For long years I have walked these sacred halls known as Life.  I have witnessed thousands of lifetimes, millions of people, and countless ages and places.  I have never lived and cannot tell what that feels like.  I am just the keeper of the ages.  I am a tired old man.  I have seen the mightiest of empires rise and then crumble to less than dust with the roll of time.  I have seen a single person shatter entire ways of life. I have seen and recorded.
    I'm the coward.  I'm the one you've never read about.  I'm the soul that was afraid to live.  I never left these halls of agelessness.  All my fellows have left, but in gaining the knowledge of what it is like to live, they cannot stay within these old walls. Even if they did remember this place while they lived and longed for nothing more, all were changed in some secret place that is their own. None came back the same.
    I have had countless chances to go and join this world that they have, but I know that I would miss this place.  I know I would regret something I had not done before I left.  It is my way.  I am the keeper of this ancient place.  I may look from here into any place, any time, and any person.  I may look because I transcend all of them.  I knew all of them before they left this place.
    Some call here the Well of Souls, The Castle of Doors, or The Temple of All, or any of dozens of names, but they all miss the full meaning of this place.  I am the Keeper of All.  I know that this temple has been built out of its own will.  By there being the absence of anything before here, it made itself so that more could follow.  I know that this is the circle's beginning and that there have been dozens of circles before.  I must wonder what will happen when it decides that another circle is needed.
    Who will give it life?  Who would give themselves over to being the souls of the inhabitants?  Who would be Knowledge and Wisdom?  Who would be the Evil to balance the scales and make a true circle?  Where would I be?  I am the keeper of forgotten ways, not the harbinger of the new realms.   I have never known what it is to be outside these now empty halls.  I still remember the children laughing and playing in the courtyard.  I remember the games of skill and chance over matters of intellect.  I remember a time before I was alone and I long for those days.  But now, I am the only one left.
    The old soldier was the last to go.  He found a person, thing, or idea that he knew nobody else could help.  He left to do what he could for it.  Maybe save them, maybe stop them.  I don't know.  I am jealous though, he found his purpose.  I have not.  Perhaps I'm the one slowing everything down.  Perhaps I'm the one who needs to leave so that this place can start again.  I noticed it back when all of my friends started to leave.
    This Keep was beautiful once.  There was rose gardens along the walls, a clear blue lake in the yard before the gate, there was children laughing and playing and carrying on inside these cold, silent halls.  There were nightly fires in the great hall where tapestries hung portraying scenes of suitors and their prospective brides, of contests of might and skill, of the battles fought.  Some of us would tell stories, about heroes and heroines, about tragedy and comedy, triumph and failure.
    To this day, I do not know if any of these stories are true.  That was the magic about them.  Not everyone was allowed entrance to all parts of the keep.  Only when the rest started to leave was I allowed access to all parts of this Sacred Place. To the Room of Choices, where you made your decision on where to go if you wanted to leave, to the Room of Mirrors, where you may face your guilt and pain and vanquish it entirely, to the Room of Glass, where you can peer through the window of time and see what goes on.  There are hundreds of rooms now.  The most disturbing thing is that I saw a person that could use my help.  I'm afraid to leave, but he will not be able to do what he must if I stay here in these halls.  I don't know how I may help, if I come to him directly he wouldn't believe me, if I become one with him he'll know too much.  I see no solution.  The time to act has come and I have wrote this for those who may come after me.
    I spent all my life here.  I have found a single idea that is worth risking all for.  If you find one for you: take it. It will never come again and all you can end up is to be like me, a miser of knowledge too afraid to leave and experience anything.

                                                                Goodbye,
                                                                Keeper of Ages