The desert makes us hard. The desert makes us strong. The desert made us the people we are today, and nothing the soft, lazy Wetters do will ever take that away from us. We were here first, before they came. But, they had technology and they enslaved us. Well, my people. I've never been a slave, not officially. But, I feel a slave to the stigma of a native of Thanatos.

We're looked at with scorn, spat upon and barred from the 'civilized' parts of the world. I've never left Thanatos, except to go deeper in the desert, but I've seen enough of the Wetters here on my sands to know what they think of us. They think their money and power will sway us. We don't want that. We just want to be free, to live our lives unshackled by their restrictions.

I'm a violent person. I've been this way since I was old enough to realize what was happening to us. It's all I've known all my life, and from what I've seen the only thing they listen to. You tell them you want water, they laugh at you. You split their skull and take it, they listen. They don't want to talk with us. They don't respect us. They just want what few resources we have, and they don't care how they get them. We'll fight back. We won't lie down for them to bury us.

I killed my first man when I was twelve. I drove a blade into his gut while he tried to drag me into an alley. I don't know what he wanted to do to me. Though I've heard stories that there are often raids from the cities into Thanatos. It's where they get the hearts and lungs and body parts for their organ banks. He didn't count on me fighting back. Since then, the sands where I've walked have been stained red.

It's the only life I've known. It's the only path I've been shown. It's the only road I can find to freedom.

But it wears on me.

How can you change something you've done your whole life? How can I turn my back on people who have taken care of me and watched my back? Can I truly turn down a path that may or may not work?

I only want my people to be free. I only want to see us treated fairly by the rest of the planet. I've forced it on the Wetters in the past through violence, but maybe I can find a new path to freedom.

Kael Selrid, Thanatos gang leader