???: "I still remember that day."

???: "..."

Two people sit at opposing ends of a table. Light shines directly down from a unidentifiable source, illuminating the table yet casting their faces into shadow.

Approximately 3 metres, or 12 of the square tiles in the floor's checkerboard pattern from the center of the table, the strength of the light begins to weaken gradually until 7 further metres are traveled, at which point the rest of the room is too dark to see. The room could be endless, or it could end where the shadow begins.

It does not matter. The two sitting at the table do not care for such things at the moment.

???: "It was snowing, one in a million weather for the top of the south."

???: "Yeah, i remember the weather from when I went for that mission. Not the exact area, but it couldn't have been much colder there."

???: "I had just gone to the post office and was walking back."

???: "And then what?"

At the question from the second person, the first stops for a moment, then looks up and gives a sardonic chuckle with a certain gleam in their red eyes, from more than just from the light now on their face. The second person looks into the eyes of the first, with a soft, almost melancholic smile.

Red-haired man: "Only a more eventful variation of what you'd expect. The end result was the same."

He adjusted the hat on his head, short red locks shifting to accommodate the change in position. The golden symbol on the bridge of the hat gleams in the light.

Red-haired man: "What's really interesting, is what happened next. But telling a story this long, well, we could do with better scenery than this."

The first person snaps his fingers. All around the two at the table, small cracks appear in the shadows, spidering throughout the room, weaving and interconnecting. Soon enough, the surrounding area is entirely filled with cracks and splinters in the very air and space.

With a sound like glass breaking, the darkness around the room lifts like a veil, and the true 'room' is revealed: the shadows replaced with soft sunset colours, and the cold white light from earlier replaced with a gargantuan glowing yellow-gold tree to one side of the table.

The massive tree has a haze to it whenever you behold it, almost like you're looking at it through gauze, or in a dream. The roots of the tree enter the checkerboard floor, seeming rooted underneath it.

But the roots are actually melding into the floor, and if one were to look closely, whenever a leaf falls from the tree and lands, the floor ripples like water beneath it.

The tree is behind the second person, it's light silhouetting her like a solar eclipse. Little of her features can be made out.

Red-haired man: "That's better. Now, where was i?"

Silhouetted woman: "The beginning of the end."

Red-haired man: "Well then, let's skip to the beginning of the beginning."