“Regret. It’s a powerful thing, isn’t it? I’ve always wondered if I would regret the act of killing people. I certainly killed a lot of people, real people. I am, in a sense, a murderer now. I wonder…one day, if I’m in their position…would I regret what led me to that point?”

- Excerpt from Lieutenant Hans Hoffman’s Journal Entries.

+++

+++ Lieutenant Hans Hoffman +++

Unknown

Hans opened his eyes.

And his hyperventilations turned extreme. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out…yet he couldn’t stop the suffocation. He needed air, he gasped for it, yet he couldn’t get it inside. He felt completely suffocated, as his body convulsed in utter terror. He died. He died. He died. He truly died.

Worse than dying. He was brutally mangled.

He…he…

His senses returned. Right in front of him were the same screens of his Wanderfalke. 0633 Hours. That same time. That same damned time. It was back. He was back at that time. The same time on the same day that he died for the first time in his memories. And the same time he died for the second time on this same day. Just moments ago. Just…just…

He shook his head slowly, almost in denial, his breath tightening further.

No…no…

It can’t be…

No…

It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be that way. He wanted to run. To curl up. He could still feel it all vividly. His throat. His arm. His abdomen. His feet.

His…

His own heart…

I don’t want to die.

It could not be that way.

I don’t want to die again.

He died enough already! He died…in…in Haubliz, then that, then that…then…

Please don’t be that way.

He begged. He begged reality that it was a lie. That it was all dreams. That he wasn’t back here. That he was always here. That he always had traveled here, and he just slept, and now he was simply having nightmares. He wanted it to say that those two times… were just an extremely bad nightmare. It couldn’t be the truth. He…

What more?

He didn’t want to die again. He didn’t want to. He wanted to run. It hurt. It hurt in so many ways that he still felt it burned into his mind. Memories? Nightmares? They were never this way. They were never meant to be this way. Was he mentally ill? Was he going nuts? PTSD? Shell-shock?

Was his mind tricking him? Was it all a bad jest? He wanted…he wanted someone now, to just give him an answer. To tell him that he was just having a bad day. But nothing. Nothing.

“Sir Hans?” Hans looked down. Alizée…her red eyes, it looked…she looked almost frightened. She looked up at him as if she shared the fear and agony that had consumed him. And she too, unable to understand him, must be searching for answers as well. “Is…is everything alright?”

“Alizée…” Hans said. “You…do you remember…?”

“Sir Hans…?”

“Alizée…did that…did that all happen? Did…”

He breathed out again and closed his eyes. He was a soldier. A soldier of the Confederacy! Not some…not some soft-hearted doe-eyed teenage boy. He was forged in the fields of battle. Of steel monsters clashing against steel monsters. Of battlefields where chemicals that ravaged the nervous system were breathed by its participants. Where diseases designed by humanity that caused victims to die bleeding internally in just days spread from bombs. On radioactive battlefields where the power of the sun was dropped merely days before he fought there.

But…but now…

No, he took control. He shut it down. One by one. The fears. The pain. The terror. Like a well-oiled machine, by the time he opened his eyes…he could finally muster a confident, slightly upbeat expression to the young girl who relied on him. She didn’t deserve to fear.

He gave her a pat. “Nothing. Nothing. Let’s go search for my Captain, then let’s have breakfast. Sounds like a plan?”

“Sir Hans, why…why are you suddenly smiling?”

“I’ll take that as a yes, Alizée,” Hans said…but his words…it was weak. None of that bravado and confidence of a seasoned ace pilot. Almost as if he doubted his tone. What did that even mean? Hans struggled to know. He was…he was doubting himself. He almost wanted nothing more than to talk to her, and ask her…ask her why that happened.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

If that happened at all. Hans however said, “If it’s true, I’ll kill it. No?”

Yet it came out a question. Of course…he was asking a kid. A child. Someone that should not even have a concept of “killing”, if he was capable of killing that threat. He was…he was asking a damned child. How could he be bought this low by a mere dream?

Bought this low by a mere story. A scene from a novel meant to shock its audience. A scene from a movie meant to up the tension for the main character. Fantasy. It was fantasy. Nothing but, creations of the foolish mind. A pitch-black, yellow-eyed, almost demonic (he was sure it was demonic) wolf-like monster with multiple sharp tails capable of slicing through metal, through Confederacy steel…and defeating a damned ace pilot of a powerful machine?

That…that was nothing but a lie. That was impossible. Utterly out of the question. Again, fixations of the foolish mind that would create such absurd tales, like another world. Or…or a being with…

He looked down at Alizée’s horns. Then to her knife-like ears.

…He remembered her on that pitch-black night, rushing to save them, launching pinkish shards that scared off that same monster.

…Alizée…

The girl was right in front of her lap. The same girl he had saved. True as anything else. Corporeal, someone he could touch. Someone who existed. Not just a mere fantastical dream. He…he had a creature of fantasy…right on his very own lap…

“Sir Hans?”

“I…”

No more words came out of his mouth. She was as true as anything else. Which means…which means…

Fantasy…

The impossible…

The same thing that he wanted more to classify as creations of the mind…

Was a true, living, breathing, and talking being to him.

The confident facade he had just restored… collapsed for but a brief second…until he breathed out.

“I’ll…I’ll find a way…”

+++

Captain Adelyn von Wittenstein…

Hans felt nothing but a strange sense of relief to see her standing in front of him. His tired…almost lethargic pace of walk, now, returned back to his more officer-like stance. He straightened himself and wiped the traces of anguish on his face. It was her. Captain Wittenstein. He wasn’t alone.

He had her.

It should…it should be all right, in the end.

Everything would be alright as long as he had a comrade in arms. Right?

“Captain,” Hans said. “You may be surprised but—”

“Lieutenant Hoffman!” Adelyn’s smile turned radiant. “It really is you! Dear Goddess. I thought I was lost in this strange forest alone. See, I had been driving for hours already, but get this, none of our comms are working. More accurately, I’ve been picking up no one. And we don’t seem to be close to any Confederacy forces, so I was starting to get worr—”

Hans smiled. The way she spoke so fast and almost slightly nervously just to explain her situation…it was a consistent side to her in the last two times he had met her. This…this was their Captain. A sheltered noblewoman at heart who would always collapse into this almost…well, adorable mess at the sign of true trouble.

“I’m sure it has been a…a terrifying phenomenon for you, Captain,” Hans said. “Being alone must have been scary. Especially for, you know, a lady like you.”

Now she crossed her arms. “I refute that statement. Look, to be quite fair to my situation, Lieutenant, being alone in a combat situation, especially in the day of combined arms warfare, is a serious matter. As such, you do not get to make fun of me for being scared. Get that to your skull, commoner.”

“Gee, you get irritated fast today, huh?”

“Shut up.”

Nobles. Whatever. Back to the situation. “So Captain. I want to report something.”

“What? Did you find any friendly units? Look, it’s just…it’s just been such a confusing mess since I woke up. W-we cannot embarrass ourselves this way to our men, you know that, right? What would they think of me, suddenly disappearing and all-–”

“Captain,” Hans interrupted her tirade. “Look, we’re in a bad spot. No jokes. We are…in another world. Definitely.”

Adelyn stopped and looked at him. For many uncomfortable seconds. Hans felt judged. How could her expressions alone call him stupid? Wait, now it called him a clown? A writer? What the hell did he do to this woman to deserve that?!

“I thought no jokes, Lieutenant?”

Gah! He briefly imagined himself waving his white flag to the Flandrians. That would finally end his suffering once and for all when they shoot him anyway. Truly a euphoric alternative to this embarrassment.

“Look, I am serious.”

“I see that,” Adelyn replied, before stroking her chin. “Goddess…that’s such a lamentable tragedy. I knew it would reach this point. Hah…if only you weren’t a penal soldier. I could have intervened with my connections and money. Not that mental health services exist for even regular soldiers nowadays. Goddess…”

“Captain,” Hans' eyes turned tired. “I am perfectly fine. What is not, is our situation. It is pretty bad because we are completely cut off from our world. And I have proof. Follow me please.”

+++

“See Captain, as I was saying—”

“Shh!” Adelyn said, already checking Alizée like some concerned parent. “Lieutenant, move yourself and grab my medical kit in the Diligence. Chop chop. Now!”

“I…” Hans gave up. Of course, her top priority as always, unchanging, would be Alizée. He could not blame her. Even he was the same. “Fine, Captain.”

He walked away from them, straight into Adelyn’s mech, which was now parked on the side of the dirt road, right beside Hans’ mech. Hans looked at her own turret. On its side was really just the cross-pate emblem of the Lotharingian Armed Forces. Same with his turret. And of course, on the lower front side, the smaller personal insignia of hers.

The Shield Cross of House Wittenstein. Said to represent their family’s endless commitment to defending the common people of Lotharingia from injustice. Perhaps it was why this woman went out of her way to go down to the ranks of men condemned to penal manpower. Considering how she acted to Alizée, and to the men of E Company…

Even if there were some tensions…it was nice to see someone living up to good ideals.

He climbed on her mech’s chassis, opened her hatch, and dropped inside. Of course, unlike Hans’ mech, her cockpit was more spacious. Being manned by just one person for its size, it had enough for it to be a true officer’s lounge room. Or at least the closest for a war machine. Funnily, she even designed things. There were plushies tied on some storage shelves.

Ladies. Even in war, they go there girlishly.

He grabbed the first aid kit as she ordered, and climbed back up. He looked back at the two of them, both already trying to know each other. They…they were two good souls, weren’t they? It relieved Hans…even for a while.

They were something at least. Something to distract his nightmares.

Perhaps…even people who could help him through this.