left this journal on my desk, unfinished. I may have bequeathed it to you, however I might do it. You could have stolen it over my cold, dead corpse. Perhaps a trade.
However you have come to obtain this, know this; this work is not protected against prying eyes. I have little ability to protect against them, and little inclination to do so had I the power. Whomever you are—be it enemy, ally, or ambiguous—you are no more barred from reading these words of mine than any trusted friend. Whatever few I had.
In point of fact, you may notice that I have written and rewritten this whole project in the three main languages. Share it with peers or keep a secret, do whatever you will with it. I do not care. For in this book is nearly two centuries.
An entire century and a half, hard to initially grasp. It is enough time for a mighty tree to sprout to the length of a mountain. Enough time for ten battlefields to be hidden by the world in green, as if violence had never occurred.
Enough time to chronicle the complete and utter betrayal of everything I once stood for.
This work will reveal things. Things that might be fully obvious now, or knowledge that would rock the average layman to their very core. Secrets about the world. Facts of nature. Philosophical musings. Memories. Oh, the memories.
Memory is the most prevalent topic in this work. It is everything I have personally lived through. Back then I was an idealistic soldier fighting for a war machine beyond my reckoning, a pawn in a game beyond my ken.
Regardless of what I reveal here, She will surely blot words that reveal certain information about the existence of ---- or ----. Some secrets remain unspoken, unheard. Unshared, not by my will.
But enough of my blathering. I do not remember the last time I so freely spoke, whether in words on a page or with my voice. Before you read the deepest secrets allowed for me to put to page. Before you can look into the depths of my mind and wonder; ‘How did this man think?‘. Before you meticulously analyze this book for any extra advantage over your foes, whomever they might be. Do me one last favor. Read the first part.
Read of how I was raised. How I used to be one of my people. How I found joy in my newfound camaraderie. How I came to admire each of my fellow men-and-women in arms. Read of my first true friends. People whom I would erect a statue of, if I could. The most honorable friends I have ever had the pleasure of fighting side-by-side.
Read of how I betrayed them. How I betrayed my country. My world, in a way. Read how I forsook everything that made me, me.
Read of how I died.