I wake up in a bed. Funny, hasn’t this already happened once? Well I suppose it’s happened my whole life.

But this time, there is someone by my side. A person lays sleeping on the bed.

Her beautiful face is unruffled, serene and calming. An experience alien to me. I’ve lost everyone who would stand by me. It’s been so long that I’m a cynic of those who try. I nudge her with my leg. She stirs. Her eyes cloudy from waking up. There’s a blankness to them, like a soft coat of snow, but finally something else stirs and awakens. A flame is lit.

“So you’re still alive,” she says with a smirk.

“Nope, I’m still dead.”

“Whatever you say, Hero of Frost.” Nonchalantly, she dangles my title in front of me and aggravates me.

It’s an effective tactic. “Don’t use that name.”

“Why?” She looks curious. “You’re a decorated war hero and urban legend. The forgotten warrior of the Northern Boundary. Everyone would look up to you. You should return.” She smiles with mockery as she says this.

“You already know that I’m a damn old codger who’s given up on heroics,” I snap back. “In fact, right now, rather than heroics, the only thing in my head is to find the brat that shot me.”

“Oh, Yuda?” She chuckles with an evil grin. “You really did underestimate him. That brat you spoke of is Nikolai’s number one informant.”

“Tch,” I click my tongue. “I don’t like it.”

“You don’t have to like him. As long as he’s competent, personality doesn’t matter. Well, it does, but for a spy, personality is but a mirage. That was him practicing his naivete. Besides, it’s not like he’s a little shit either. He’s nothing like your first impression of him. He does his job damn well. That’s why he shot you. Because you killed our leader.”

“You killed him.” The words seem so peaceful, if not for the glare I give her.

“Well, well, all’s well that ends well,” she laughs.

“The way you pretend everything’s okay is quite pathetic.”

“And the way you bitch about everything is even worse.”

“How could I not?!” I yell.

“Why don’t you simply accept your new position.” It was not a question but a command.

“Funny that I’m supposed to be the leader and yet I’m the one being bossed around.”

“Oh, you’ll warm up to it very soon.” She smiles sinisterly. “You’ll die otherwise.”

“You damned bitch.”

She whistles innocently, as though she doesn’t have me completely under her thumb.

I’m tempted to request death. End my life and it’ll be over, but something inside me hardens and says, Don’t. The image of a sniveling starved man comes to mind. He was the first death I saw in those camps. We passed by him as we crossed the River Styx. Abandon all hope, ye who enter. The procession to the gates was so long that we watched him, half-beaten and naked, sit in the snow, his arms dangling by his sides like a hung man. His face was still held up but it was not courage that propped him up. No, it was a limitless emptiness. His Maker abandoned him, like a wind-up toy whose gears stopped running. He halted there on the snow. Not even I would wish for such a fate, so instead I let bitterness keep me going. Anything to keep alive.

Funny that I end up more dead than alive then.

But the memory fades. I hear shouting. “Hey! HEY!”

Mia yells at me and I finally respond. “Yes?”

“For fuck’s sake, blanking out like that for a whole minute. Don’t you know that time is money?”

“I’m sorry. I was remembering something.”

“Aren’t those exact same words you said to me when we met?” Nostalgia colors her expression, as though she were remembering a lovers’ rendezvous.

“You kidnapped me. Don’t make it sound romantic.”

“Awh, and I was hoping you’d have Stockholm syndrome.” She makes a cute pout. Once again, I’m reminded of just how young she is. A vibrant flower ready to bloom. But then the petals wilt. “You’re thinking of something sexual.” Her eyes, like usual, burn bright red. Even anger makes her look beautiful.

“Ah, is it so wrong to admire flowers?”

Her eyes sharpen, whetted by my provocations. A vicious voice comes out like a sucker punch. “Do you wish to be Punished?”

“Not anything but that.” I wave my hands. It’s almost like a skit. How I abandon all dignity the moment she talks about the Punisher. If the guards had that, we’d really all die. And if we didn’t, we’d turn to shit. Well, even without the Punisher, many of us turned to sobbing newborns, as though regression might return us to our safe haven of lost youth.

“Your eyes are going empty again.”

“How could they not? After all I’ve been through, how could they not?”

“It’s the same excuse. Perhaps, Nikolai was right and it’d be better to shoot you.”

“Oh, please give me that!” I joke.

“Hell no,” she instantly replies. “I already said it once but I am not your executioner. If you’re going to die, do it yourself and do it with dignity. Was your title just for show?”

“It is, it is! Definitely is! That was decades ago when my back was not broken. When the world was young and fresh, but at my age all such visions die. Monochrome replaces color. Blindness replaces vision. I am too old for another revolution. Why can’t you see that?!”

“Because our cause is just.” In her eyes rages an inferno. The little flame that flickered at the beginning of our conversation burns bright and true. There’s almost an invigorating effect to it. Almost. Not even youthful ambition can move me.

Instead, I retort, “And that is the blindness of a self-righteous fool.” Her words disgust me. “That is the lie of the politician. I am here for the people. Well, that’s all fine and dandy until it really comes down to it. Standing on that position is intoxicating. Power and wealth are yours. This is my cause but my real credo is authority. Tell me this.” I raise myself from the bed. My eyes glower with suspicion. “How do you know you’re not the same?”

“And that is the real question, is it not.” She smiles without a care but her face quickly hardens. She makes her declaration. “But I already know the answer.”

“Then what is it?” I ask but she’s already leaving.

With her back to me, she simply says, “Figure it out” and closes the door.

I don’t bother to respond. This whole damn cause is something I don’t believe in myself, so it’s pointless to figure out if others do either. Why should I care about what some extremist says? I could say that.

And then I’d die.

They want me to become their leader. Otherwise, I die. Certainly, I have the potential to fulfill it just through hate of the government alone. Not just the old one but this new one too. It’s already rotting. Of course, it would. A revolution is just a name, an euphemism. Power to the people? Hah, what a foolish thing to ever hope for. In history, the word revolution only ever meant this--

From one great power to another.

Their hope to reveal our history is just a facade. The cynic in me simply sees it as a way to create instability. Hysteria is a swift conduit to the coup d’etat. Like a rod of lightning, the masses’ charge is simply an effective means to strike at the enemy. To paralyze them. And in the ensuing chaos, they’d take control.

Assuming everything goes to plan, that is.

Sometimes, not even that is enough.

And sometimes, this is not the pattern.

But still, I am a cynic at heart. I would never believe these terrorists have good intentions at heart.

Funny that on a day so bright, without a cloud in sight, that I’m cast in shadow. Outside is a city. The window in the room streams light in. As I continue to reflect, I see my reflection. The face is foreign but handsome. I make a grim smile. Of course. It’d be better if my body was casted into some different mold, if I could just look like a monster. Better yet, give me back my old body. Give back my shell. At least then, I’d be able to show my true nature, but in this new form I have to adapt, change.

I could choose to die.

Yes, that is the question I faced all my life.

When did I stop caring?

After my first battle? After I was arrested? After I learned my family were executed? After I was released? After I let myself rot? After I settled into an old, empty retirement center for dying war vets?

How old was I? When I left prison?

Only thirty-ish. A lucky bastard. I only got about five years or so but what does it matter about length? After the first week, you’re already numb to it. A couple of extra years don’t mean anything. Already then, I was poisoned. At first, I tried to keep my head up and ask for reparations, for anything, but instead I gave up and lowered my face to the ground. I scarcely got any pensions. I worked my whole damn life.

Those middle years…

A plane flies across a blameless sky. Just an endless blue. Just a callous Maker. I could complain all I want but I don’t even bother.

That’s how one survived. To not even try anymore.

That sky’s so pristine, entirely unlike my stormy mind. I take a deep breath in. The door opens.

Another person enters. I swing my face around and they take a step back. The spy’s apprentice. A flash of emotions swirl. The one who shot me.

But right now, all I see is a fresh college kid, someone who doesn’t know what it’s like to kill. I watch his eyes for malice…There’s none. He just looks like a lost puppy someone abandoned. Those innocent doe eyes--

They’re disgusting.

He is just like Nikolai in every regard. While smiling at you, he betrays you. While holding the knife in his hands, he pretends to laugh with you and make merry. A split personality. You piece of shit. Nikolai, even though you said you wanted to be redeemed, you make another monster. I feel the urge to vomit but say nothing.

We just remain here. Nobody talks. Just a hunter and his prey, what an odd sight.

His nose is healed without being bent. It’s as though I hadn’t smacked his face. He’s a lucky shit or perhaps it is surgery? But I see no signs of it.

Either way, that is irrelevant.

As of now, its presence disturbs me but shooing it away would take more energy. Rather, I feel like ignoring it. I wonder how long it would take for one of us to break down. The two of us in the room. One sitting on the bed, the other standing. If anything, I am the more relaxed one, having a nice, comfy bed to lay on. On the other hand, he is frightened. I’m sure it’s the eyes. The pure loathing I direct at him is something I practiced many times.

A fight is imprudent. A last resort.

When a man harassed you, it was unwise to fight back. The guards would beat you for stirring trouble. Sometimes, they’d even beat you just for talking. That’s why the eyes were so necessary. The windows to the soul. I trained mine to become as black as coal.

Yet even then, he stands there, frightened but paralyzed. Perhaps, it was too much?

I stop caring. Outside is the city. I’m quite high up. I can’t escape through the windows. Escape, what a silly word. There is no exit. Surrounded by barbed wires and the endless woods, and if you escaped the dogs and the guards, there was nothing but wilderness. Only desolation.

Slowly, the scenery before melts.

The cities become trees. The streets become snow. The sun becomes cold. The world freezes over and nothing moves. Life stills. There is only the grunts of men toiling, toiling in a labor that aided the enemy. And then gunfire. Occasionally, like a bell’s knell, we heard gunfire. At first, we looked at each other but then the guards yelled at us. We all knew what it meant but we stopped caring.

His favorite pastime. Watching old shadows crawl.

Distance from the past doesn’t make it much clearer. Not here. There remains the grudge and the pain. It’s unforgettable. How easy it would be if everything could just up and disappear. Let everything float away. Like the drifting snowflakes, immaterial yet beautiful all the same. They flutter without a care. Their noiseless landings have all the grace in the world. And then they melt.

But you know.

When the snow melts, the mud is revealed.

Even running away from the past is pointless when it’s finally exposed. Purity is meant to be defiled. We, the Vanished Ones, once full of dreams and aspirations, are extinguished. Blown out.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Who is to blame?

Over and over in my head, I replay the memories. They should have faded by now or be so jumbled up that they wouldn't make sense. Even so, at my age, I remember. I remember the blood on the snow, the corpses that laid there, the corruption that was covered. Ah yes, in that endless winter, the snow concealed all. And then spring came and the skeletons rattled, but there was no bone. The flesh remained. The cold preserved the murder but it too was ultimately forgotten. We forgot.

Are we to be blamed?

For forgetting?

Was it our elders, our teachers, our parents that we blame?

For pushing this burden?

I stand on the field of snow, the transient snowflakes landing soundlessly. All is still. I can only see the puffs of breath, of life, and not the fallen. I stand on top of them. I buried them. In those intermediate years, when my own country betrayed me, when everyone left me behind, that is all I can do. Push it all down. Coat it with a fresh paint of white. But old age tends to creak. Now, I have nothing but time, the purgatory before death.

With closed eyes, I avert them from the gunshot.

Bang.

Touch.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir. It seemed that you were so at peace. That’s why I had to dispel it.” A voice of malice. A spirit of hate. Even Nikolai isn’t so low. He did what he did to survive, not to revel in misery, but it’s an irrelevant distinction because he wronged me. That is all that matters. “Hey! Stop losing yourself in thought or I might have to do something drastic.”

Finally, I properly look to the side.

It’s the guy who shot me.

The mud is revealed.

“Get out.”

“Wait, wait.” He shakes his hands in front of him. “Can I at least give you an explanation?”

“To the one you shot?” I chuckle before I stop and shut him down. “No.”

“It was Nikolai.”

“Tch,” I click my tongue. “I’ll have to find that bastard and break his neck.”

“Those are some dangerous thoughts you’re voicing out loud,” he laughs mirthlessly. Faster than a gunslinger, he draws a gun to my head. “I’ll have to Punish you if you go through with it, though. My benefactor is not to be trifled with.”

“I understand.” I shrug my shoulders. “It was just a joke, a joke.” Callously, I wave it off as nothing.

“As long as you understand.” He puts the gun away.

Surprisingly, he took it sincerely. Heh. Of course, that was a joke too. He probably can’t do anything. After all, I have Mia on my side. Disobedience, even in a terrorist cell, is no joke. Orders must be followed. As a soldier, I instinctively know that. He can’t touch me.

A dangerous line of thinking.

So I decide to play it safe. “I’m sorry that I insulted your master. I’ll make sure not to do it in your presence.”

“Good.”

“Now with that out of the way, please leave.” I shoo with my hands.

“No.” He doesn’t move. “I have to be here in order to make sure you don’t try anything. For a while, I’ll be your caretaker, okay?” He gives out his hand and makes a bright smile. “So let’s get along for a bit.”

Despite the bright smile, it was an order, not a request, but I grant it anyways. “It’s mutually beneficial so fine.”

“With that said, mind if you tell me what you’re thinking about?”

“Do I have to tell you?”

“It’s to ensure that you aren’t thinking of something suspicious.”

“So you’re saying you can read my lies.” I cross my arms.

“Sure, sure.” Ignoring my provocation, he waves it off. “It doesn’t really matter if it’s a lie or not. Just talk to me.”

“If you’ll give the real reason, then I’ll talk.”

“Haha, so stubborn. Just like the reports have said. It’s quite the comprehensive one that Mia came up with.”

I remain silent. This is his own goading. He’s probing for a reaction but I remain silent. Interrogations have taught me quite a lot. Too bad they can’t threaten me aside from corporal punishment.

Words clang against my head. They took my wife and children and killed them because I disobeyed. And then right there on the courtyard, he wept and the guards beat him and he wept some more. He died on the spot. It wasn’t only soldiers that were arrested by then. Just a regular civilian accused of a spurious crime. More lies and deceit.

Silence is golden.

A stone sees it all.

Say no evil, do no evil.

Like a shadow towering over its captive, he bends his back and looks me straight in the eye. It’s just like Nikolai. During his rounds, he did the exact same. Closing in on the prey, he watched them like a hawk until the moment to strike came. Vicious, calculating, and cold, the man named Nikolai, the Glasseye Spy.

I stare right back into those eyes. They even have his transparency down. Those eyes were as lucid as glass. It seemed as though they could see to the core of your being. He shot straight to your inner being.

However, even the apprentice can’t outmatch Nikolai himself. That gaze isn’t enough to unnerve me.

“Are you done staring?”

“Hah, first to break the silence! I win.”

“Are you a child?” I retort.

“I can be if I want to. Immaturity is quite charming in its own right. Not caring about the damn rules and having fun on your own terms, it’s quite liberating, yah know. Just like a kid.”

“No, rather than kid, that’s just being incorrigible and wild.”

“I like to dress it up more nicely, yah know. Having fun sounds much better than unruly brat.”

“Just as how freedom fighter sounds better than terrorist?”

“You really like provoking reactions, don’t you.”

“And you don’t?”

“Of course I do. Provocation is a great way to probe one’s character. Too bad yours is so empty.”

“Yes, you could certainly call it empty. I don’t believe in a cause or a reason to live. I don’t even believe I could believe in myself. That is fine. The only thing I have going for me is that I am still alive and I’ll be dead in a short while.”

“No, wait.” He puts on a contemplative expression. “There’s one thing you have.”

“And what is that?”

“Your wretched desire to live.” He throws those words at me like they’re a brick. Certainly, they are heavy. Despite everything I’ve been through, I have not shot myself. Even though it’d be better to die, I have not shot myself. Clinging desperately to life, all my life, I learned how to do just that. To not die for the sake of my family. To not die so that I could one day tell my story. To not die for a better tomorrow.

Foolish words from a foolish child.

I have nothing now.

Except the only desire that brought me here.

My words are desolate. “Indeed, I lost everything else just to be here. I lived and I had to pay the price.”

“Do you think it’d be better to have died? Rather than becoming our puppet, wouldn’t death have been all the more sweeter?”

“It’s easy to say that. Not while you’re in the thick of it, not when you’re in the bushes. It’s easy to regret it. But the one thing you can’t do--” I take a deep sigh “--is change it.” That’s right. Bubbles rise to the surface but all the words contained in them explode. The murky sea of memory is there, permanently there, and in it lies sleeping memories. They rise and pop like sea foam. But they cannot be changed. Irrevocably, they are there and then disappear. “So my point is, ‘Who cares?’ I’ve lived this long. Might as well do it ‘til the very end.”

“How about this? If you could know what would happen to you, if you went back to that time where you were still safe in your retirement home, if you had known you’d be kidnapped, would you do things differently?”

I stare at him with one eyebrow raised. “I see that you are indeed probing me. Perhaps, trying to understand what I think of the past and future?” I make a sinister smile. Before he answers, I continue. “Well, in my eyes, they’re the same. Regardless of their consequences, we’re moving. Backwards or forwards, it doesn’t matter. The clock is ticking.” I look at the clock on the wall. It’s nearly 11 AM. “This morning,” I say while keeping my eyes on the second hand, “I was stuck in this room. And for a few more hours, I’ll be stuck in the same state.” I turn to the spy. “In that case, I see no difference.”

There is a brief silence. All one can hear is the ticking of the second hand. Relentlessly, it moves on. Someday, it’ll pass you too. Leave all of us. That’s time. But he breaks the pleasant peace. The spy laughs. “Oh man! How sort of catch did Mia find?! This is rich!”

The clock ticks. I count twenty of them before the laughter dies down. “Are you finished?”

“Yes, yes. That was amusing, Hero of Frost.” He brings up the past with malice. Like a child, he doesn’t give a damn about what I say. “Your past is there. Sleeping right next to you, it’s always there.” Suddenly, he is melancholy, ashen, and down-faced. It probably looks just like me when I remember the war. “And even while its bony hand caresses your shoulder, the dark clouds loom over the horizon and obscure it. Your future is obliterated. Your past is haunting. And the present is crammed in-between.” Like a raconteur, his face melts into a motley of emotions. “Until you’re squashed by the pressure.” As though to emphasize it, his body crumples, and everything is hanging down, like the leaves of a weeping willow tree.

And then he collapses like a stack of cards.

“Even a single breeze can ruin everything.” Laying on the ground, he speaks his words as though they were hollow.

Rather than respond to this idiot’s performance, I stare out the window, not even bothering to ask the point of it. Probably, he wanted to see me react. He spoke poetry to see if I would listen. Actually, I don’t even know. A literary man, perhaps?

Ah, a nice book would be great to have. It comes to mind after hearing him weave his story. Or is it a parable?

Doesn’t matter.

This piece of shit shot me. Whatever he says is irrelevant. Furthemore, he’s doing nothing more than trying to examine me. A splitting image of Nikolai. I shudder in my head. Another skill I learned in prison--

How to not make a sound.

Not a single word, not a single emotion, will escape my head. Well, that’s a lie, of course, but I minimize all feelings. Indeed, he isn’t Nikolai’s apprentice for nothing. He can already see my insincerity. That is my hollowness. My own words sound foreign to me. They are simply said for the sake of appearances but often I just held my tongue.

In the prison, it was the best skill to learn--

Keeping pain contained.

Saying nothing and believing nothing. It was the only way to ignore the agony of living. The only exception was my family. That was my only belief I held but I cleared everything else. Where there was hope, despair existed alongside it, but I held onto my last hope because I could not extinguish everything. I just clenched my fists tightly. That was the least I could do until I even stopped doing that. Clenched fists could get you a beating too, after all. And then the war ended. But the suffering, it only started to begin.

I could not believe in anything anymore.

I only sustained myself by living for the sake of living. Breathe in, breathe out. Funny how a man can be dead even when alive.

“Hey! Are you really going to ignore me?!” The spy’s apprentice breaks his silence.

I see it as the perfect chance. “‘Hah. First to break the silence. I win!’”

“You little shit,” he laughs. “Being so childish is pathetic.”

“Yes, yes, I am pathetic,” I admit. “Have you come here to mock me for it?”

“I’m here to not pick you apart but to build you up again. To rekindle your love of justice and your compassion.”

“Love of justice? Compassion? Are you stupid? Two words that are entirely incompatible with ice and snow. Frost freezes things over. It kills them. The title is not that for a war hero. It’s meant as an insult.”

“But you can wear it as a badge of honor instead, yes?”

“How could I? How could I when it’s a badge of betrayal? That battle, the things I did, I betrayed them but the snow covered it. The scarlet snow disappeared under that white flurry.”

“How poetic,” he says dryly. “But you shouldn’t feel guilty for what you did.” His eyes are chilling. They are devoid of humanity. It’s as though the lights are snuffed out. Any sense of guilt or sympathy dies. “If it is correct, it doesn’t matter the cost. The only thing that matters is being able to carry it out. The intention. The force. Push through it to make it happen. Isn’t that precisely what you did, Hero of Frost?” He stares at me with a smile.

“That was what I was. I am different now. I’ve reflected on my actions. I’ve had time. Too much of it on my hands. And now I know just how brutal that move was. I was simply desperate but that’s no excuse for the blood on my hands.”

“Surely, you don’t believe in that expression, do you? I can simply wash it off. Down the drain and outta sight.”

In an attempt to find something, I look to his eyes but nothing stirs. Is this an act or the real him? As much as I hate to admit it, it unnerves me. If he truly believes in what he says, he is insane; if he doesn’t, he is still insane. Being able to swap personalities like that is chilling. He might crack at any moment. I make a note in my head. Nikolai, this apprentice of yours is quite scary! Where the hell did you find him? I need to ask him later.

As I analyze and make plans, he takes my silence as acceptance. “See, you don’t. That is why you’re fit to be our leader. You can be the maestro of atrocity and you won’t bat an eye. All that burden is yours and you won’t feel it. What a wonderful power.”

Wait a minute. Damn, I’ve been played. Instead of looking for a way out, I’ve been too occupied with the monster right before me. Shit. I have to applaud Nikolai, however. Give credit where credit is due. Still, to have raised this beast, Nikolai, how exactly did you manage him?

Just as I feel a growing revulsion, Mia enters. “Yuda, Nikolai wants you.”

“Well, my shift’s over. Bye, bye, guiltless man.”

He passes Mia as she comes to over to the bed. Unlike Yuda, she sits on it, pushing my legs aside to make room to sit.

Once Yuda leaves, Mia smiles. “So how was your bonding time?”

I make a mocking smile. “‘Bonding time’ isn’t the exact phrase I’d use with that man.” I look to the door.

“He’s not watching, you know. That man is like a puppy to Nikolai. He’s at his beck and call.”

“How did he gain control of him?” I raise my eyebrows.

“Oh?” she says wryly. “So you noticed it too. How that boy is a shackled dog.”

“Boy?” I comment. “He’s not all that much older than you.”

“That’s right, that’s right,” she laughs.

That was an attempt to conceal my realization, though it most likely failed. Of all the Flowers, only Mia seemed to be genuinely young. However, it seems like she’s not what she looks like after all. Well, I’ve always been surrounded by fakers. The army had its fair share of boot-lickers.

“But you know,” she says, “I find him quite amusing.”

“That beast is amusing?” I ask.

“Hey! It’s bad to dehumanize things, okay!”

“Even you acknowledge that he’s not human, though.”

“Yeah, yeah, but once you get to know him, he’s quite…” She makes a contemplative expression, searching for the right word until she finds it. “…fascinating.”

“You’re a bit kooky to find a psychopath interesting.”

“Not really?” She puts a finger to her lip as though thinking. “I mean, crazies have always caught people’s eyes. There’s something so free about them, something that we ordinary people will never have.”

“That freedom comes at a price!” I bark back.

“But what would it be like to have it?” She smiles. “That freedom to do whatever the hell you want just for your own amusement or benefit, it has a sort of droll tune to it, doesn’t it. Like how a child can have everything they want.”

“That’s not freedom; that’s slavery.”

“Oh? How so?” She scooches closer to me.

“You’re just a slave to desire,” I declare, her face close to mine. “Just as how you all are a slave to your false justice.”

There is silence and the air thickens. It’s hard to breathe. This is my challenge; what is her response? Her eyes widens for a second before she makes a wide smile. She raises a single finger.

“You. You really are quite the troublemaker, aren’t you.”

“Amusement, I suspected that’d be your response.”

“And what if you pissed me off? What if you miscalculated and that wasn’t my response?”

“Then I die?” I look at her quizzically, her finger touching my heart. “What are you doing?”

“This is your precious heart. Blood pumps in and out every day. It keeps you alive but that is not its sole purpose. Can you guess what else it can do?”

“Something along the lines of ‘follow your feelings’?”

“Not exactly.” She purses her lips. “I was hoping you’d give a better answer.”

“So what is it then?”

“It makes you feel alive.”

“There’s a difference?”

She stands from the bed and looks out the window. “Look at the city,” she suddenly says.

I obey. Outside is sunshine and the hustle and bustle of people moving in and out. Compared to this enclosed, trapped room, the world outside is vibrant and free. The colors are more vibrant. This room is muted, as though it were quietly tucked away and faded in the corner. The blameless sky is endless. For a moment, I remember my childhood. My heart slows and I close my eyes.

“See, there it is,” she whispers, as though in the presence of the Maker. “That enrapture with life.”

“I see,” I say as I open my eyes. It’s just mere habit. Remembering things is one of the few pastimes the old have.

“That was what kept you alive, didn’t it?”

The blameless sky, the radiant sun, the dancing wind, those small elements made me forget about life for a bit. I could take in the scenery. It was how kept myself going for all those years. In the prison, we barely could see the outside, so I’ve learned to appreciate it all for all its worth. Nobody knew when you’d be arrested. It wasn’t a matter of if but when.

“As a matter of fact, it has. How did you know?”

“That vacant gaze you sometimes have. It’s the gaze of someone lost in thought or fantasy or in their own little world. It’s where you retreat to when your environment becomes too much to handle.” She presses her hand over my heart. “It’s your own little garden.”

“Mine’s full of thorns.” I chuckle.

“Thorns? Wouldn’t the snow cover it?”

I hold my breath but she simply looks at me curiously. Was that intentional? But she looks innocent, even lovely. She bats her eyelashes. Her face is right in front of me and a sweet perfume twirls in the air.

So I push her.

She topples a bit before regaining her balance. She leaves the bed. There is a faint glimmer in her eyes and she runs off, leaving the door open.

A dangerous woman. Trying to seduce me like that, getting me to divulge my secrets. Torture is an ineffective way to draw information out of someone. It lacks finesse. Only false confessions are revealed, but the real juicy bits are still hidden. Nikolai and Yuda may be spies but they gain information from a distance. Unlike them, she, Mia, goes all in. Like a lover’s finger tingling up the spine, she numbs you before she devours you.

Trust is poison.

In the political camps, nobody knew he was a mole and who wasn’t. In the death camps, everyone was in it together. In a way, the death camps were better. A man died with his comrades but in the political camps--

He died alone.

That is why the moles could snag so many confessors. Searching for someone to lighten the burden, searching for a companion to live with, men confessed their deeds completely. It was an effective strategy. Worse yet, it split us apart. There were the loyalists and the betrayers, the confessors and the oath-holders, the ally and the enemy. We could never distinguish them until it was too late.

Figuring out who was who, keeping track of everyone, it was too much to handle. Our brains halted. Our mouths began to freeze. It was the only way from keeping information from slipping out. No matter the atrocity, we kept silent. Even if we had crucial information to the cause, we kept silent. Not even the new prisoners would say a word about the world outside.

We were locked in.

Another person comes in. Another problem.

This time, it’s someone I haven’t seen before but only for a second before realization strikes.

I gasp, “You’re…!”