A distastefully sweet and metallic smell assaulted my nostrils, along with something I’ll only describe as burnt. It was like that since I regained consciousness, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. They were already dead. Even I knew that much. He wasn’t the kind of person who’d accidentally let one live.

   That made my condition even more insulting. I didn’t survive, he kept me alive. The brave tale of my survival was really the twisted tale of a sociopath’s charity.

  No, it’s not even that. Even though I wanted to stand against everything he stood for, he still thought keeping me alive was a benefit to him.

  It’s not like that affected anything other than my pride though. I was alive. And if I was alive that meant I still had a chance to help.

   Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to help anyone either way. If anything, I was the one most in need of assistance.

  I found myself in a position where I wasn’t sure whose blood was whose. Not that it really mattered. Once it leaves the body its ownership is ambiguous at best.

  I tried pushing myself off the ground. I’d been out for, well, I don’t know how long I’d been knocked out for. But I couldn’t wait around any longer than necessary. I needed to check for survivors; even though I was positive there weren’t any.

  Was it blind optimism that drove me, or was I just playing a part? Neither, and both. I had an ideal that I believed in. And I would follow that ideal, even if it ended up being a pointless one man show.

  Justice will always prevail. I’ve lived my life believing that with everything I have, but you know, after the past few days that’s not sounding as convincing as it used to.

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

  I was given a chance to fight for this justice I’m always going on about, and it ended with me getting absolutely crushed by a young girl before being tossed aside by a fairy tale character.

  My second chance at defending justice led to our current scene, with me unsure how much of the blood soaked into my clothes came from my own body.

  Clearly things hadn’t gone as planned.

   Now that I’ve started to monologue I’m getting nervous. I mean, I’m not exactly important enough to be giving a monologue in the first place.

  Or Clever enough.

   I’m not sure if I’m one of the main characters. At this point, I’m not even sure if I’m one of the good guys.

   Still, I think I’m the best man for this.

  Probably.

  If someone’s too involved in the story they’ll have trouble telling it.

  Besides, they say you learn more from failure than from success.

   A proper story would start during 1931, when humans first started developing augmentations. Or was it 2031? Which one was the twentieth century? Never mind, it doesn’t matter.

  The point is, I’m not going to tell a proper story. Even if my history was at a level where I could do such a thing, nothing I have to say is worth that kind of buildup. I’ll just start with the day of the incident. The day I got transferred to the ARA.

   Consider this nothing more than an anecdotal piece of a story much larger than the person telling it.