Khan walked the familiar empty streets until he reached the lawn that hid his training area. The trapdoor opened before he could knock on the ground, and the scent of smoke filled his nose when he approached the descending staircase.
Lieutenant Dyester had moved the table near the wall on the other side of the staircase, and he was sitting over it with his legs stretched. A fuming cigarette was in his mouth, and a bottle that contained a light-brown liquid was at his side.
"Have you been drinking?" Khan asked when he smelled the familiar scent of booze after the trapdoor closed.
It wasn't hard for Khan to recognize that scent. The same smell filled his home in the Slums.
"Bad memories, Khan," Lieutenant Dyester replied in a hoarse voice without using any special nickname. "I bet you have new ones now."
"Did they tell you about Istrone already?" Khan asked while sitting on the steps.
"Just the rumors," Lieutenant Dyester revealed. "I haven't watched any official interviews yet. I don't know if I will."
Khan didn't have a good reply for those words. Part of him felt that Lieutenant Dyester had every right to act like that, especially since he had already gone through a similar crisis forty years ago. However, another side of him wanted the soldier to behave like a proper grown-up and help him with his struggles.
Lieutenant Dyester didn't speak anymore, and Khan also remained silent. The former finished his smoke and immediately lit another one while taking sips from his bottle. Instead, Khan tried to sort his thoughts to find questions that could give him helpful answers.
"How was it?" Lieutenant Dyester eventually asked when the silence became too unbearable.
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Khan believed that the soldier was questioning him about the rebellion, so he gave a short explanation. "Tiring, dirty, and bloody."
"They didn't change after forty years," Lieutenant Dyester commented before taking another sip from his bottle.
"I-," Khan began to speak before taking a second to choose his words and continuing. "I did some things there."
"Obviously," Lieutenant Dyester. "I bet you were the only one who didn't shit his pants. Still, I don't know how positive that is."
"I managed to survive because of that!" Khan complained.
"You are sixteen," Lieutenant Dyester scoffed. "Being able to remain calm among blood and corpses only hints at your pain. It's tragic that you have already grown used to it."
"I actually don't know how comfortable I am with it," Khan revealed. "I had to rely on the mental exercises to remain in control."
Lieutenant Dyester was the only man inside the entire camp who knew about Khan's training. He had helped him whenever the programs on his phone weren't clear or in front of bottlenecks, so he could immediately understand what technique Khan had used.
"Is the mental barrier still up?" Lieutenant Dyester asked.
The soldier was about to grab his bottle again, but he stopped when he realized that Khan was seeking his help. The effects of the abuse of the mental barrier became evident in his vision at that point. Khan didn't have a foul mood. His face was dark because his emotions couldn't reach it.
"I would have done the same if I had access to a similar technique back then," Lieutenant Dyester sighed while picking the bottle and staring at its almost empty insides. "Emotions can break you, especially when friends die in front of your eyes. Yet, life would be pointless without them."
"What should I do?" Khan asked in a helpless tone.
Khan felt lost, and he acknowledged that one of his suppressed emotions was his fear of the imminent changes. It was scary to sense the many feelings ready to eat him up while he had yet to find proper answers.
"It's pointless to speak about right or wrong," Lieutenant Dyester sighed while blowing smoke. "I won't give you speeches about the morality of your actions and the greater good of humankind."
Lieutenant Dyester stared at the almost empty bottle for a few more seconds before throwing it away. The item flew across the entire basement and shattered when it hit the wall on the other side.
"Humans have created ideas of right and wrong, but that doesn't mean that they don't exist," Lieutenant Dyester continued. "Still, spending your life thinking about that is a waste of time. You should decide what you want to be and do everything in your power to stay on that path."
"Is that what you did with your life?" Khan asked as a vague mocking tone seeped into his voice.
Khan didn't like that advice. A simple "be yourself" wasn't enough.
"I'm old, kid," Lieutenant Dyester sighed. "I might not look like it, but I've already lived a full life. I've become the hero of the Global Army and paid the price for my success. I've achieved my dreams, but I've realized too late that I didn't really care about them. I had to lose my friends to understand that they were the core of my happiness."
Khan remained silent. His contained burst of anger vanished behind the mental barrier. He felt able to see Lieutenant Dyester's true face in that situation. The soldier was a broken man who had lost everything and had no interest in trying to rebuild his life. He only wanted to punish himself.
"I know what I want already," Khan eventually revealed.
"That's not the point," Lieutenant Dyester replied. "Dreams are lies. They don't reflect the real world. Instead, the path to reach them is everything, and you must decide how to walk it."
"What do you mean?" Khan continued to question the soldier.
"You can keep that mental barrier up," Lieutenant Dyester. "I believe you have enough talent to make it permanent. A life like that is easy, and it will even provide great results."
"I hope there is a but coming," Khan said.
"Not really," Lieutenant Dyester laughed. "The other path sees you facing your emotions. It will have many low points and only a few highs, and it will probably create many issues along the way. As I said before, you only have to choose what you want to be."
Khan couldn't help but nod after that explanation. He had understood what Lieutenant Dyester meant at that time. A bit of confidence had even appeared inside him. Part of him felt ready to open his mind.
"Thank you," Khan whispered.
"Don't thank me yet," Lieutenant Dyester snorted. "The hard part arrives once we are alone with ourselves, but I believe we both have to face that now."
"I can't delay it any further," Khan sighed while standing up and climbing the staircase.
The trapdoor opened, but Khan didn't immediately exit the basement. His eyes turned toward the broken bottle near the wall, and a memory of his father suddenly filled his mind.
"You shouldn't drink that brand," Khan revealed. "My father has always avoided it because the family in charge of its production exploits workers from the Slums. You don't want to know what they do to retaliate."
Khan left the prisons of the camp at that point, and a speechless Lieutenant Dyester stared at the trapdoor closing to restore some darkness in the basement. His eyes slowly moved toward the light-brown liquid that had tainted the floor, and a gulp inevitably resounded from his throat.
Khan walked toward his dormitory in a hurry. The emptiness of the streets reminded him of the many dead recruits on Istrone, and those thoughts made his mental barrier tremble. It felt harder to keep it intact now that he had decided to take it down.
The soldiers guarding the gate of his dormitory showed surprised expressions at his arrival. They seemed about to say something, but Khan crossed them without waiting for their words.
His empty flat soon unfolded in his eyes, and Khan threw away his clothes before approaching his bed. He sat and watched the scene that had kept him company for almost six months before a few images appeared in his vision.
Khan reviewed his usual nightmare. He had committed those images to memory long ago, so it didn't take him much to imagine the tall Nak standing in front of him. The pain of the Second Impact seemed to fill his body, and desperation spread inside him, but he felt unable to found his life on those feelings.
'Finding the Nak is my goal,' Khan confirmed in his mind, 'But I don't want to make it the sole meaning of my life. I can't let this desperation drive my every move.'
Martha's injured face suddenly appeared in his vision. Khan had desires that went past his desperation. His goal to find the Nak was mandatory due to his nightmares, but he was already letting them control his nights and most of his days. He didn't want the entirety of his life to depend on them.
Khan sighed, and the mental barrier slowly crumbled. An intense flow of emotions filled his brain and made him feel dizzy. His vision grew blurry, his hands started to tremble, and his body fell to the side as his breathing became ragged.
The first wave of emotions mainly carried pain. Khan experienced all the suffering that he had suppressed during the travel across the jungle in mere seconds, but that felt rather easy to withstand.
The other feelings weren't as easy to endure. An intense sorrow filled his mind and made tears appear in his eyes. His hands continued to shake as he experienced anger caused by the unfairness of the world. He felt hatred toward the Kred who had hurt Martha and made him survive through hell.
Khan screamed and punched the wall of his flat. A dent appeared on the resilient metal before he jumped off his bed and started kicking the furniture around.
His attacks deployed mana on their own. He had grown so used to rely on that energy that he threatened to perform proper techniques even as he vented the intense feelings that had taken control of his actions.
The anger, hatred, and sorrow were nothing compared to the third wave of emotions. The corpses of the Kred killed by his kicks suddenly filled his vision. Khan felt able to recognize the differences among those inhuman faces when his mind reminded him that he was a killer.
The raging feelings were easier to handle. Khan could punch and kick stuff to vent them. However, the emptiness felt in front of the death perpetrated by his own hands was unbearable. It made him fall on his knees, and lay his side on the floor as he continued to see the faces of his victims.
The sensations felt during his first kill came back stronger than ever in his mind. Khan still recalled his faint excitement during his successful knee attack. He had felt truly happy about his power back then, but now those feelings caused only disgust inside him.
Fighting with mana wasn't a game. People could die whenever those attacks hit their target correctly. His techniques were lethal weapons, and it had taken him six months to acknowledge their dangerousness.
The emptiness didn't go away even after minutes passed. Khan straightened his position and placed his back on the wall as he sat on the floor. The cold of the metal felt nice. He liked sensing something when his body was so devoid of emotions.
A realization slowly dawned upon his mind as he remained in that state. Khan understood that there was no solution to the emptiness that he felt. He could only wait until he grew used to that condition and fused with it.
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