I wake up in a soft bed. It’s unlike the cold, hard ground that we slept on during the war. That was rough but at least we got sleep. When the enemy captured our battalion, we had to face something far more painful than stiff backs. They whipped us awake for hours on end. No, it was not even “they.” The enemy separated us. I had no one in the prison I was sent to. Bearing that pain, I could never let go of

There are curtains. They suddenly open to reveal a young man exquisitely dressed. His handsome appearance was captivating. I sneered. Though gorgeous and confident, I could tell he was one of those men who took every advantage of his appearance and wealth. For those privileged bastards who who had fun in the rear, I’d say, “Go to hell.” They avoided work like the

Noticing this, he asks affably, “Anything

It was a false friendliness. The stiffness of his lip and the way every word hung in the air as though they didn’t belong there, it was certain that he was nothing but

“Go away.” Wait! In astonishment, I realize that my voice has changed. There’s a lackadaisical manner to it. I also suddenly realize how light my body feels. It’s as though I’ve aged back to my

“So you’ve finally noticed.” He laughs with a smirk. “Yes, this is what we’ve done to

“But now I can resist,” I retort. In one swift motion, I throw a punch. I hear a crunch. I broke his nose. Instantly, I feel happy that I could just do that, that I could so violently destroy someone’s looks. Before he could even respond, I punch his stomach. The smacks resound beautifully.

“Play time’s over.” He points a gun to my forehead.

I grin widely, blinking at him as though I’m fluttering. Euphoria consumes me. Perhaps, it’ll be easy to die. Having someone shoot me like this isn’t too bad, and he’ll definitely have blood on his hands. It’s a win-win. I die and he gets the guilt of murder. Of course, he probably already has killed. These radicalists will do anything for their ideals, after all. They’ve caused their fair share of bombings. That was a sad day. I wasn’t in the city at the time so I didn’t blew up. That’d be nice.

But repulsed, he backs away and doesn’t bother shooting. Instinctively, I grab out to keep the gun on my temple but he moves out of reach too quickly. I can’t grasp my chance at death. Like everything else, it’s out of my reach and I give it up.

“What the hell.” His words are breathless. It’s as though he had been running a marathon. I can see his chest rise up and down. Oh how great it is to be alive--

Not.

Clearly, he hasn’t experienced the terror of a punctured lung. Oh how breath suddenly becomes gasping. Life is reduced to mere seconds as the blackness washes over you.

It occurs to me that he’s too young to remember the war too. That should be good. He didn’t have to experience that terror. But at the same time, they are beyond me. They, who have not experienced hunger as I have, will never understand what it was like to live during those times. That is why I despise them. At the very least, they could show me some sympathy, but they’re too busy fighting for more rights. It’s ridiculous. They’ve left us to rot.

Eventually, his breathing slows. I notice how his fear swirls back. The air in the room settles, as though I had not just broke someone’s nose and sucker punched them. It is precisely that feeling I hate the most. Normalcy returns too quickly. It’s an alien sensation to have when you’ve been stuck in shit for so long. It’s like being able to see without warning. It’s blinding.

“You’re going to pay for this!” he yells like a petulant child and runs off, pulling the curtains back as he leaves.

I laugh. Despite his threat, he was kind enough to give me some privacy. However, he deprived me of my right to die, though I doubt he could ever shoot me. His eyes told the whole story--

He had never killed before.

A vague memory stirs. It’s fuzzy and grey in bits but I can see the general picture. Like an old film, the movie rolls soundlessly. I can only see but that’s enough. That tiny recollection is enough to terrify me and reduce me to nothing. Those faces, undeveloped and not yet matured, their agony strikes me.

I shot a child.

The was my first order of business once I was deployed to a recently-conquered city. Blood smelled in the air for a whole week. We slaughtered.

How could I disobey?

Everyone else was doing the same and would shoot me for not killing. Yet I participated in massacre.

There is a difference between murderers and non-murderers. In the moment life is taken, one man looks away; the other looks it in the eye. That was how I knew. His averted gaze was all that I needed.

Shivers run down my spine. Paralysis seizes me whole. My head burns with dark terror. I killed that child, that beautiful child, that child who had a family. Even though I knew it to be wrong, I followed orders. Suddenly, my heart pops. All that pressure from the past slams into it and makes it burst.

So when my apathetic balm cleansed me, it was alright.

No point in remembering. The dead already haunt me in my dreams. No point in fearing myself during daylight as well.

So what was the point of that massacre?

Abruptly, the numbness ends. I was running away from the beast but then, like a silly cartoon, I ran straight over the cliff. No answers come.

I look at my hands to distract myself. There are no veins, no wrinkles, no flaws. They look so clean, unblemished. I shudder. This cleanliness is but a disguise. I have killed so many men with these hands and I’m disgusted with myself for it.

The blood is on my hands. I decide to sleep.

Moments like these are when you stifle everything and rest. If I didn’t learn that trick, I’d have killed myself a damn long time ago.

As I laid in the bed, sleeplessness overcomes. Thoughts race louder and louder. Hehe. I can’t force myself to do anything anymore. I’ve had enough of obeying orders, even when they come from myself. Screams blast my ears. There’s a loudspeaker behind them that shouts every little crime I’ve committed. So many times, I endured this. Even now, I am alive and the only reason for that…?

Because every time I’ve tried, death stares me in the eye and I look away.

No noble purpose to living, it’s just that I’m too scared to escape it. Fear traps me. Funnily enough, it’s what kept me alive. I just kept running and running, fleeing my problems, abandoning my comrades, desperately surviving like a beast. Not only did I kill the enemy, I killed myself. How many lives have I taken?

Just how many dead did I leave in my wake in my anguish to live?

When they interrogated me, I immediately confessed. The locations of my allies, the routes of our battalion, the situation of our supplies, everything came out in an effluence of guilt. I remember my comrades glaring at me.

Compared to them, I lived a higher existence.

But the words of one man particularly struck me, words that even in my old age haunt me to this very day--

--“Hello, how’s our test subject doing?!” Suddenly, the beautiful girl from before barges in. Her eyes are alight. “Whoa, what the hell. Why is your expression like that?!” When she sees me, her happiness abruptly stops in its tracks.

I make a mocking smile.

That very instant, her expression changes. It was only for a second but I saw a flicker of something sinister. Total contempt. For just a moment, she looked just like someone I knew, someone familiar, but I push the thought away. I have to be on my guard. At the very least, I can now defend myself.

With a blithe to-hell-with-it-all attitude, she sits on the bed. My body tenses. Noticing this, she chuckles. “I won’t harm you. On the contrary, I gave you a chance for a new life with this young body. Shouldn’t be you grateful for me?”

“Grateful for kidnapping me?” I shrug. “This is what’s wrong with today’s youth. They think they’re serving the good when all they’re doing is twisting their real intentions around.” Those political rallies are pathetic. Nobody truly knows what they’re doing, and the masses simply follow the loudest voices. The memory makes me grimace. “Nobody even cares to understand this. It’s even worse for someone like you, you damned terrorist.” I mock her to try to get a reaction.

Instead, she chuckles, “Why thank you.” Her smile quickly disappears as her voice freezes over. “But still, that’s a poor attempt to agitate me. Besides, you don’t know just how much work I’ve put into this to obtain you.”

“You mean getting that narcotic to drug me?” I laugh. “Certainly, it is expensive, but you barely have any backers. No real people of substance. Do you really think roping in another college student is going to get you anywhere? He couldn’t even shoot when I attacked him! In my eyes, this is a pointless exercise in futility.”

“You really think that’s going to anger me?” She glares at me with that same expression I saw earlier. It was burning bright but there is also a certain coldness to it as well. “The Flowers are doing fine. Your talk is cheap, and certainly we seem weak but that is precisely why we will win.”

I snicker. “It’s just a really foolish thing to believe. I’ve seen you guys all over the news lately, one member arrested after the other. You were strong in your hay day but now you’re fracturing.” An idea pops in. “Ah, I know. All the leadership have jumped ship because they lost belief in their cause, right?”

This is what gets her. As though a switch has been flipped, the flames in her eyes cool and disappear. A stale coldness glares at me. This is my chance! Yet as I think that, she looks me straight in the eyes and there’s something empty in the expression, something boundlessly hollow. I hesitate the moment I see it. Seizing that opportunity, she pulls her gun and points to my head and fires.

For a second, I’m happy. I get to finally die!

But then a revulsion shakes through my whole body and it feels as though my lungs are liquefying, my head underwater, and my brain pulsing against my swollen skull. Agony on an unforeseen scale blazes through me. Not even the worst prisons could compare to the scale of pure torment that seizes me.

As I thrash in my bed, the girl speaks nonchalantly, “I wish I didn’t have to do this but you really do piss me off. This pain will last as long as I want it. If you wish, I can cure it. However, you must take an oath. Our dear leader is out of town as of now, but once he comes back you must overthrow his position. If necessary, kill him. That is your duty as a soldier. I am giving you an order. Do you understand?”

Even though the pain racks my whole body, her words come out crystal-clear.

“Yes!” Without hesitation, I grovel. “Just please! End this pain!”

I hear another shot and the pain stops. All that fire dissipates.

The girl stands from the bed. She walks to the entrance before turning around with a smirk. “Your oath has been sealed. Best of luck to you, my dear leader.” The way she grins when she says the word takes me aback. There is an absurd sincerity to it. It’s dripping with saccharine. Seeing my disgust, she takes her leave. “Bye.”

Now that the danger is gone, I begin to recollect myself to assess the situation.

A terrorist and anti-government group has kidnapped me, one of the members is an absolute fanatic, the other is an utter greenhorn, I have a new body, and now that crazy fanatic wants me to take control of this whole group.

For fuck’s sake, this is beyond stupid. In just a few hours, I went from dying old man to a young man. No. If we’re being realistic, this is entirely within the bounds of reality. It only takes seconds for everything to fall apart. For instance, on the battlefield, one minute we were dozing off and the next we heard rockets roaring. The enemy tried to kill us fiercely. They were like wild boars. Backed into the corner, they had the choice to live or die. To them, it was the same thing.

Ice pours over my head. Whenever I begin to feel tired, my head freezes over until it begins to work like clockwork. Simply calculate the next step, then the next, then the next, ad infinitum or until the solution works. There was no other way to survive. Soldiers could die in any moment, so thinking of the future was a pointless exercise. The generals who led us to our deaths could do that for us. They could see the broader picture. That was why they would sacrifice us like pawns because we served a higher purpose that we could not see.

I laugh for a bit. How foolish of us youth who signed up. How foolish to think that we could aid our country in death. How foolish.

But right now, I need to calculate. Survival is the only thing I have left because I’m too much of a coward to die. Perhaps, someone will shoot me but I have no doubts.

I won’t die.

It’s just not like me to die like that. The Maker would want me to live for as long as possible for His own amusement. I wonder why I even believed in Him in the first place. Bitterness wells up. I feel bile in my throat. That’s how disgusting He is, and perhaps He doesn’t even exist in the first place. Still, I could never part from Him. It was how I survived.

With that in mind, my head begins to plan. First thing I do is look around. Keeping situational awareness is necessary for the soldier. I never lost that skill.

Even as she talked to me, I looked around. I do a once-over to see if there’s anything of importance. It’s just the bed and the curtains. I’ll have to leave this place to gather more information.

I rise from the bed. I’m only wearing a bed gown but it doesn’t matter. Old men know no shame.

Landing on my feet, I instinctively brace for the aching but I feel none. It’s a small joy but I can walk properly now. Is this what it’s like to be young again? I make a small smile. Living like this won’t be too bad. I might even be able to cheat death if I learn how I became this way, but then I recall her eyes and their emptiness. Whatever the hell they did, I’m sure it was a failure. I probably won’t be able to live forever.

A fool’s errand anyways.

I finally arrive at the door to open it.

It suddenly opens for me and I see a familiar face. Instantly, I yelp.