The catalyst

Somewhere in the city hidden between burger joints, clothing stores, and the city's most famous ramen shop, you will find the museum. It's located in a back alley, and taking a shortcut to the next subway station, you might just walk by it. If you peek through its windows you can see one room filled with mannequins wearing all kinds of historical outfits. You might find yourself reminded of a theatre that just went out of business and is used to store all the stage properties and costumes until its landlord found a new tenant.

If you would enter the museum, you would see only a few visitors. From the room you saw from the outside, a single hallway leads further into the museum. The hallway is lit in a dim light. It's hard to know whether this is meant to be atmospheric or if the interior designer ordered the wrong type of bulbs. The hallway is filled with statues. Wartime generals standing upright, radiating determination. Soldiers right before an ambush, waiting for their command to strike. Soldiers fighting each other. Soldiers lying defeated on the ground, with missing limbs or guts hanging out of their sides. And normal citizens, huddled together, hidden, just trying to survive. In regular distances, the hallway branches off to other rooms, showing more paintings and statues. If you move past all of them, at the end of the hallway, you will find yourself in another room. Apart from one painting it is completely empty. On it, you can see a single person, brooding on the stairs leading up to a building. You might know the building. It burnt down some time ago and was rebuild about a mile away from where you are now. Nowadays, it's a famous concert hall. The sign next to the painting simply says "The catalyst".

The audio guide you picked up while entering the museum will tell you that the painter of this painting is unknown. It is also not known who the depicted person is. You will have heard many stories about him. A historic analysis points to him having existed. But almost no details about him are known. He has shoulder long hair, a goatee and the right side of his face shows a fresh scar down from his cheekbone. He is wearing a black suit, designed to be worn during a fight, as to not hamper fast movements. If worn to a ball it would stand out, but be elegant enough to not be completely out of place. Its chest is embroidered with an ornately written G. On the left side of his belt, he is wearing a sheath that is carrying two knifes. On his right side he is wearing a pouch. The audio guide is telling you that it contains the most essential tools for his profession, even though it doesn't tell you what his profession is. In the background, you can see a city, illuminated by the rising sun. Soon it will awake and learn about what he has just done. Only a few days later, it will be engulfed in what he set into motion.

When you are leaving the museum a while later, you are giving your audio guide to a staff member of the museum. You might notice that he looks eerily similar to the man on the painting. But you probably won't think too much about it.