It had taken days in a regenerator until the last of the damage from the burns was purged from my body, and months of rehab after that before I could function normally again. However horrible the toll on my body was was nothing compared to what had been done to my mind.

Per my father’s orders, I’d begun speaking to a therapist. A rare rainy day found me inside his office, watching the droplets cling to the window like survivors of a shipwreck, slowly but inevitably slipping down.

“Would you like to sit down, Ms. Irenside?” asked the therapist. He was young for a doctor, probably only a few years older than me. He was tall and had a normal build, short hair brushed back, and glasses which gave him a necessary look of intelligence and authority. He wore a blue collared shirt with a grey sweater vest and slacks.

I parted from the window and sat down obediently on the large couch while he occupied a simple chair opposite me.

“I feel like we’ve made good progress in the last week establishing what happened at the police station, but you haven’t really opened up to me at all about how you feel. Really, that’s the important part, and I won’t be able to help you unless you can tell me about it.”

Just the mention of the police station made my body and heart feel like they were on fire again. It had been months, but I remembered it like it had happened just this morning.

My team and I were on-base in San Diego on active duty. Mostly just a cushy job, national guard, patrolling walls that were never attacked, drilling, ensuring our gear was always pristine. It was imperative to my father that I perform some active service, but he would also not tolerate me joining any branch of service that could threaten me, so national guard was it for me.

It was another long day of patrolling a base that had never been attacked since the Sino War when word came in that a domestic terrorist attack was occurring at a police station downtown. As the active guard, my squad and I were the first to mobilize and headed out immediately.

When we’d gotten there, we kicked down the door, full exosuits, weapons drawn, ready for a firefight. Why else would someone break into a police armory except to snatch some guns? What we found was an Exhuman, sitting in a pool of lava. No guns, just fire and stone.

What happened next was one bad decision after another. Siad, our squad leader issued the order for us to engage rather than retreat. We accepted the Exhuman’s surrender rather than executing him on the spot. I believed him when he said he’d capitulated.

All of this led to my entire squad being killed before my eyes. Siad, Jager, Chase, Fletcher, Apollo. I held Siad’s hand as he was liquefied in front of me by the insane Exhuman, felt the extreme heat searing my lungs as I tried to pull him free, and came back holding only his hand.

And yet the worst of it was being spared by that inhuman monster. At least had I died with the rest, my soul would be at rest. Instead, he melted my helmet off my face and looked me in the eyes, leaving me alive with the charred remains of my brothers and sisters for his own unknowable reasons. After he was gone, I cried, inconsolable, until I was sedated and put in a regenerator to keep my fire-scarred lungs from shutting down.

How was I supposed to discuss feelings such as those with this man wearing a sweater vest? I had to, I had been instructed to, yet I knew not even how to begin, how to make him understand the weight of the deaths I carried.

“Let’s start simply,” he said. “How are you feeling right now?”

“I am…feeling anxious,” I replied. “Pressured to perform, though I do not know by which metrics my performance will be judged. I feel as though I am being asked to simply explain my entire existence.”

He frowned. “I’m sorry. I am not trying to pressure you, I simply want you to speak openly. There is no judgement or grading going on here, sometimes it just helps to sort through your thoughts be getting them out, and maybe I can help you do that.”

“I am uncertain that my thoughts need sorting. I am reasonably confident in what I know.”

“Indulge me then, please. What do you know?”

“I know that my squad is dead because I did not place a bullet in that Exhuman’s head the second we entered the room. I know that I survived only because I had taken the best cover I could find, and was adjacent to Siad, our squadron leader who would invariably draw the most fire, and left my team to fend for themselves. I know that I trusted the word of a man…no, less than a man, an Exhuman, and for this, God has punished me with the deaths of all I care for, and with this cursed life.”

“Those facts all seem somewhat subjective.”

“You were not there, you would not know.”

“You can’t just discount the thoughts and opinions of everyone who wasn’t in that room.” He adjusted his glasses. “I hear you only came to counselling because your father asked you to.”

“That is correct.”

“He wasn’t in that room, yet you still value his opinion. What if he proposed that your facts were somewhat subjective?”

“I do not think that he would. He would understand the consequences of my decisions, as I do.”

“Regardless, he also sent you to me for me to help. That must mean, in his eyes, my thoughts have some value?”

I paused to mull it over. He had a point. Father hadn’t picked a psychologist at random, this man was deliberately selected and therefore possessed some merits. Invariably, whatever he possessed I would never see if I refused to comply with him. I had to at least attempt to answer his questions, I had to suppose.

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“I conclude that you are correct. I apologize for discounting your opinion out-of-hand previously.”

“Hmm, that was a quick turn-around,” he said, writing a note. “We should talk about your father’s role in your life some other time.”

“Some other time,” I agreed.

“For now, let’s go back to your earlier assertions. You feel guilty and responsible for the deaths of your team. That’s very normal, often called survivor’s guilt. I want you to know that this is very common and that it is not your fault.”

“I fail to see how that is the case. It was my decision to trust the Exhuman. This error in judgement was responsible for their deaths.”

“Everyone else there also believed him when he lied to you. They were strong, autonomous men and women who made their own judgements and reached the same conclusion as you.”

I shook my head. “No, they’re dead. You can’t blame them.”

“I’m not blaming anyone. I’m trying to help you to realize that just because they are beyond blame, that doesn’t mean you have to be blamed instead.”

I thought about it for a moment before responding. “I see no way that your argument is invalid, but do not believe it to be true.”

“As long as you’re listening and thinking, that’s all I can ask. Nobody’s trying to force you to believe anything. I just want you to know that a lot of people have had similar experiences and go through the same kind of thing.”

I swallowed as I remembered the feel of Siad’s hand in mine, and felt the heat of lava fill the room. “Not…nobody has had experiences similar to mine,” I whispered, trying to push the panic down. I breathed deeply, standing totally still, willing myself to remain calm.

“Are you alright? You seem flushed all of the sudden.”

“Yes…I…I believe that I am.” He frowned at me and wrote something down again.

“Pushing yourself too hard is the worst thing you can do right now. We need to explore your feelings as you are capable.” He stood up. “Let’s stop here for today,” he said.

I didn’t want to, we hadn’t done anything at all but exchanged a few pointless words. I would never be finished with therapy if this was the rate of our progress.

I said nothing, of course. He was the master here and I was to follow his instructions until I was fixed. I bowed graciously and left without another word.

Hours later, I found myself at the harbor, staring out at the sun setting over the Pacific. As the water oscillated, it caught the sun in flashes, making it look like a dancing pattern of flashes across the ocean’s surface, like squads firing in batteries at rifle training.

I found myself here often, whenever I didn’t have other more pressing tasks, though I knew not why. The ocean helped me think, or perhaps more accurately, helped me not think. The periodic lapping of the water, the glinting of the sun, the blazing hues of the sky all helped to hypnotize me into a state where I could be free from my nightmares for a time.

Abruptly, I screamed at the top of my lungs, startling some passers-by sharing an umbrella. As loud as I could, for a dozen seconds, I screamed until I thought it might tear my throat out, and collapsed against the railing, gasping for breath, and feeling the burn of the cool air against my throat. It was nothing compared to the fire I’d inhaled before.

The ocean did not react, it rhythmically lapped against the stone harbor wall as it had ever done.

I was just…so angry, all the time. At the Exhuman, obviously, and at myself. At my squad for being as foolish as I was and for their failures which led to their deaths. At myself again, for being able to think this was somehow their fault. At the deception, even more. I knew not why it stung me so–in my mind, it seemed rational, even normal for the Exhuman to lie to us all, but having fallen for it made it constantly grip my heart, made me feel as though to ever trust again should be impossible.

But more than that, more than anything, I was angry at how powerless I had been and how powerless I was. I had always trusted in my father’s judgement and followed the lifestyle he had prepared for me. His wisdom and authority were absolute, and by following them, I could someday aspire to be as great as he. A few years in a cozy military post and then a college degree, and then straight up the chain of politics, as he had done, and as his mother had done, and her father before that.

Change, he said, would come from within. Were I unhappy with the workings of the world, I needed only get within the system, become a powerful senator or state governor or cabinet member, and the change that I sought would be within my hands.

It was not possible. The change I sought was impossible–the Exhuman named Kliver, who had killed the closest thing I had to family, to real family, was already dead, executed by an XPCA team in the streets after killing my squad. I and the others had been given medals and honors, as the Exhuman had killed only twenty civilians, and much of that was considered a result of the brave sacrifice of my team.

The foolish sacrifice of my team, I thought. They did and achieved nothing that a scarecrow could not, except burn slightly slower. We were not a noble troop guarding an exit, we were a speedbump.

I tried to scream again and instead came up coughing.

Father was ecstatic, claiming his joy to be owed to my continued living, but I had seen his political face too often to be fooled by it. He believed I was made–my sacrifice, this national tragedy with my face upon it would win me support as his family never had before. “The people love a service background, but a national hero?” he had said, even as I still had tears for my friends in my eyes.

I could not do it, I thought, as fresh tears mixed with the rain streaming down my face. I could not live a life of quiet politics and affect change from within as my father wanted. I had a visceral desire to…to kill, I suppose. Exhumans. Deceivers. Those who had strayed too far from the light. The world needed protection from evil, and I would answer the call.

Or…that is what I thought. That is what I had thought every day I had come out here. Hours later, I knew, I would be back at home, expected to be well-mannered and quiet and properly behaved again. My convictions, screamed out at an uncaring ocean would be left behind at the seaside, and I would become the person I always had been.

It was the same and would always be the same. Unless, somehow, I could bring the person I was out here in there. To somehow take these truths, which I knew to be true, believed with every fiber of myself, and make them weather the storm of culture, logic, white walls, high-backed chairs, manservants, and order which pervaded that house.

I needed to remind myself in there of the chaos which ruled out here.

I turned and saw it; a neon-colored holo in a window which offered exactly what I needed. Shoes squishing with every step, I slogged across the street and opened the door with a bell ringing announcing my entry.

“Hey, welc–oh, you’re soaked. Do you need a towel?” asked a girl with bubblegum-pink hair from behind a glass counter.

“It–“, I choked on my throat and raised a hand asking for a moment. “It matters not, though I do apologize for the mess I make in your establishment.” My voice was quiet and hoarse but still there.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll get Doug out here with a mop. What can we do for you?”

“I request a haircut.”

“Yeah?” she said, eyeing my long, currently-soaked curtain of normally immaculate, golden blonde hair, and also took in my equally-soaked blazer and skirt. “You just want a trim or…?”

“No. I am thinking of something completely new.” I smiled. “What can you give me that really expresses the chaos in the world?”

She gave me a wicked grin which affirmed my decision to come here. “I think we’ve got a thing or two you might like. Come with me and have a seat back here.”