Occasionally, I wish we were more like humans. But then I remember their deterioration of the mind, and I suppose we're alright after all.

-

Sen gazed out at the endless expanse of stars that hung in place in the infinite dark. There was nothing out here to provide a sense of motion. The ship was no longer accelerating, having long since broken out of Mars' orbit. In fact, given the little he knew about space travel, they were probably slowly decelerating to prepare for orbit with Earth. The ship's tiny lounge may not have been very comfortable, but it was more than adequate to sit and watch the stars. Thank them for whoever invented grav tech.

Movement at the door caught his attention. He glanced over, meeting Denmark's eye just as he was making to duck back out of the room. The soldier hesitated for a moment before stepping away, disappearing into the hall.

Jumping up from his seat, Sen moved to follow Denmark. They hadn't spoken since escaping Culwell's ship, and questions raced through the boy's mind. Why won't you talk to me? Did I do something?

The sound of Denmark's footsteps cut off abruptly, Sen's hearing fading and his vision swimming. The boy's mouth felt faintly as if it was stuffed with cotton. All those feelings intensified tenfold in the next moment, and Sen choked on a stifled scream. Strangled, animalistic noises emanated from his throat as he took labored breaths, gasping and sputtering from the exertion.

While he sucked in air, a sharp, throbbing pain in his chest sliced into existence, like his heart was tearing itself in half. Sen let out a grunt and dropped to one knee, clutching at his breast desperately, praying for some form of relief. He pressed his knuckles into his ribs until his entire fist turned white. His hearing melted into a single drone, a low humming that set his teeth on edge.

An eternity passed, filled with agony. A warm, sticky feeling spread across his chest and hands. He looked down to a sea of orange and white, little more than blobs of color in his rapidly failing vision. Nothing else. He blinked, then let out a constricted scream, hardly a croak, as the pungent stench of copper permeated his nostrils. Crimson soaked through his shirt and coated his hands.

I'm going to die, was all he could think as his senses smothered him. It repeated like a mantra, a promise to himself. I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to...

This went on for what felt like forever until it overwhelmed Sen, his mind giving out. Black raced into his vision, swallowing him whole. He realized he could once again breathe properly and sucked in an unrestricted breath. Sweat and saliva dripped onto the cold floor pressed against his face.

The final sense to return was his hearing. A voice reached his ears, soft and sweet, comforting him to his core. "You're going to be okay, kiddo," she said. Sen sighed as he drifted into unconsciousness, comfort washing over him for the first time in a very long time. "I'm here for you, you're okay. You can breathe now...."

- - -

For a moment, Sen thought he watching space again. All he could see was blackness, with white dots peppering the dark like holes punched into a sheet. He took a step forward and noted the dots were all around him, hovering in place. From his perspective, it was like being a god staring down at its creations.

Almost on instinct, Sen reached out and closed his fingers around the nearest star, its heat welcoming, beckoning him. The light grew brighter, beams shooting out from his grip. Sen felt his consciousness being pulled in. It grew more intense, blinding him, yet he felt no desire to look away. Instead, he peered closer.

As quickly as it had appeared, the light faded, and the scene around him had shifted. He didn't recognize his surroundings. It looked like it was somewhere on Earth, before the Shattering. He saw what he could only guess was ancient Asian architecture that opened up to wide, flat fields in the distance. Beyond that, however, he wasn't sure. He didn't know much about history. He tried to look around, but his body wouldn't listen. Inwardly, Sen sighed.

"Li," came a voice from behind. Sen turned. Or rather, the owner of the body did. Presumably Li. He looked up at the tall blonde woman who had just spoken. She was pretty, but her expression was stern, as though she was looking at misbehaving child. She was handing him a cup. "Tea."

Sen took the cup from her and sipped it, turning back. He noted the gazes of the people around him. The woman, the recipient of their eyes, seemed to be of an entirely different ethnicity from everyone else. "They're staring," the owner of the body said, evidently noticing the same thing. Sen recognized the voice as the one he always heard in all of his blackouts. Always being stuck watching the same person made him feel like he was watching memories. "Remind me why you wanted to meet in a public place."

The blonde woman sat on the bench next to Sen, holding her own cup of tea. She ignored it for the moment and stared straight at him. The boy felt he should be uncomfortable, but instead her stare instilled the opposite feeling, inciting warmth and familiarity within him. "You like to run when you're confronted," she said, her tone icy. There were no emotions behind her words. She spoke only fact, and she knew it. "At least in public you have less incentive to use force."

Li laughed, but there was no humor behind it. Rather, there were no emotions at all besides his own. It was as though Li experienced none, mirroring the woman's expression. He never experienced Li's emotions during blackouts, after all. "I'm offended," he said. "I would never do such a thing."

The woman tilted her head. "What is 'offended?'"

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"It's a human term." It was an odd question to Sen, but Li answered as if it was ordinary. "It means to be...angry at what one believes to be an insult."

"All I did was state factual information. You do indeed tend to escape responsibility when admonished."

Li didn't answer. He returned the stare of the crowd as he sipped his tea, swished it around his mouth, swallowed, and sniffed indignantly. "We're many millennia old." Sen couldn't tell if he'd tasted the liquid at all. "You'd think we'd understand humans better by this point."

"We are to protect humanity, not understand them."

"The old man had minutes to tell us what to do, and that was thousands of years ago. You can't possibly make decisions based on that."

"We have a mission, Li. The rest of us intend to stick to it. You need to do your job. Stop spending time with this...family of yours. You owe them nothing."

Li's eye twitched, and Sen felt something he could almost describe as annoyance. He couldn't tell if the emotion was his own. "Not happening," he said, hiding his face behind his cup, sipping on his tea. He grimaced. "I'm the weakest of all of us, anyway. What good am I fighting outside threats? You don't need me."

Li felt the woman's gaze boring a hole in his head. "The others won't be happy about this," she responded. "We've been discussing the next step. If you don't comply, we'll be forced to eliminate the source of your distraction."

Li stared into his cup, now empty. Sen could feel something dark stirring within, and then it was gone, like it had never existed. Hushed whispers erupted from the crowd around them. "I may be weak," Li said in a hushed tone, "But my ability set can make short work of a Lazarus. Keeping you all at bay until my family's passed on naturally would be no issue."

"The Lazari have never fought each other before, and it is five against one. Logically, there is no outcome where you win. This is not a fight you want to take, Li."

"Are you certain?" Li glanced over at the woman, who had not yet touched her tea. Steam no longer rose from the cup. "I've mastered the piridum to make up for my lack of power. I'm confident in my abilities."

The woman stared back for moment, then eventually broke her gaze away, glancing down and to the left. Li's eyes followed, landing on a strangely shaped sword, a point rising from its sharp edge. The crowd stared. It rotated slowly as the true tip hovered over the blonde woman's neck. "I see," she said, and stood abruptly. "I shall relay your message to the others."

Sen didn't see where the sword went next. Li's eyes followed the woman, who the weapon didn't follow. "It was nice to see you again," he said, then frowned, as if he had remembered something. A thought seemed to be bothering him. He hesitated for a moment, then: "Have you decided on a name?"

The question hung in the relative silence for a moment. The woman glanced back. "Why should I?" she asked. "We don't need names."

"If you won't pick one, then I'll name you. Having one is quite nice."

She narrowed her eyes. "Do what you want," she said, biting off the end of the sentence. She turned and walked away, melting into the crowd. Not too difficult a feat when said crowd was hell-bent on following her around.

"Visit soon, Riis!" Li called after her. No reaction from the blonde woman, not that Sen supposed there would be one. She had long since disappeared. Li sighed, and stared back out at the open fields across the path. Grass rippled in the gentle wind, a peaceful feeling settling over the town. Rays of sunlight pierced the clouds, washing over the landscape. Li blinked, leaning back subtly. He sniffed. "What the hell did I just do?"

Sen followed up with a blink of his own. The scene in front of him changed as he did, the comforting picturesque landscape replaced with an eyeful of hard metal. Sen recognized this. It was the same view as when he had last woken up from a non-consensual nap.

Unlike the constant bustle his last visit to the medbay had been, his latest trip was deathly silent. He could feel the rumbling of the ship's engines through the bed. That and the barely audible hiss of the ventilation system were the closest things to noise in the room. He was certain he was alone until he sat up, Gova's lifeless form catching his eye.

She was sprawled on one of the ship's many uncomfortable metal folding chairs, her neck draped unnaturally over the back. Sen stared for a moment, frowning, unsure if he should be concerned. Before he could decide, however, the door slid open with a loud whoosh as Ryker bumbled his way in, carelessly lugging a metal cart loaded with loose medical equipment.

The cart slammed into the door frame with the sound of a bomb going off. Ryker yelped, springing back to catch it before it spilled. Deftly, he righted it, the shifting equipment rattling with only the volume of a gong. The cart steadied just in time to get smashed by the now-closing door. Ryker swore, yanking it free. More explosions. A moment of silence passed, then the door hissed shut. "Whew," the mad scientist breathed, sighing in relief. "Close."

Sen watched this all unfold in morbid fascination, unsure if he should be helping. "Er, Gova's sleeping," he warned, doubtful his observation would help at this point.

Ryker glanced over at his commander's comatose form, then over at Sen, and shrugged. Sen blinked. "Is...is she okay?" he asked, tilting his head at Gova. She shifted suddenly and snored once, loudly, then settled back in position. "Oh."

"Woman sleeps more soundly than the dead," Ryker remarked, sifting through his cart of goodies. "I would know. You were dead. And you had more signs of life than she does right now."

Sen allowed himself a small, albeit humorless, smile that quickly disappeared as he searched through his memories. "Hey, Ryker?" he asked in a small voice. If the room hadn't been nearly silent, the scientist might not have heard the boy. "What happened?"

"PTSD episode, we think," Kavlaus answered immediately, spinning on his heel to face Sen. "Though you can provide more info to turn that maybe into a definitely."

"What sort of info?"

"Let's start with the basics." Ryker spoke as he pointed various instruments at Sen, tutting at the results of each. "How did it start?"

"I stood up and got lightheaded, and then it just got...worse."

"In what way?"

"It...it felt like I had gotten shot again. My hearing and sight faded like before, and my mouth tasted like cotton, and I could feel the pain of the bullet in my heart. And there was blood, so much blood..."

Ryker peered out from behind his device, his eyes suddenly full of concern. He seemed as though he wanted to say something, but apparently decided against it, refocusing on his tools. "Sounds like PTSD, alright," he said instead. "Before you ask, no, there's no magical medicine that'll fix you. You'll need therapy, and lots of it, but good luck finding that in this godforsaken system."

At his last comment, Sen seemed pained, and too late Ryker remembered the boy had lost a therapist and close friend to Culwell. Denmark hadn't been too clear on anything beyond that. "Eh, sorry," he grumbled, turning back to his cart. "But seriously. It's a mental illness. It's a wound that takes time to heal, not medicine."

"I'm familiar," Sen mumbled, heaving himself out of bed. "I'll just add it to the pile."

"Hm?" Ryker asked, not looking up. "Pile?"

No answer. "Sen?" the scientist asked, turning. No sign of the boy. He whipped his head around just as the door hissed shut. Ryker rubbed his forehead. "I suppose that's fair."