Nion ran through the maze of trees, the moonlight barely lighting the way in front of her. The sky rumbled, and the heavy rain bounced off the muddy grass. A storm smothered the heat coming from the bonfire in the square and greying the world around.
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Drops of rain beat against her skin like snowflakes exploding into millions of pieces when coming into contact with a solid mass. She tried her best to switch her focus onto the other problems she left behind. The incident at the main gate and all the people she left behind. The Shira tribe and its people who had been left without surveillance at precipice Clogwyn were now most certainly running free.
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The frustration and guilt of letting her heart decide instead of following "Mitera's System" orders, as she should have done, made her realize that not only had she disobeyed and deserted her assignment, but that, in the end, she failed at everything.
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Her heart was filled with regret for not having been able to accomplish a single task she was meant to complete, neither the promise she had made to the mother of two nor the self-imposed promise to find the youngest brother and bring him to safety, which had ultimately resulted in her abandoning him.
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Tormented by her ignorance and lack of self-confidence, she finally started to realize how little she knew about the outside world and, most importantly, about herself. The perfect world that her brother had created, which was overseen by Mitera System, now looked more like a fish tank filled with clean water stranding its inhabitants. Her revelations made her open her eyes to the fact that she was nothing more than a clueless little girl who had no idea of the impact of the responsibilities with which she had been entrusted: incapable of telling the real difference between pure logic and complex, rational decision making.
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The absence of flexible, critical thinking and the fact that most of the training exercises she had been through were based on good or evil examples, were a predefined program created by Aleksithimia. However, all of it was just a simulation that barely resembled reality when the situation actually got out of control...
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The cold rain battered her clothes, weighing her down, piercing through the threads in the fabric. The chill cut into her skin and the mud, surrounding her to her ankles, won their victory as she slowed to hunch over, chest heaving. She could feel her heart pounding in her ears, almost as deafening as the thunder that was approaching. She needed to get back, but her body and everything around her was protesting, telling her to give up...
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Exhausted from running, Nion had stopped in the middle of nowhere.
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"I am such a coward..." she sobbed.
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Seeking for a breath of fresh air for the first time ever, Nion removed her Kanjöga device. In that very moment, millions of unknown memories and emotions swept through her head causing her to blackout. Electrocuted from the inside, Nion fell to the ground, as her brain discharged an extraordinary amount of information that appeared to have been dormant within her.
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The memories appeared before her eyes like quick flashbacks, placing her in a vast variety of unknown perspectives of different people, which were not actually connected with each other in any way. Diverse sentiments and feelings filled her from inside. Each of these memories contained a kaleidoscope of warmth, passion, intensity, love, hate and many other sentiments that were unknown to her. Nion could barely stand, as her body and mind completely detached themselves from the real world. Lost in the ocean of unfamiliar memories, Nion tried to go back in time and identify which memories belonged to whom but there was just too much going on inside her head.
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The feeling of emptiness confined her personal memory. Many fragments were absent; However, she had a warm feeling that these were still there, somewhere, deep inside her heart. She was enveloped by emptiness, her facial expressions incapable of keeping up with all the emotions she was going through. An infinite amount of time had passed since she had entered the forest, her"Kanjöga" soaking in the mud.
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The thick, blackened clouds were being dragged down by the rain. It wasn't just rain, it was a downpour. The distance to Clogwyn was roughly six kilometers. The mud was absorbing her feet as she stood under what little moonlight could make its way through the overcast sky. Alone in the woods, isolated from the rest of the world, she could not bring herself to advance forward; she just kept looking into the grey sky as the raindrops slid down her face like shining teardrops.
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Her Kanjöga collar picked up an incoming signal. "This is Seconda. Quarta, do you hear me? What is going on? Are you safe?" asked Seànn.
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Nion had lost touch with reality, her mind far away from her physical body, and Seànn's message went unheard.
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Shortly, Seànn arrived to where Nion was located. The rain dampened her face, making her look even prettier than usual, rainwater flowing down over her coat and reflecting the blurry moonlight covered by the grey clouds.
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Seànn slapped Nion cheeks with both hands to wake her up.
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"What are you doing? Hurry, we must go," said Seànn.
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Nion came back to her senses, yet she was not pleased to see that such a high ranking unit had come all the way here. Nion knew that if "Seconda" herself had been summoned to the scene, that meant that the situation had turned really bad.
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Seann grabbed Nion's hand, ready to accelerate towards the precipice. The second she pulled Nion's hand, she realized that her companion was not able to keep up with her pace, one of her knees already sinking into the mud. Luckily, Seànn caught her just in time, right before Nion's body hit the muddy ground.
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Seànn carefully placed Nion on the ground so she could stand up by herself.
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"Are you injured? Can you walk?" she asked.
"I am... fine..." replied Nion, exhaling painfully.
"Let's hurry then, we should not be here," said Seànn.
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Mentally and physically exhausted, Nion did her best to stand up on her own but the signs of fatigue were becoming more and more obvious. Seànn tried to help her stand up, offering her hand as a support, but Nion rejected it with a rough hand movement.
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The more Nion forced herself to get up the more tired she got. She almost looked like a little toddler, trying to accomplish some trivial task and failing miserably to do so. Seànn offered her hand once again but Nion slapped it away.
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"I am FINE! Just leave me alone!" she shouted.
Every time she tried to stand up, her legs could not support her body weight and so she kept collapsing on the ground, her irritation levels rising. Tired of performing the same action over and over again, tears of frustration began seeping down her cheeks.
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"Damn it! Damn it all!" Nion desperately hit the mud with her fist.
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The mud spat over her face, irritating her even more and she let herself go, falling to her knees just in front of Seànn who had kept her hand extended and available during the entire ordeal. Furious and ashamed of her own behavior, Nion hid her face from Seànn to avoid eye contact.
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"Leave me alone!" she said.
"I am simply trying to help" replied Seànn.
"I told you, I don't need your help! Just go, do whatever."
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Seànn took a deep breath and crouched in front of Nion so they were on the same level.
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"Look, I just arrived here. I ignored the reasons for which you left your assignment at the precipice, as well as the nature of the events which have put you in this state, but I cannot leave you like this," Seànn calmly explained.
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"Huh?! What state?! Do 'YOU' even know what you are talking about?! Oh! Are you talking about 'that'?! Well, damn right! I have never felt so miserable and useless in my whole life! Moreover, you are the last person I want to hear any lectures from!" exploded Nion.
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Seànn remained silent.
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"Screw that 'Utopia'...My brother has created the saddest country on the planet!" she complained. "Do you want to share your thoughts about something that you don't know?! Do you even remember how it feels when your heart bleeds from inside because you have to kill innocent people in order to preserve the peace of our country?! NO!! Have you ever questioned your sanity?! NO!! Are you conscious about it? I bet you aren't! You know why? Because you can't feel a damn thing...All of you are nothing more than a vessel obeying that piece of junk on your neck and my brother, that's all you can do!" Nion had entered a hysteric state.
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Seànn kept listening in silence.
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"As I thought...Nothing to say huh...?" Nion started to calm down. "I ask myself about my future and my past. I question myself on what is right and what is wrong. That's what makes me different from all of you. I am trying to be human, or at least I pretend to be... How about you remove that collar of yours for a week or so, and you see what "Lands of Aleksithimia" really is? You will see... How empty we are inside..." She exhaled her last words and looked down at her hands.
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Seànn stood up and looked at the moon while Nion continued talking.
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"Pathetic... Am I not... I am not sure what I despise the most right now. Being in such a piece of shit or letting you see me in such a miserable state; You, the person I admire the most in the world..." said Nion.
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After a minute of silence between both of them, Seànn spoke up.
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"Looks like you have been through some hard times."
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Nion had raised her head and was gazing at the limitless sky.
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"Yeah...We can say that. You know, I think...I will quit being a Keeper... Actually, I want to leave our country," said Nion.
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"Why is that?" asked Seànn.
"I just...Can't, do this anymore," replied Nion. "I have had enough of pretending that everything is fine when it is not."
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A moment of silence fell upon them, and the moonlight enlightened Nion's face. Due to the brightness, Nion had to avert her eyes and she accidentally looked straight into Seànn's. The luminous streak of reflected moonlight was absorbed by Nion's eyes, which shone like an "Amethyst" gemstone.
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"You are a very brave and courageous woman. If you decided to do something, I believe that you spent a sufficient amount of time constructing and developing your decision. Whatever the nature of your conclusion, I shall respect and support it..." said Seànn.
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Nion said nothing in return, she just kept looking at the sky.
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"I would like to know... Why did you join the Keepers in the first place? What are your convictions? Don't you have something to protect or fight for?" asked Seànn.
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"Convictions...I have none. To be honest I don't even know when it all started. I was assigned here and there under the device of protecting this country, as simple as it sounds. But...What is the point of trying to protect the whole country... When I cannot protect one single person...?" she asked.
"Once, someone who is very important to me, told me that 'enduring deepening pain is how you ascend'. Perhaps, it is a bit too early to renounce and leave everything behind, don't you think?" replied Seànn.
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Seànn noticed the blinking light of Nion's Kanjöga device sinking in the mud and picked it up.
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"Sometimes... I wish I could get my old self back. The times when I could enjoy being loved and appreciated, being able to share emotions with someone special to me. Since I became part of the Keepers, I've indeed killed a countless amount of men and women. You are right about everything, I don't feel pain nor pity for them. I just do it, because it has to be done and if I don't, someone else will do it in my place. Every morning, when I wake up, I spend dozens of minutes looking at my own reflection in the mirror, asking myself if today will be my final one," said Seànn.
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"I am sorry about before...I didn't mean to insult you," apologized Nion.
"You know… Every time I see you being able to freely express yourselves, there is a little part of me that envies you so much," said Seànn.
"But!" Nion tried to interrupt, but Seànn continued.
"I guess he had never told you about... Look." She pointed at her Kanjöga collar. "Mine is directly connected to my brain, so unlike you, I cannot remove it at will. Deep inside, I still have the remains of human consciousness, that gives me a bitter taste of the emotional complexity of the situation that you are dealing with right now. But in the end, I am satisfied enough with my decision," explained Seànn.
"I am truly sorry for acting like a selfish brat..." apologized Nion.
"Everything I've learned about my life so far, I've learned it with the beatings and losses I've gotten from all of the bad choices I made. That is 'my' essence of life," said Seànn.
"What is 'my' essence of life then?" asked Nion.
"Only you can find the answer to that question and for that, you have to live, learning from your lessons, as all of us do."
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The rain had gotten significantly lighter by this point and from a downpour it had decreased to mere drizzling. The smoke coming from the village became less intense.
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"What is going on out there," Seànn pointed towards the burning village.
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"I am sorry! I can't go back just yet... I 'must' return to that village! There is someone who needs my help," said Nion.
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Seànn offered her hand to Nion so she could stand up.
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"If you think that there is still something to be done back there, then so be it. As your superior, I allow you to go to the village of Elpida for an urgent mission," said Seànn.
"Thank you so much! You have no idea how much it means to me," said Nion.
"Be careful," Seànn warned.
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Within seconds, Nion rushed back to the Speranta village at a speed of a cannonball, the speed of her movements, without her "Kanjöga" limiter that she had left with Seànn, reaching far beyond human capacities. She reached the City Hall within a couple of minutes, the same distance she had ran for more than 10 minutes with her "Kanjöga" on.
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As she approached the village, it was immediately evident that something was different. The night air, though cool and fresh, was filled with wood ashes coming from burning houses. The unpainted wooden buildings were stained with grey shades. The village lied under a blanket of silence and the only light seemed to come from the still burning houses.
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Deserted streets, tumbled-down stores, shutters hanging off their hinges, banged eerily in the gusty wind, wet and tumbleweed, the dark ominous cloud, dirt road that would turn to a river of mud in the coming monsoon. The whole village had less charm than a graveyard. Just to stand amid the burning constructions was enough to make her feel like a ghost, an unwanted specter of humans that was lost wandering around the land of the lost. That empty loneliness was beautiful and melancholic, haunting in its desertion. Far ahead, the bonfire looked like a monument; a monument to pure destruction.
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The group of masked men was gone. The village was absolutely lifeless, extinguished of all forms of presence. Beyond the sound of rain drizzling down on the ground, the screams were sewn into the air. Night had resolved to settle around the bonfire in the center of the village, burying the bodies of the dead in an ethereal ceremony. As despair reached deep inside her, Nion felt the last vestige of her energy-draining, willing to embrace emptiness and isolation.
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The fatigue took control of her body once again. With barely any voice left, her facial expression became blank, indifferent towards anything and everything. Alone in the deserted village, eyes fixed on the tower of smoke coming from the bonfire, she slowly advanced forward, dragging her feet and painfully tripping on every object that was lying on the ground.
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A few minutes passed as Nion pressed on, exhausted and depleted. Far in the distance, there was a wooden cross, stuck into the ground. A raw piece of skin was grossly attached to it as if it was a piece of thick paper. Something was carved on it. As Nion approached she understood that is was a message, carved on human skin, as grotesque as it could be.
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The blood dripping down from the cuts in the flesh had already crystallized because of the bonfire heat that made the message barely readable. The message was the following.
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"Look up my little mouse, I knew you would come back. Just so you know. I choked him first..."
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The rain had finally stopped. Absolute silence had fallen on the village; The only sound that was animating that empty field was crackling wood and the whistling wind. A gust of dry wind blew through the maze of old houses where windows had long shattered in the weakness of their structures and rotting boards, some broken, others hanging or trying to cover the empty eyes of every abandoned home. Doors hung on the few threads of their hinges which had been left intact and groaned with pain and loneliness at every sway, almost screaming to Nion 'Don't look up!', as if something terrible would happen...
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In Nion's world, "Hope" had no meaning. Four emperors had offered shared wisdom of choice between two fates: either hope and agitation or hopelessness and calm. They say that hope knows no fear. Hope dares to blossom even inside the abysmal void. Hope can make us stronger and overcome the impossible...However, nobody has ever mentioned how easily someone's hope can be crushed into pieces; How easy it is to destroy a human being from inside...
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Time stopped as soon as Nion begun raising her head. Her heart was pounding harder and harder, dry tears starting to pour from her eyes, slowly running down her cheeks; it felt like an eternal moment. The more she looked at the bonfire full of burned bodies the less she could contain her pain and hysteria which were on the verge of exploding. All the things she witnessed in the last two days had greatly affected peoples' lives. Conscious of these deeds, her burden was getting heavier and heavier. Moonlight was illuminating a human silhouette on the very top of the bonfire...
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A boy, around five-years-old, his whole body engulfed in flames. Most of the skin had burned off, leaving dark red marks. Since the body had been attached on the very top, the bottom part was caught on fire first, which would be a slow and merciless death, as the brain would incinerate in the very end, so the victim would have had to wait dozens of minutes, praying for a quicker demise.
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The face of the boy was mostly intact...There was no doubt that it was Asta, Pipola's youngest son, the child that Nion had been looking for all this time...