A brutal peace. That was the situation of the entire Known Universe. Galaxies upon galaxies teetered on the edge of war and annihilation.

Malekan 5101, a harsh planet on the edge of the Universe, and the latest venture of the Human Sovereignty. The sky was almost pitch dark. The nearest star was far away from this cold planet, as was any moon. It made the night sky look emptier than any other. Malekan 5101 sucked the light and joy out of everything. An average-sized male of the time, a seven-foot-tall man, was walking through a compound, the headquarters of the war against the native peoples. The man had short brown hair and was accompanied by a relatively small and sleek man with black hair, his assistant, who wore a glimmering silver pair of goggles that gave off a vague pale light.

“The native beasts have been pushed towards a corner,” the assistant declared. He seemed to be reading something but there wasn’t anything in front of him, at least that was visible to observers. His hands waved in the air like they were interacting with a screen. “For the final effort, Sir Laré has been ordered to General Brack’s office.” The tall Sir Laré in question squinted, but then quickly hid the expression. The native people were far from beasts, but to the Sovereignty, anything that wasn’t human was a beast.

“Understood. Heading there immediately,” Laré said. His attendant typed back Laré’s reply on the unseen interface, his hands flying. Laré had been on this forsaken planet for years, and as one of the Sovereignty’s soldiers, he had seen its atrocities firsthand. He wound through wide, grey concrete streets. Bleak and practical, just like the Sovereignty. The roads were lit by soft, blue light posts. He arrived at a large mundane building with more spaced-out azure lights in its walls. It had about a dozen hidden turrets in it, ready to kill him if he was an enemy; but he wasn’t, yet.

Laré entered through two automatic doors. They had seemed to be part of the wall before but changed in response to his approach. He headed through the doors to a pitch-black room, saying the name of the General as he entered. The doors closed after him, and then, after only a soft whirr, he walked back out into a completely different room: the hallway to the General’s office. Spatial movement was a tricky thing. The doors to the office opened automatically yet again as he reached it, and there was the General himself, sitting behind a black marble desk. He loved his power.

He had a grey buzz cut, so grey and aged that it almost seemed completely white. His eyes were blue, and they looked like they were dissecting him.

“Lieutenant,” General Brack said, his low gravelly voice echoing deeply through the room.

“General, sir,” Laré said, tying his hands together behind his back and staring straight ahead.

“I’m putting you in charge of the assault on Outpost Theta-Five. There is a delegation of the Allied Systems hiding in there,” his voice boomed. “A last-ditch attempt by the Malekanians. Annihilate both parties. The Regulators will not be involved as it is within the bounds of the Twenty-Third Accord of the Balanced Treaty. The Allied Systems trespassed onto a planet we claimed. The price of such an act is well known, and I trust that you will treat them with the proper response.”

General Brack held his eyes on Laré, who did not wait to reply. “Yes, General.” He saluted, curling his hands into fists, crossing them in front of him, and then thumping them against his chest. Laré wore a black cloak outlined with streaks of gold and silver, his uniform, and had a collar that covered most of his neck. The bottom of the cloak stooped near the floor, dangling above it and casting his feet in dark shadows.

“Begin immediately. Your forces are ready,” the General ordered, waving his hand in a shooing motion.

Laré left the building. It was raining now. Dark red clouds were in the night above. His assistant soon joined him again, wearing a grey uniform, and followed him as he turned into a dark alley. Rain pattered against their uniforms. Water ran past their shoes on the ground. Laré took out a pair of goggles, much like the assistant’s one but cruder and black, from his pant pocket and put them on.

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“Begin in five minutes,” he spoke aloud through the goggles.

“Sir Laré, you have me for contact and communication. You are not allowed any non-Sovereignty-sanctioned communicators,” the assistant said, taking one step back and staring at Laré through his silver glasses. “Relinquish the device or I will be forced to report this to higher command.” Laré didn’t turn.

“I don’t care,” Laré muttered.

“Excuse me?” The assistant said.

“I have been under the Sovereignty for far too long.” He gazed into the maroon night above.

“Treason is a First Offense, punishable by immediate death and execution,” the assistant asserted. His high voice was confident and resolute.

“Are you capable of delivering it to me?” Laré looked back at the silver assistant. They weren’t allowed weapons, but Laré was. The assistant took a step back and then ran down the alleyway away from Laré. He had just seemed to begin to send a message when a small sound echoed through the alley, a mere tap, and then the assistant’s body fell. A gold ray burned straight through. The assistant fell to the ground lifeless.

Laré holstered his weapon, a small gold tube with a button on it and a barrel, behind his cloak. He had to get out of the base before it all burned to ash on account of his orders. He sighed. No alarm had sounded, and Laré walked into the night unimpeded. To stop the Sovereignty to stop all the bloodshed that Laré had long grown sick and tired of, he would do what he had to.

A dream. That’s what this all was. A dream.

Red hot flames burned and brought down skyscrapers, the ground seemed to erupt into fiery explosions, and harsh noises canvased the city. Blankets of black smoke slithered their way high into the dark and starry night, illuminated by the city in flames. The screams were ever so faint, for the crumbling and growling were louder. The roars pierced through the air and attacked the ears of a young teenage boy far away, watching his world burn from a distant green hill.

His body was still and unwavering, but his glassy eyes conveyed the truth as they stared at the city. Cleveland was dying. The tears that had formed at the corners of his eyes reflected a bright orange, and then they fell onto the grassy ground that was covered in grey ash. And then he could bear it no longer, he turned away from the pleads and the crashes and the booms and faced the dark woods behind him. The guttural noises weren’t as loud there, but they were present, dangerously so, but he had no other choice, being in the open was far, far worse. The darkness was attracted by the human presence in the city, so he had to get away, and he did.

Even before what had happened, it was dangerous to walk alone into a dark forest, and now it was even more so, but the teenager did it anyway, crying and stumbling along in the opposite direction of the screams. The tears blurred his vision, but he didn’t bother to wipe them away, and his breaths were sharp and short, coming with stifled sobs and sniffles. He tripped over roots, trampled right through thorny bushes, and got his feet and legs covered in spots of mud, but he kept going, as long as he was heading away from his home, or what was left of it.

The forest hadn’t changed yet, and for the most part, it was the same, at least visually. The boy vaguely remembered this area, west of the city, he had been here around it with his father, but he especially remembered the incessant creeks and bites of the insects and the like that accompanied it. Now, however, what filled the boy’s ears was... nothing. An eerie silence, for even the screams from the city, were barely heard, permeated the entire area and left the boy shivering and glancing in every direction, afraid of what might come out of the dark. Occasionally, he heard a fierce roar, but they were far away, or at least he hoped.

Eventually, he stopped scrambling, and a quiet walk took its place. He was still shivering and sniffling, but at least now he confidently stuck to a direction. Even if he recalled where it was, he didn’t know how to get there, but it was what his family had left him. He would find it, no matter what.

The darkness felt penetrating, and it left the boy’s skin crawling. His heart pounded heavily like it too wanted to escape the night. He couldn’t see further than the immediate, and everything left him unsettled. He was not scared of the dark, but of the dangers that could be held within it.

If it wasn’t the eerie dark, then it was the mysterious sounds that left the boy in shambles. While the screams of the city were far away, the harrowing tortures of the forest made their presence known. A mere rustle of the trees would snap him to attention, and the boy’s eyes would widen and scan his murky surroundings, only for him to eventually conclude that it was the wind shifting. The scarce crunch of leaves or branches under his feet also set him on edge, and he could only hope that the noise was soft enough.

While he was walking, his body settled into a peaceful trance, however, his mind was anything but. Soon, the boy fell victim to the terrible curse of remembrance.