[Dokchara]

Dominique had started heading in a different direction after that fiasco, claiming that there was a military base about a day’s worth of walking from us. I was still a bit confused about what he had done to that Grahtonian, but I didn’t really have any other good options and his explanations flew over my head. Something about accessing neural networks through implants to read memories? It sounded like a fictional story to me no matter how he spelled it out.

He’d picked up the massive gun that the Graht used to send him off and was trying to get it working again. I honestly didn’t want to be anywhere near him when he attempted to test it since his genius method of repairing the damage it had taken was simply bending it back into shape until it was good enough. I know that he could probably see even the slightest imperfection in the gun with his freakish eyes but that didn’t give me much peace of mind when he kept going off about how different the alien technology was. If I’d known he would make such a fuss about that thing, I wouldn’t have slammed it on a rock when I got the drop on that Grahtonian.

“By the way, how did you even manage to get close to that guy, let alone wrestle him down? If he shot me from the edge of my scanner with that much precision, I’d assume he had visuals on both of us?”

“It’s exactly that, Dom. When he fired at you, the shockwave was enough to launch me back a ways away. That force would be enough to kill most known species, so I took that opportunity to temporarily stop my heart and try to mess with his info. It worked exactly as planned since he came up to me with his guard down, probably to confirm the kill or something. After that, it was just a matter of difference in weight class.”

“...You could even fool me with that, you know? It’s a bit freaky.”

“Excuse me? Freaky? Man, you’re the one with a gaping hole in his chest!”

“Don’t make fun of it! Chicks dig scars, ya know?”

…

I gave him my best look of annoyance. I don’t know if he understood the facial expression, but he at least got the sentiment. It really pisses me off because I know he can regenerate that in minutes, he’s just keeping it to mess with me.

Other than the sparse interactions we had, trekking through the dense jungle resulted in long periods of walking in silence. I took these mental downtimes as opportunities to think back on what’s happened in such a short amount of time and just how far I planned on taking this. We were on a border planet with just one farm on it, taking it out and freeing the captives would be just a scratch in this massive operation. It was an ambition of mine to play hero and be the savior of my kind, but I’ve just come to realize how much I’ve relied on Dominique for pretty much everything so far. It’d be unfair for me to ask him ‘Hey, want to destroy one of the biggest empires in the galaxy with me? I have no way to repay you, but it’d sure be a good deed!’

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Aside from these intrusive feelings of inadequacy, there’s been another, more sinister topic plaguing my mind; I’m afraid of Dominique. Not in a way that would cause me to be skittish around him or anything like that, It’s more like a twisted awe of his methods. When he pinned that Grahtonian to a tree and “browsed his memories,” the eyes of that Graht woke up a suppressed memory of mine.

It was from my early youth, when my people were still at war with the Grahtonians. My home planet was originally somewhat close to our border with them, but as the war went on we fell more under the direct line of fire. I remember hiding in a bunker, being held by my uncle as the power was shut down and lights were temporarily down. There was this high-pitched noise and the feeling of someone scraping the back of my skull with a knife. I wanted to fall on the ground, ball up and cover my ears, physically react in any way but my uncle was holding on to me too tightly and not letting go. I had assumed that he couldn’t hear my pleas over the noise, that he was suffering just like I was.

When the emergency lights were turned back on, I failed to understand what I was looking at until it was spelled out for me later on. My uncle, the only person I had left after my parents went to the war and were announced MIA, had lost his mind. Not in the sense of going crazy, but in the sense that there were no instructions of life left in his brain. His body was still functional, his organs still working and muscles still keeping me in place, but the man himself was gone. They had to pry me out of the husk that refused to let me go. About half of the people in that shelter left for better horizons that night, their bodies still executing the last command they ever received.

And the Grahtonian that Dominique had killed shared the same eyes as those people. Glossed over, unfocused, his body still gasping for air in Dom’s chokehold while his mind was long gone. I know that Dominique is not like the Grahtonians, that he has compassion and humor, and that he values his ‘humanity,’ as dumb as that sounds. I know that he has harbored nothing but good intentions when trying to help me out of situations and keeping out for my well being. I know that what he did was only possible because of a direct connection to that Graht’s mind, and that he would never use a mind-destroying sonic weapon as that would fall under too many of his “war-crimes.”

Despite all this, I can’t help but feel terrified at what I saw back there-

“Hey Dok-”

“AAHH!! Great Ruler above, don’t fucking startle me like that!”

“Uhhhh, my bad?! How else am I supposed to get your attention?”

…

“I was going to ask if you’re okay, you looked like you just saw a ghost.”

“A what? Tch, I’m fine. Are we there yet?”