They promised him an adventure. They promised him glory and honor.

They didn't lie of course. But the truth turned out even worse.

Andrew was a quiet boy. Then, back in 2006. Never getting in his parents way, rarely leaving the house.

He spent his time in the library, by the fireplace, reading of the imagined lands, of kingdoms of magic and galaxies far away, barely exchanging words with parents. He would read to his sister too, always cuddled up together in a chair that was too big for them, reading aloud and thinking of things that were not - but could be - in a book.

Eventually they were sent away, for having children was not to their parents' convenience, and also so they would get and education befitting their station.

There was no fireplace in the school, and hardly any time for books. Nor was there any solitude to be had.

So when the creature of smoke and fire spake to him through the lights, promising him an adventure unseen on earth, spinning tales of destiny and glory like a precious silk, what could a boy do but agree? How could've not step to the shadow and the light, to Arcadia of beauty and wonder? Such a feat was beyond many a grown man, and surely not within a boy's grasp.

He was taken past Arcadias beauty and madness, cahtching but a glimpse of it's pastures and spires, it's creatures and people, only to be dropped down from a cliff to a dungeon, dark and damp. Rat cage they called it. Where only the meanest, ugliest, sturdiest rats survived, being taught to feed on their own kind. Holed up there were many of them - both people and creatures. Lost. Scared. Hungry and thirsty. They banded up, divided into groups, waging their little wars. Fights escalated to beatings, those - to killings.

Groups turned to gangs, those - to small armies. The children learned to be cruel. To be efficient. To be merciless. For only that allowed for survival. Weapons were made, generals assigned, alliances forged and lost, battling over precious little food, over crude weapons and place to sleep.

And then only one army remained. His army, forged in blood and fire, pain and death. For he wanted to live the most. For he fought with abandon and rage, with wit and with knowledge, gleaned from book and from practice. For life was strong in him, and he would not let it go.

So then - mayhap a year, maybe - a century later, the Rat Cage was opened, and the rats got to see the cat who brought them there. The creature, a shining feline of flame and smoke talked to them, once again speaking of glories and honor, but his words were harsh, and glory he spoke was his alone, not to be shared with mere rats. They were his army he said, his toy, to wage in a war that had no meaning, and little purpose but the war itself. But the rat cage did not inspire obedience. The snarled teeth, and bared weapons were the answer to his words. Yet what could mere rats do against a cat? Some of them burned, some were turned to creatures foul to look at and lived but a few hours, filled with pain and agony.

Thus they were wrought into submission, and set to wage endless war, again in a new cage, that spun whole of the world. They fought on sandy arenas, large enough to put Collosseum to shame. They fought in empty husks of cities long since burned down. Attacking by day, murdering by night, dying at the twilight. They put children and women to sword and burned down villages to cinder and ashes for no reason but their masters command. They fought in places that defied laws and descriptions, constant flux of scenery and creatures, that could barely distinguished one from the other. Only one rule remained - no quarter was asked for, none was ever given. And Andrew was to lead them. Barely thirty of them left, not children, not even men - changed by darkness and war, some to living twilight and tenebrae, some to raging brutes and monsters, others yet - to creatures of cold ice and sharp metal.

There were also times that no war was waged, when fleeting peace ensued in everchanging chaos of their lives. Then rats were turned to mice, by their Keepers magics, given quarter, and bread and sour wine, allowed to roam the endless, ever shifting walls and corridors of his palace. The guardian was there, a giant, standing tall at small mousehole, close to the kitchen table, vast as the Giant loaf of bread behind him; giant stick of butter beside him.

And the Giant himself leaning his chin in his hands, looking at him. Ender's figure was about as tall as the Giant's head from chin to brow. "I think I'll bite your head off," said the Giant, as he always did. "How about a guessing game?" asked the Giant. - the Giant only played the guessing game.

The Giant, as always, set two huge shot glasses, as tall as Ender's knees, on the table in front of him. As always, the two were filled with different liquids - always different, never the same. This time the one had a thick, creamy looking liquid. The other hissed and foamed. "One is poison and one is not," said the Giant. "Guess right and I'll take you home” Guessing meant sticking his head into one of the glasses to drink. He never guessed right. Sometimes his head was dissolved. Sometimes he caught on fire. Sometimes he fell in and drowned. Sometimes he fell out, turned green, and rotted away. It was always ghastly, and the Giant always laughed. Ender knew that whatever he chose he would die, only to reappear again within the walls of the palace, punsihed by pain beyond pains for daring to dream of home. He drank the creamy liquid. Immediately he began to inflate and rise like a balloon. The Giant laughed, and the darkness came, closing his eyes. He played again and again, ever feeling death's sweet embrace, long after others gave up and accepted their fates.

Then something has changed. He went back up the hills he again and stood on the Giant's table as the shot glasses were set before him. He stared at the two liquids. The one foaming, the other with waves in it like the sea. He tried to guess what kind of death each one held. "Probably a fish will come out of the ocean one and eat me. The foamy one will probably asphyxiate me. I hate this game. It isn't fair. It's stupid. It's rotten" he thought. And instead of pushing his face into one of the liquids, he kicked one over, then the other, and dodged the Giant's huge hands as the Giant shouted, "Cheater, cheater!" He jumped at the Giant's face, clambered up his lip and nose, and began to dig in the Giant's eye. The stuff came away like cottage cheese, and as the Giant screamed, Ender's figure burrowed into the eye, climbed right in, burrowed in and in.

Making his way through Giant's empty scull, he went past the mousehole, and into the Thorned Hedge, running unitl he could not run anymore, hoping beyond hope that it was truly the path to home. Thorns bit into his skin, removing patches of fur, till he was no lnoger mouse but human again, till his skin bled and hurt. And then he ran some more. And then he was home. The smell of iron on the street, the bright, unyielding lights of the streets, the constance of space and gravity... it dumbfounded him, and as blind he staggered on the streets of town he barely knew.