“Arthor!” I look up from what I am reading and towards the voice of Bavon, a bit of me is sad that it has already been a week roughly and I had none of it to relax due to the hallway confession that happened alongside nightmares of certain faces. I stand and walk over to open the doors to my room and see what Bavon wants.

“Good you are Awake” he then stops, his eyes narrow down seeing my face. Do I really look that bad at the moment. He takes a deep breath in and out, he walks in and closes the doors behind him, “You’re not sleeping well are you” I look at him displeased in a sense as the main reason of me not sleeping is something I really don’t want to speak about.

I walk over to my seat and look out the window seeing the vast desert that was like home somewhat. But in that said desert two familiar faces, I don’t know why that at this time they decide to plague my mind. At this point it has almost been 2 months so why now of all times.

Bavon sits downs on the other side of the table and looks out to the desert as well with him raising his eyebrows trying to see what I am looking at. He sighs and look towards me and I can see him look painfully at me like he knows I am suffering and have something on my shoulders weighing me down. “You know dad usually keeps peoples secrets and struggles to himself if he is told but he told me about the two people you had killed and how you felt about it” he shuffles around in his chair like he doesn’t want to also talk about this but wats to at the same time, “Is what you are starring at the two men you had killed” I look at him and lower my gaze having him say it, “I don’t understand what it is like to kill some or even the consequences of it” he going to ask me to continue killing people isn’t he? “But I guessing it is like depression or anxiety and how do you solve those problems” you points his hand towards me waiting for my response, “You face and challenge it but with this it is something you have to stick with your whole life knowing you had killed dozens of men” he nods to my statement and leans forward.

“but if you keep down in this hole like a lot of people do your life will just be full of regret that had killed that many people” and there it was just move forward and keep moving forward but will it work can I even live normally knowing I have killed dozens of men, “You just have to keep living like normal like it had never happened even if you have down days keep hoping that you can live normally even if you can’t” I get where he is coming from but am I worthy of living a normal and happy life, I guess that is what I have been constantly questioning myself on.

Am I worthy of living normally?

Bavon stands and walks over to the door, “If you are questioning if you are worthy don’t do that live for others sake” I hear the click of the door opening and the click when it closes. I look out to the desert not seeing the two which is strange. I sit up properly and looking around trying to see where they went, “Why do you question yourself for killing” I turn to the direction of where I heard the voice, “Am I worthy to live on for killing someone?” another voice joins and questions what I was thinking, “HAHAHA, don’t make us laugh” a chill then shifts down my spine, “Let us give you some advice for living after you have killed a person” The first voice said, “Don’t question yourself” the second voice adds, “Just live for living although you have killed someone” The first says, “But remember those who have killed and try to seek forgiveness from them” The second says which makes me widen my eyes, “Like us we knew we would die it was just when” they both say at the same time.

‘Seek forgiveness for those you have killed’ how do I do that? “Who knows we are just imagination speaking random stuff but” both of them say, “I guess what we are trying to say is forgive yourself for doing such an act but just remember that you will live for life remembering the faces of every person you have killed” both add stopping me from getting hope to try and forget such faces from plaguing me, so the only option is to just move forward and live with it. Not much of happy option as I wanted.

I breath in and out in a rhythm and have my closed while I do it. I open them and stand out of my chair and walk to the door and reach for handle and open the door and walk out and close the door. “Good lets go and see what your new toys are going to be like” Bavon says standing in the hallway he starts to walk down the hallway and I follow behind him.

We walk down the hallways passing by the rare sight of a servant here and there but we continue our way. But before we can test out my new equipment I have to change into the appropriate gear so we first head to the storage area to get that said gear which includes new pants, shirt, body armour, a new jacket with a hood, and a balaclava for face coverage.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

It confuses me that I have a balaclava but why do I need one if I am wearing the helmet? “Why do I need the Mask?” Bavon turns to me and just shrugs, “I was told you need one to wear the helmet for some reason” he says to explain himself. I sigh I never liked wearing one of these but looks like I will have too now.

Once I have dawned all of the new stuff we then head to the armoury where my equipment is waiting, I put on my more tactical gear like my new vest and holster and the new helmet I am supposed to get. It looks rounder than the older models and instead of the dots it is instead going to form a cross of sort to now having a more complete visor kind of look along with something that is located near the mouth to allow air in like a gas mask of sorts. This new type of helmet is very interesting I wonder how it will function.

I put it on and understand why the balaclava was needed it was unclerically cold even now as I am wearing one. “Now I was told how to operate this but only to the point of turning it on” I look at him even though it was ‘off’ I could still see through the visor. Why don’t more helmets do this? This kind of style of doing is more effective and allows for easier vison.

“If you push down on the side of your helmet, right side to be exact it will turn on” I push the right side of my helmet and my vison became clearer. Sight through the visor was all round better and I had indicators in the side of my vision like a map and vital signs? How is that possible.

“Now I can’t tell if it is on or not so is it?” wait so there is no light being shown outside even though I can tell clear as day some light is used to light u some things, “Yeah it is on but is there no light shown from the outside?” Bavon nods confirming what I asked. Interesting.

He then starts to walk to another place located in the armoury we were in I quickly followed after him and saw why he was heading this way. Weapons and a lot of them surprisingly. I look around and take notice of the snipers and pistols as they are going to be my main pieces of lethality.

“I will get you your sniper give me a second” he then walks to a side room and brings out my sniper and a pistol he hands me both of them one for each hand. And this is when I notice the heaviness of the sniper I never really held without having much support for it like a back and two hands giving it proper support or is it that I am just not that strong enough yet to hold it in with hand.

I holster my pistol and wrap the sling of the sniper around me that way it is not so heavy, I look down the scope and saw nothing or even felt anything wrong with alignment it just felt like it was normal and even felt like I was not wearing helmet with normal looking down the scope felt.

“So how is it?” I laugh a little and look at him, “Like nothing is wrong, it perfect if I am allowed to say that” Bavon chuckles a little at that and walks out of the room to the outside, when I follow him out I see a range and a large one at that, “This place goes out to a point of one kilometre and each target is set at differing positions throughout so go ahead test it” I walk over and law down deploy the bipod and look down the sights. I can now try and test myself with how far I can shoot.

I adjust the scope for the range and wind but something interesting happened while doing so, the helmet did it for automatically so I undo my adjustment I look down the scope again and empty my lungs and fire. The range it was at was six hundred or so metres out.

I hit the target around the top left side torso region near the shoulder but closer to centre mass, I see my aim still needs improvement. I look for a target closer to me the target that is oh so unlucky is roughly four to four fifty hundred metres away. And I repeat the process I did with the first one and I had gotten quite lucky where I had hit.

The shot laned left middle mass roughly where the heart is, not a one shot kill like a head shot but it would kill a person. I tense up thinking about the word ‘killing’ and continue with my aiming and see the face of one of them my eyes widen due to the fact and I can actively feel my heart speed up.

My breathing throws off my aim slightly even though I am on a bipod it does not stop the sway from hands from a person, I slow my breathing and steady my hands to the point my aim is stabilized. The face stares at me dead inside. I go to pull the trigger and freeze before doing so, as I look at him I get the feeling that I am being pushed to do it.

I empty my lungs and hold and fire. before I pulled the trigger I closed my eyes. When I opened them the face was gone and felt calmer even though I was about to have a mental break down. I empty the chamber like second nature even though I have only used this sniper a total of two time yet I am already familiar with the system of cycling a bullet into the chamber.

I close the scope with the caps do have no damage happen to the scope. I stand up and fold up the bipod and look over at Bavon who is looking through binoculars at the target I just fired at, “Nice shot” I look back and have the helmet zoom in on the target I just shot at and I see where the bullet landed.

Square between where the eyes should be.