"I lied to you," gasps Cecil.
"Well why would I be mad at you for that, friend?" laughs a freshly-scarred, perpetually-grinning Kevin, voice laced with poisoned ecstasy. "Strexcorp won us over anyway, as they should have all along!"
"I lied to you..." confesses Cecil.
"Not really," reassures a grinning, yellow-robed Kevin, Prophet of the Smiling God, standing atop the sandcastles he built. "I love my town. It's not what it once was, and they don't love me as I love them anymore, but it's here, and it's mine, and we're happy."
"I lied to you!" yells Cecil.
"You gave us hope," sobs a young, wounded Kevin, bravely defiant to the end even when his end refused to come. "And I don't know if I should thank you or curse you for it!"
"I lied to you," whispers Cecil.
"I know," whispers back an old, hollow-eyed Kevin, a wisp of a person lost in the endless sands of time after everything he has known and loved has been blown to dust several times over. "I forgive you."













