Zi died on my birthday. And it wasn’t one of those backyard barbeque days with a harmonized song and intellectual banter I knew growing up. No, I ushered in my eighteenth year surrounded by the stench and chaos of war.

The lands surrounding the monastery had been turned into a battlefield, and our teacher’s killer stood over his body with a smile of such sick satisfaction that a foreign emotion welled up within me. Hate.
 
I wasn’t the only one. I felt Aimi’s reaction, and if I knew the resolve my best friend was capable of, she would avenge Zi’s death. Aimi may not have watched all the martial arts films I had, but it was common knowledge that’s what you did when your master was murdered.
 
Kneeling in pain and confusion, I was less resolved. I’d witnessed the entire event and knew that Zi allowed it to happen. But why? I wanted to believe there was some greater purpose, a higher design, but realized this was my human nature shining through, my unquenchable desire for meaning. Unfortunately, I’d recently had a crash course on the alternative. I learned that sometimes our heroes die, and we don’t always get to know why.
 
Although it was never that simple with Zi. This was due to the last phrase he projected into our heads. Embrace every moment. As usual, it meant more than the collection of words. They were often puzzles—gifts that kept on giving. While hardly the birthday present I’d hoped for from Zi, the question was, what the hell did it mean?