"His life had always been an uphill battle. Uphill as in up Mt. Everest, downhills like cliffs of the grand canyon. He'd never seen a time where things were flat-ground and liveable for himself, never once. With sixteen years of hell to show, Ashyn didn't think he'd be able to live to find a place of grassy plains and flowers, and he didn't want to live to learn that he was right in thinking this. So he wouldn't live. "