The sound of waves crashing against the shore mixed with the cries of the seagulls. Both were sounds that Arnel had never heard in real life, and now they were as omnipresent as the air he was breathing and as real as the taste of salt on the sea breeze.

He was leaning against a pillar, and staring far off into the yonder. The setting sun behind him plastered his shadow next to him, visible in his peripheral vision. In the shadow, he could see himself leaning against the pillar, but there was also another person — in the same pose as him — leaning against the same pillar on the other side, like a mirrored version of himself.

“What do you think of this place, Code?” the other person asked. His voice was familiar, but Arnel was sure he had never heard it before.

Arnel thought about the question. The distant sound of waves — the encroaching darkness of night coming to meet the terminus of twilight — it was all too familiar. It reminded him of Priscilla, and their final day together. All his locked away regrets and fears came to the surface at that moment, and he couldn’t help but try to choke back the rushing tears.

Since that day, everything had gone wrong. The AGMI, Leviathan, Icarus-4, all these things happened and derailed his life. He witnessed — and caused — impossible things. APVs malfunctioning, drones malfunctioning, he learned of the Gestalt Mandate, and AGMI trapped in Singularity. It all seemed like a terrible nightmare now.

Worst of all was the premonition in which he saw Jennifer’s lifeless body. The overwhelming guilt he felt then was real and it remained with him even past the premonition.

“I like it here,” Arnel said, his voice somewhere between a howl and a moan. There was no holding back the tears anymore. They poured freely and relentlessly. With each tear, a part of his heart shattered. “I… I did something… terrible…”

His companion nodded — Arnel saw the shadow’s head move. His companion did not rush him. When his companion spoke again, his tone was soft. “You know, this is the home that we protected with everything that we had,” his companion said. “Here, we forgot the value of life, and learned the value of living.”

The words sliced into Arnel’s heart, like a plasma jet carving away pieces of jagged metal. Arnel howled then and covered his face with both hands. He had forgotten both the value of life and the value of living.

“Because of this place, we lost ourselves,” his companion spoke softly. “And through this place, we found ourselves again. There is nothing even extraordinary about it, it is just a piece of metal that fell from the skies. Ciel-on-the-sea. Sky on the sea.”

His companion sighed, tilting his head towards the sky. “All my friends, all my comrades, all my brothers and sisters, died because of this place. I remember all their names and their faces. We are the Lost, but no matter how lost we become, we will always find our way back here. They are here, even now.” He paused. “Do you see them?”

Arnel wiped away his tears and cracked an eye open. He didn’t see anyone. There was no one here but the two of them.

“Nineteen…” Arnel wept. “I don’t… want to leave…”

Nineteen leaned his head against the pillar and sighed once again. “Is that so?”

Arnel wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. He cried as hard as he could. The words he spoke next were a howl. “I can’t… do it! You go! Just... leave me here.”

Finally, his heart crumbled with those words. This was not that different from the first days, after his surgery, that he spent in Singularity. Except, this time, in the real world what awaited him was not agony — but a different kind of pain. The crushing guilt he felt over the Icarus-4 incident, the disgust he felt towards himself for not telling Jennifer that it was all his fault, and the self-loathing for not regretting that he took someone’s life — even if it was to protect those he loved.

He truly, genuinely, wanted to disappear.

For a long time, there was only silence. By the time Arnel stopped crying, and opened his eyes, he noticed that his shadow was the only one next to the pillar.

He wiped at his eyes one more time and then tried to glance around the pillar. “Nineteen?” he asked and went unanswered.

Slowly, Arnel climbed to his feet and turned around.

“Nine…” his words trailed off as his gaze fell on an inscription on the pillar. The words were carved into the silvery metallic surface with a knife, and as Arnel began to read them, he could hear laughter from behind him.

Take heart, my brothers and sisters.

The finest part of you is still here.

“Guys! I think I caught a fish!” He heard someone shout, but Arnel could not look away from the words on the pillar. They drew him in — they swallowed him whole.

All your happiness, all your sorrow,

All your dreams, all your hopes,

“Major, when is your birthday?” the voice came from nearby. From just around the pillar.

“I don’t have one,” Nineteen said.

The best of you, and the worst of you,

Your triumphs, and your defeats,

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They are all here.

The sky lit up with a series of explosions as the fireworks bloomed.

“Happy birthday, Nineteen!” the chorus of voices bellowed, drowning out the fireworks.

We are the forgotten.

We are the lost.

“Thank you for giving us a life worth living,” Nineteen spoke.

We are here.

Arnel fell to his knees, his hand sliding along the metallic pillar.

His heart throbbed as he heard their laughter behind him. He heard their distant voices. He heard their cheers. He heard them cry.

Arnel vaguely understood then what Nineteen had been fighting for — he understood now what it meant to fight for something. He understood what it meant to endure and to carry on despite the pain.

“Nineteen,” he whispered. “I see them now…”

He saw them. He heard them. He felt the sting of their loss burning in his chest. All their joys and their sorrows, their laughter and their tears — they were all here.

How many of them did Nineteen see die before his eyes? When Nineteen spoke of bringing them home, this is what he meant! This place — this one time when they were all together, and of one heart and one mind, before the war took it all away from them — they were here.

“Have you found yourself, Code?” Nineteen spoke from behind him.

The overwhelming emotions he felt from the surfacing vague memories also left a warm glow in his chest. He nodded.

“Don’t forget us, Code,” Nineteen said, his voice growing distant and faint. “As long as you remember, we can always be found.”

Arnel nodded, his heart becoming heavier and heavier. “I will remember.”

“For the glory of Humankind,” Nineteen said, his voice so faint as if he was dozens of meters away.

Arnel looked at the ground. “For the glory of Humankind,” he repeated the phrase.

“For the glory of the Lost Battalion!” Someone shouted in the distance.

“Stop drawing graffiti on the wall!” The reply came. Then laughter.

___

Arnel woke with a start. His mind still teetered on the precipice of sleep, coma, death, or whatever it was that held him captive until then. The fading fragments of a dream twinkled on his mind, and for some reason, his cheeks were covered in tears.

He brought his hand towards his face and stared at it for a long moment.

Next to him, Jennifer breathed softly, still wearing the same shirt as before. She slept peacefully.

Slowly, Arnel got off the bed and looked around the unfamiliar room. In the mirror, he saw the bandages that adorned his chest — two stripes of white against his pale body, one around his stomach, the other around his upper chest. He was barefoot, but at least he still had his pants on.

He looked at Jennifer one more time and then left the room.

He only vaguely remembered his meeting with Nineteen. His heart brimmed with relief, pain, happiness, and sorrow. Even the guilt he felt, the disgust, and the self-loathing, now seemed small in comparison. There was something powerful within him that kept him together. When all things forced him to look back on the past, and through the past, to see a difficult future, this thing keeping him together pulled him even further back into the past. Instead of looking at the future through the eyes of someone who may be responsible for killing half a million people, he went back to the time when he still had a mother. Her face had faded from his memory, but at that moment, he could see her clearly. He could smell her cooking on her apron. He could still see the glimmering happiness in her eyes. He could see her, for the first time in so many years.

He could see her…

His heart stopped throbbing. His chest stopped burning. An iron-clad resolve settled within him, binding his broken pieces together as if via steel wire.

Because of the times, Nineteen had no choice but to create a place to remember and to honor the dead.

For Arnel it was different. He could create a place to protect those who still lived. He didn’t know who was after Jennifer, or why — he didn’t know if they were after the others too — but he knew one thing: He wouldn’t let anyone hurt them.

He walked into the living room and saw two familiar faces.

“Hey… bud,” Thomas greeted him. He wore a black vest, with many pouches, and his rifle, a 6.9mm full-automatic, rested against the table. His sidearm, a fully automatic pistol lay on the table. Arnel recognized that pistol — it was the same one he used in his premonition.

Isobell sat next to Thomas, and it looked like she had recently been crying. She didn’t have body armor on, like Thomas, or any weapons.

Arnel glanced at the information above their heads and then looked at the gun on the table.

He had forgotten. They were also failsafes.

Slowly, Arnel approached the two.

“I…” Thomas trailed off, chewing his lower lip. “I really let you down. I am so sorry.”

“Thomas!” Isobell exclaimed.

“It was my fault. I fucked up,” Thomas spoke, shaking his head. “I didn’t see it coming.”

Isobell jumped off the couch and slapped Thomas. “It was my fault. I dropped the ball. Don’t take this all on yourself. You are just a fucking grunt!”

Thomas rubbed his cheek but did not say anything.

“Keep it down,” Arnel said as he sat down on the sofa next to their couch. “You’ll wake up Jennifer.”

Isobell made an apologetic expression before nodding and sitting down once again.

“I take it you know what happened?” Arnel asked.

Thomas nodded. “Yeah.”

“Do you know who did this?”

“It’s the fuckers from Six,” Thomas said angrily.

“Six? Sector Six?” Arnel asked. “Epsilon?”

Thomas nodded. “They are failsafes. Sector Six Peacekeepers, Special Division zero. They report directly to Epsilon.”

“I am sorry, Arnel,” Isobell whispered softly. “I knew they sabotaged Icarus-four to target your friend, but I did not see this coming. I did not think they would go so—“

“What did you say?” Arnel asked, his jaw slack. Tears began filling up his eyes.

They both stared at him warily.

“They sabotaged… the Arcology?” Arnel asked.

Isobell nodded. “Yeah. Deucalion even shot down the drone that was going to do it, but they had someone else on-site to finish the job. I am sorry.”

Suddenly, a great weight fell off Arnel’s shoulders. He did not even realize how heavy it was until its absence left him feeling as light as a feather. He howled — he did not care if he woke up Jennifer. He laughed and he cried. Tears of joy, tears of sorrow, tears of fury and regret, tears of everything. In that moment, he truly did go mad.

As the complicated knots of self-loathing, guilt, and fury unraveled in his gut, the hesitation and disciplined self-control also came undone.

It was not his fault. He did not murder innocent people. He was not responsible for taking away Jennifer’s parents. Someone else did that.

He did not even realize when it happened, but Thomas was kicked out of his seat and replaced by Arnel. Isobell gently stroked his head, which was on her lap, and uttered soft whispers into his ear, as he cried his heart out.

He cried, and filled the void in his heart in the absence of that knot with promises of retribution.

Epsilon. Sector Six. Special Division Zero.

He understood then. Jennifer was not their target. Arnel saw — the conclusion of his premonition was the evidence that he failed to see earlier. But now, absolved of guilt, he could see it clearly. They could not kill him directly. But if he was the one holding the weapon and pulling the trigger — of his own will — then that was acceptable.

< I won’t let you die. >

Arnel heard Leviathan’s voice in the deep recesses of his fading consciousness, and somehow, he felt glad. The voice that once terrified him was now a welcome companion and a pillar of stability. His feelings of abandonment were replaced with a clarity of purpose. Leviathan did not abandon him. There had to be a good reason for his silence.

“I know…” Arnel whispered as he drifted off to sleep in Isobell’s lap, exhausted from crying.