If I had known that for all these years the hero, whose very influence was the reason I left my home planet, was nothing more than a shambling corpse overgrown with flowers, maybe I wouldn't have hated him when I found him. Maybe I could have appreciated him for what he is now. Maybe I would have noticed that the flowers hum and throb like the veins he once had. Maybe I could convince myself that he isn't still in there somewhere.