"Know this that the telling of ancient lore might not serve the justice with the truth. I condemn you, the one with gilled ears, the one who loves to hear, to smell, to search for infinite wealth."

⸺ Warden 2:13-14

"How does it feel?" Satya asked Kayla as she swallowed her meal, his eyes full of mesmerized curiosity. "You look a bit different."

"Gene evolution," Hundun said from the doorframe. "It's like you can never sit still and be satisfied with resting. You always want more."

Wrong. Kayla thought. It feels like your inside is burning constantly like the anger can never go by, like the sadness had multiplied. I can't move, not when I'm still feeling fragile and hurtful.

But there was something else. She could feel the intensity of the situation from Satya's perspective. It was as if she could empathize towards him to a deeper degree. She could feel his annoyance every time Professor Hundun spoke. To some degree, she could feel his empathy towards her. It was an odd feeling, one of detachment and external perspective.

"I don't remember asking your opinion," Satya answered rudely towards Hundun.

They were back in her room. A lady served Kayla a meal. Its grilled top washed by the sea of peanut butter.

Kayla stared at the two men staring at her. Despite the flavorful meal, she couldn't concentrate on eating. Her tongue became washed by the arrangement of alien tastes; her mouth began to be adjusted to prison food, on stew and random cereal being microwaved every day.

"Does it hurt?" Satya asked again. Kayla couldn't look him in the eyes... dared not to. But when she did, curiousness stepped in. His eyes had different colors in each, something truly remarkable. She wondered if it was some sort of a tattoo, but no.

One was blue and one was dark brown.

"No," Kayla answered, and then her eyes looped down again, returning to the food.

She was slightly lying at that. She frowned as her body was constantly in an influx of uncertainty, flooded by crippling thoughts of dissatisfaction. Everything itched, but nothing was wounded. Her mind, her heart, they grew more anxious, more unstable. So yes, there was no pain. But these things bugged her.

She stared at her arms... of how pale they were. They looked like they'd been padded by baby powder, but Kayla knew this new blood started taking toil of her health, changing her from the inside and out.

"That's good." Satya smiled. He put his arms in his jeans pocket and circled towards Kayla. She tried not to frown at him, but being around people made her even more anxious. His big form was clarified by the undersized hoodie he wore.

"After the final phase, she'll be able to manipulate all Straling elements. She's had the strongest connection by then, and then she'll be manageable. Everything around us consists of Straling. We inhale Straling. We eat Straling. It is everywhere; in the air, in the water, in our bodies and weapons."

"Just... she doesn't need that information right now. She doesn't care."

True. Indeed she didn't care. She didn't want to be weaponized.

Hundun shifted. "Why don't you just leave the girl⸺"

"Fetch me my ImmersiveShades," Satya ordered. The SEU soldier standing beside Hundun perked, his eyes looking towards the professor for approval.

"What are you doing, Satya?" Hundun edged.

"Just fetch me the Shades. It's in my quarter, comrade."

The soldier nodded, now realizing that Hundun got no military rank therefore Satya hold the topmost position.

"I always admire the bravery of kids like you," Satya started. "Clamberians especially. You don't deserve the same fates as other Westerners in this war. I lived there for a couple of years. I would know."

Kayla stabbed the meat, the fork clinging when hitting the plate. Her head was swimming in sweat. Sometimes, it felt like her body was the one taking control instead of her mind.

What did they do to me?

"I understand what you're feeling. I understand your... your anger... your confusion. Your suffering is very unnecessary as if you haven't suffered already." The last sentence was thrown at Hundun in extreme distaste.

"I did what was necessary," Hundun bickered in defense.

"You're destroying her life!"

"As I said," Hundun crossed his arms. "Necessary."

And after that, he strolled away, his footsteps receding as they echoed throughout the hallway.

Satya sighed. "I never agreed with the project."

Kayla looked at him. She tried reaching in as she did before, to feel and empathize from his perspective. There was this weird feeling of transition as she did.

Suddenly, she felt regretful. She felt his feelings. He was regretful.

"Even Sunnik didn't like it. But we were cornered. We were out of force, and our gears, our Straling resources, they are all meaningless when no one wants to fight. That's when Hundun and his aspiring ideas came in, shipped from the north, feeding our leaders into... into believing that a holy war must be fought with unnatural weapons."

Kayla wondered in her mind. Unnatural weapons. Am I an unnatural weapon?

"He offered his projects as a charity. He said he only wants the oppressors to be bleeding." He scoffed. "Sunnik almost fell asleep when he had his speech about glory and determination to serve the honor of Mother Mara through this project. But here we are now. Here you are now. The last of the dead ninety. I pity you. But pity can do you no good, so accept my apology."

"Here's your Shades, Commander." The soldier returned with a set of ImmersiveShades.

"Great!" Satya flipped the cylindric case and opened it. It looked like normal sunglasses, but the thing could project holographic images.

"You've been in this place for far too long. You'll want to see how the outside world holds up. I mean, conflict is still thriving but that's better than being imprisoned here knowledgeless. What irks you the most? What do you want to know? What do you want to see?"

Nesh. Is he out there? How about Kaia?

Satya tapped the glasses two times and a holographic loading screen emerged in the space between him and Kayla. It was projected from the glasses' lenses. When the Immersiverse popped, Satya pressed the Verse App and entered the digital world.

Kayla's eyes stumbled, bewildered. It had been a while since she'd been in the Immersiverse.

"Let me show you the aftermath of Artha's December First. That's the name Acronians gave for what happened that day. Two million Easterners just perished. That's why we decided to make a move then. To not wait any longer. Our projects... however disagreement I have with them, must be conducted as they're our only hope to tip the balance in this war. The government was always a cursed thing since the beginning, but when they started a public genocide, that's where our value becomes important."

Satya sighed. There were news articles from that time popping constantly into the main feed. Satya scrolled, searching for the most condensed article he could while Kayla just swam with longing comfortability seeing the app's interface.

"There." Satya stopped, then pressed on an article.

The title read 'Death Underneath'.

Thousands of people... Maybe close to a million, protested against the government on South Balla Cita. Chaos ensued, and what came next were squadrons upon squadrons of anti-rally DC enforcers. Dressed in black with projectile shields and electrified batons, they came surging in, brushing for the gathered protestors.

"The rally... it happened for three days. Artha couldn't help it... couldn't silence it. A lot of Westerners sided with the president, but not too little bled for the oppressed. You can imagine the turmoil, the friendships being broken, deigning to be fixed by some miracle now."

Kayla could see the DCs switching their mags into real bullets.

The first to die was an old man holding a sign that she couldn't read from the camera's angle. The graphic content displayed his death. The bullet penetrated his chest and his body hit the ground thereafter.

Neon light washed the gloomy feeling, advertisements larger than buildings colored the city. The city moved on. The country ushered to a masked peace. But people die.

"Since then," Satya started, "no one dared rally anymore. The Council of Nations... they do nothing. They didn't even acknowledge the mass murder."

Kayla finished her meal. She didn't have the urge to watch anymore, and her stomach gurgled at the sickening feeling of civilians being shot. She saw an old lady crawling to her dead son. She saw a young man being beaten by DC's electrified batons, his body cramping with blood now splaying all over his transparent jacket.

"Insanity. That's what we're up against."

He tapped the glasses two times again and the projection dissipated. The room returned to normal, and Kayla stared at the nothingness, her room barren and white.

"I surmise you might want to rest. Just... if you need anything, knock on the door. I've already told the guard to not lock it. I don't want you to feel... imprisoned."

Don't trust a complete stranger. Kaif said one time to her. Especially the ones who are kind.

"You can have the Shades," he said while reaching for the door.

Then, she was alone.

She sat there, grooming.

Nothing made sense anymore.

She then snatched the Shades and put them on. It felt weird, oversized, but she didn't care.

She scrolled through the various options of applications the Shades offered but stopped at an intriguing one.

She was drawn into 'ARCHIVE.' She blinked on it, and the device outputted hundreds of private folders.

Mostly photos, but some audio and personal songs as well. Satya had a fantastic taste of music. Post-rock and Indie Pop.

Victoria de Rasv.

One of her favorite artists.

But there was one folder which intrigued her.

'LENA'

She churned, her mind spinning on why the name was so familiar.

She blinked on it anyway, and the memory was recalled immediately after. The thousands of photos of a little girl, her eyes wide with the perfect blackness of her hair. Her brown face was fierce.

Satya's daughter. She realized he'd talked about her back at the van.

This little girl was fascinating. Kayla opened some videos and recognized the area she was in. South Clamber.

Lena was around as old as her when this particular video was taken. Around sixteen years old, perhaps. She was singing and playing the piano... a rusty thing probably bought from the black market. Its sound a bit off-key but that didn't matter. In the Clamber, a piano was the most expensive thing one could own.

Lena shrugged as she played, her resilient fingers tapping on the keys.

There was Satya. He smoked while his back leaned to the piano, and he hugged her when she finished.

Kayla smirked. She couldn't help it. She had never felt the warmth of being embraced by a father.

The video ended, and Kayla scrolled down the folder. She found other footage about Lena; on her birthday, her first prom, and her graduation from junior high. The last file was called 'TRUTH', and Kayla hesitated to open it.

She knew from the start that Satya used past tense every time he referred to his daughter. She also knew his daughter was Eastern, and now she had a general idea of what the video would contain.

But she blinked. The scanner recognized the motion hence the video played and she watched along.

The video was crappy, and the audio hadn't the best quality. But she could see the reminiscing light of glorious advertisements reflected into the glass windows of shops. It was a barbershop, maybe on South Clamber, and it seemed to be on the higher levels.

It was shot by a hidden camera.

There were two DCs, their padded jackets a confusing array of redness emanating from the lines. Their boots, glowing despite the dark, hunkered on a woman's face. Broken shards of glass scattered on the ground next to her.

"Mom!" It was Lena. She was being held by the other enforcer.

"Son of a bitch!" A man entered the frame and punched one of the DCs. His fist clung to the officer's iron mask.

Satya. His ruffly hair and beard were like a mane. His bloodied fists cracked before he knelt to help his injured wife.

"Hey, hey!" Said the second DC, his gun pointed at Lena's skull. She wept. "Who do you think you are, slug?"

"Think you're so tough, huh?" The punched DC regained his balance and swung a semi-automatic rifle his way.

"My family didn't do anything wrong," Satya said. "Leave them!"

"The three of you are conspiring against the state." Said the DC who clasped Lena. Her face was red from the looks of it. "Your wife and daughter rallied on Khosti Square last Saturday with fourteen hundred⸺"

"A fucking peaceful protest!" Satya's wife chimed. She was weeping too and scared for the life of her daughter, but her anger emanated like a wilding beast. Her swollen face was gripped by the stormy terror, rain clasping them under the blissful brattle.

"Protesting in sympathy with the terrorist movement!"

"Using our voice to exalt freedom unheard of in western islands is not the same as bombing villages and killing people for ideology! The SEU is a fucking lunatic and we do not stand with them. We wanted to protest peacefully. Is this country not a democracy? Meanwhile, you and your nifty red coats came to the square and started blasting people with actual bullets!"

The audio crackled for some seconds, giving Kayla time to breathe.

"... your husband there is an SEU, Ms Satya." The DC clutched his gun firmer, and now Lena closed her eyes, her breathing desperate.

"Please," Satya begged. Denial didn't work. Justice didn't work. He now could only hope, for perhaps some DCs weren't as oppressive as others. Though now there were out of luck because the DCs they met were truly the worst ones out of their kind. "You can execute me, torment me. I can give you any information about the SEU. But let my family go. They don't know anything."

"Bullshit!" The enforcer shouted.

"It's true!" Ms. Satya added. "My daughter is innocent! She's fifteen for Mar's sake."

"Age matters not in the context of war."

"Don't you have kids too, officer?" Ms. Satya stepped forward. "Do you not understand the preciousness of having a child?"

At that, the DC stooped. There was silence. But the marching of several boots broke all hope, for now, a larger DC company had come to interfere on the matter.

Lena, her black hair soaking wet, rumpling on the base of her shirt, had her head dropped down. A DC captain arrived, his trench coat rocking the metal platform on which they stood. His tactical boots and batched beret displayed command. Following from behind would be two more DC enforcers.

Kayla watched. She couldn't blink. She knew what would happen, but she could neither close the footage nor stand watching it. In the end, she just sat there, gaping at the drama which unfolded in her eyes.

"This the SEU you reported?" The captain ordered. His gigantic body towered over all the other DCs. His blond hair mocking. "Three of them?"

"Yes, Captain Serulla."

Captain Serulla knelt in front of Lena. He faced her, and he wiped her tears with his gloved hands. Serulla clasped his mask and took it from him, then turned around and scanned the couple shouldering each other, their faces of disrupted resignation.

"They call you Commander Greene Satya, correct?"

Satya bowed, then knelt below the captain. The platform rang as his knees fell down. "Please, Captain Serulla. Please forgive my daughter and my wife! Let them go. You can have me instead."

Serulla let Satya hug his foot, his tall demeanor standing towards the camera which captured the rupturing image. Kayla watched with extreme agitation.

"One of Sunnik's best commanders has a family in the Clamber," Serulla said, his voice of prideful loathsome skunk. "Such a display of weakness."

"Please, Captain... just... just let them go... I beg you to⸺"

"Do you understand the death toll for Acronians who suffered... who died under your organized terror? Rafuska, Sarabani, Bandang! All those three cities, poisoned, slaughtered! My beautiful daughter... tormented and killed by a fucking rat that is an SEU slum! Why should I have mercy on your family now?"

Satya broke down, his hammering tears just strolled with anxious agitation.

"Because you're not a monster. You're a follower of Mother Mara." Ms Satya knelt too now. Her voice was desperate. "You can show mercy to the family of an SEU, to not take vengeance. To be a decent human in front of Mar's eyes."

Captain Serulla scoffed. "Do you think you can sway me like that, woman?"

"Information! I can tell you SEU's secret bases on Nevva, Codal, whatever!"

Serulla smiled. "Now we're talking."

Satya tilted his head up, slowly, as if the weight of his tears were unbearable. "Really?"

"Yes. I'm waiting. Tell me those locations now. The coordinates, send me through this barcode."

Serulla tapped his ImmersiveWatch and a set of numbers shot up from the holographic projector. Satya saw it, then breathed.

"Let go of my wife and daughter first. Then I'll tell you⸺"

Serulla grimaced. In a second, he interrupted Satya by clasping his pistol, cocked it, and fired. The trigger was pulled, and the bullet lurched. The echo was like a hunkering swallow, a haunting nightmare in Satya's ever-since-hateful life.

Kayla could not see the expression on Satya's face as his wife dropped as a lifeless body. Blood pooled under her head, washed away by the acid rain to the side of the railing.

Satya looked back, his shivering body shaking with disbelief. He wailed like a mayhem, then crawled to his deceased wife like a reptile. He patted her head, then cried to her jacket in one chaotic moment. Her face, now pale and empty, had the eyes of a lonely woman. Kayla saw it clearly, her eyes opening without delight, staring ever-so-cluelessly towards the stormy night sky.

Lena, Satya's daughter, screamed. The DC who shackled her seemed unshaken, but his hold on the girl wavered. He too was shocked by the captain's sudden decision to execute an unarmed woman who wasn't yet a convict.

"Captain," he started saying. "This isn't⸺"

"Shut up, enforcer."

Satya glanced with fierce resentment towards the captain but was now helpless in the situation.

"Held him up," the captain ordered. One of his escorting DCs stormed to the grieving man and perched him up.

"Coordinates, please." Captain Serulla had a witted tone now, and he reached for Satya's hand to scan for the coordinate. Satya wanted to hit him, Kayla was sure of that, but he didn't. He tapped his ImmersiveWatch, then scanned a barcode to the captain's wrist before entering the password. He then voice scanned it and acknowledged the GPS location before nodding.

"Should we check the coordinates, Sir?" One of the DCs asked.

"Send it to the Cruise Team. I want drone footage quick."

"Now let her go," Satya demanded.

"I have to see if what you gave me was genuine."

One DC came from behind the captain and gave him an ImmersiveTab. He whispered something to the captain before retreating back.

Satya growled. He glanced towards Lena for one second before returning the captain's words. "Leave her. We had a deal."

"See, you weren't a very attentive listener, correct? I never strike a deal with you. There was no signed contract, no footage, no recording. How should I know whatever you're seeing now is legit, and not some random gang warfare taking place in a region so high with criminal activity?"

Satya lurched towards him, but the DC behind him chained him back and tackled him down. Satya gasped loudly, his mixture of emotions displaying all negative ails towards the monstrous captain.

"You know... my daughter was sweet. She would come to my office... when I was stationed in Bandang for a routine checkup in the atomic plant. Then, fire, flames dancing on the roof of all three reactors as if they came from nowhere. I have to admit, those attacks were ingenious for such blatant terrorist scammers as you."

"Fuck you! Let her go!" Satya still tried to wrestle the DC to no avail.

"But then... but then reports came in, and the fire came not only from above the plant but everywhere throughout Bandang. A remarkable achievement for the SEU, I must say. A flawless charge, one that cost you no life, but to us plenty. Bandang didn't have a proper air raid alarm. It was a peaceful city, one with thousands of Easterners and Marais temples and historical structures. Organizations as grim as the SEU wouldn't possibly attack such a useless city, no? Bandang didn't have any factories and no strategic infrastructure with significant importance to our war. But still... you people saw the opportunity to cash-grab a lot of western casualties with minimal impact, and sent three hundred ballistic missiles to..."

Serulla hesitated. He shuddered, sighing. The pain was on his tired face.

The DC who restrained Satya nodded. "I lost my grandma there too, Sir. An innocent Codalian, ninety-six years old. Had her birthday just the day before, and if I were to stay a day longer, I would've been cannon fodder myself."

Serulla nodded, acknowledging. "You call yourself redeemer of Acronia. You call yourself revolutionary rebels, but all that you do are things so inhumane... so uncivilized."

Serulla walked towards Lena who now hadn't got any more tears to spare. Her swelled eyelids were a product of extreme tears.

"Some tried to hide in the basements... but none survived. Twenty-two thousand lives were decimated just like that. You people fought without honor, without regulations."

Satya fought harder now. Serulla told his enforcer to stand down and grabbed Lena himself. She was crying again, but she knew she didn't have the strength or the will to fight the gruesome captain with no apathy. She knew her doom was imminent.

Kayla wondered about Lena's thoughts. She thought whether the fifteen-year-old girl was happy to be dying for the right cause. But the more she thought about it, the more likely Lena was just scared shitless, her mind just refusing to imagine her own death.

"Please, Captain Serulla, I beg you! I have done the things you asked me! I betrayed my own brothers! Just let her go and you can kill me! Humiliate me in front of the president! You can do anything you want but spare my daughter's life!"

"My daughter survived the bombing itself. My daughter didn't choke. No rubble collapsed to her body, cracking her bone until it broke. My wife died because of the rumpling debris. Some hot shrapnel stabbed her in the eye and she bled to death. But my daughter... she survived... and she... and she saw all those deaths... and she... she was convinced that jumping from a five-storey evacuation building was the right choice. Her mind collapsed around her, Satya! Death is not peaceful! Death is gloomy, and everyone must know that suicide shouldn't be a choice! But my daughter... a courageous and beautiful young woman whose laugh was like the most miraculous thing you'll ever hear... jumped from a building and... and..."

Serulla was on the edge of a platform with no railing. It would be a high drop from the darkness that crumpled beneath the metal floor, and Kayla imagined how high they were. But the tension was high, and the captain surrogated. Lena's strength was no match for the captain's. He kept pushing her to the side, pulling her and shoving her to the ledge.

She screamed. She punched. She bit Captain Serulla's gloved fingers but he didn't let go. He was driven by his own madness, blinded by the overcoming delight of vengeance, of trying to let go of his own grieving numbness.

"Captain," one of the DC enforcers said. "This isn't the best look, Captain. Just let her go. We can trial her with legitimate jury and⸺"

"Shut the fuck up!" The captain screamed now. "Do you want to know how my daughter died? I can recreate it right now, right here!"

"This is out of line, Captain!" The DC argued. Some seemed to nod with him, but some just stood back.

"Captain Serulla. I'm willing to jump to my own death for my daughter. Just let her go." Satya couldn't look at his daughter's face. Lena wasn't even crying anymore. She was just desperate, and he stared at his father, willing not to look into the depths beyond.

"No. You will know what I feel. You will relate to my loss. I hate you for doing what you did in Bandang. Now you will hate me for what I do here."

And consequently, Serulla pushed. Kayla shook when gravity pulled Lena down, her boots slipping as she had no grip to fight her fall. She just dropped, and she disappeared from the frame. Satya screamed, yelped, and tried to dive into the plunge with her, but the DC behind him restrained him back. Serulla smiled, and some of the DCs who tried to warn him stepped back.

Kayla watched the whole thing unfold, how Satya suffered. She wanted to cry, to feel the oozing empathy she had for him. But she was too speechless to let any emotion out. A drive of adrenaline, a surging whiteness of pure energy glossed from her hands, and they died instantly. She watched again, surrogating with the crumpling audio of the footage.

Then, the footage ended. Kayla just didn't move. Her whole body twitched. Her mind grew numb.

She threw the Shades away and took a deep breath.

"Restless." A voice gonged from the opened door. Kayla didn't even realize Satya stood there, his arms crossed, his eyes red with tears streamlining his cheeks. "I grew restless ever since. I saw her from up there after the footage was cut. Her fall was perfect... like a framed thing. But blood just surrounded her, and I couldn't even use the footage to sue the captain. He went out free."

"Did you bomb Bandang?"

He stared blankly forward. Slowly, he nodded. "I did."

"I was released three weeks after a court trial. I was almost executed, but a team of SEU saboteurs broke me out. And the price for that mission would be my wife and daughter."

Kayla sighed. "I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "Don't need to. You're a victim too."

Kayla could see her brother's fading form in the corner of her eye. He was there, leaning on the wall of her imaginary head. He spoke to her some words, but she would not hear it.

Satya smiled, then turned and walked away, leaving the door open behind him. And Kayla sat still on her bed, fighting the deterrent agony that was caused by the footage she just witnessed.

--------

Cover Art: https://id.pinterest.com/pin/629167010438971598/