As the brutal 29-hour assault on Terra finally ended, a message crackled through the comms: "All units, cease fire. Stand down. Commander Simon, report to me upon arrival on Earth," came the cold, authoritative voice of General Harper.
"Sir, yes sir," Simon replied, his voice mechanical, his mind barely registering the words. The planet of Terra was now nothing more than a wasteland; over 85% of its population was gone. Reduced to ashes and rubble.
The battle was over, but the cost was still bleeding into reality. All medics were summoned to the frontlines to tend to the wounded. The "psychosis candy" the soldiers had been given—an intense hallucinogenic stimulant that numbed pain and dulled fear—was wearing off. After nearly 30 hours, its effect was fading, and with it came the full force of the agony they'd been holding back. The medics moved swiftly, patching up injuries, stabilizing soldiers, and doing what they could for the ones barely clinging to life.
A medic was assigned specifically to Simon. Her name was Anastasia—just Anastasia, no surname, no history. She'd been born in a lab, a creation of science rather than of family. Her purpose was singular: to serve. To heal the soldiers, keep the war machine running, and provide for the humans who fought on the frontlines. Yet somehow, despite the cold nature of her existence, Anastasia found a quiet kind of solace in it all. In her limited, detached way, she managed to feel something close to happiness. Perhaps it was contentment. Perhaps it was the routine. Or maybe she'd simply learned to find peace in the emptiness.
Simon watched her as she approached, her movements steady and precise. For a moment, he felt an odd pang of guilt. Maybe he hadn't been grateful for the life he had. Maybe he was the problem—constantly fighting, killing, but never once stopping to appreciate the life he'd been granted. He glanced down at the gaping wound in his leg, still unaware of the full depth of the damage.
"Commander, are you alright?" Her voice was soft, careful, as if speaking too loudly would shatter something fragile inside him.
"Everything's fine, Anastasia," he replied, though he knew that wasn't true. Beneath the fading numbness of the psychosis candy, he was starting to feel it—a raw, agonizing pain radiating from his calf, where there was a hole deep enough to nearly sever his leg.
Anastasia kneeled beside him, her calm gaze assessing the damage without a flicker of surprise. She'd seen worse, and for Simon, such injuries were almost routine. Yet, she noticed something that had often puzzled her about him: his lack of response. She'd tended to soldiers before who were already screaming in agony by now, even with the drug. But Simon simply looked at her, detached, as though the pain was nothing but a distant memory.
She checked her readings and thought she understood. "Commander… it appears you have Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis. It's… a rare condition." She paused, gauging his reaction before continuing. "You've probably heard of it. People with CIPA don't feel pain—at least, not in the way most do. But it's an extremely dangerous condition."
He blinked, processing her words. He'd never been diagnosed, had never thought much about his ability to ignore pain. But now, her words sank in. CIPA was deadly. People with the condition usually didn't survive childhood, their bodies unable to alert them to danger. Yet he had. He'd made it this far, through fire and blood, feeling only the relentless, churning hatred in his heart while his body simply followed orders.
Anastasia continued to clean and wrap his leg, working with an efficiency that betrayed her origins. She wasn't human, not fully, and yet there was something in her touch that was almost compassionate, as though she understood what Simon couldn't bring himself to admit. "It's surprising, you know. Most people with CIPA don't live long. Yet, here you are."
For a moment, Simon found himself staring at her, wondering what it was that allowed her to find peace in this existence. How could she look at him—at the broken, scarred creature he'd become—and simply do her duty without judgment or fear? She didn't know the weight of the lives he'd taken, nor the war he fought within himself. Yet somehow, she'd made a life out of nothing.
Simon's thoughts churned, drifting to that quiet hope he'd dared to imagine only hours before. A normal life. A house. A family. But as he looked back at the battlefield, at the ruined planet they'd just left behind, he knew the truth.
There was no "normal" for people like him.
Just as Simon was about to let the strange sense of calm settle in, a blinding light exploded across the surface of Terra, engulfing everything in its wake. It was brighter than anything he'd ever seen—an intense, merciless flash that left no shadow, no room for thought. It swallowed the landscape, the ruins, the blood-soaked fields where he and his comrades had fought relentlessly for hours.
Simon barely had time to register the sight. One moment he was standing beside Anastasia, and in the next, his vision was obliterated. Heat, pressure, a violent wave of force—it all struck him at once, tearing through flesh, armor, bone. His thoughts splintered, and there was nothing left but an endless, silent void.
And then, in that suffocating silence, he drifted.
When he became aware again, Simon felt something unfamiliar, something that didn't make sense. He could see stars, distant, cold, and indifferent. His body—what remained of it—was floating, suspended in the endless darkness of space. He was aware of the strange sensation of motion, the way he was moving through the void without a destination, without purpose. He wasn't sure how long he had been drifting or why he was still conscious.
It didn't make sense. *How am I… alive?* His mind struggled to grasp what had happened. The last thing he remembered was the flash, the shock, the feeling of his body tearing apart. Terra—everything—was gone. There was nothing left. Had he been betrayed? Had the general ordered the destruction of the entire planet?
He reached out with one trembling hand, though there was nothing to grasp, nothing to hold onto. His body was broken, barely holding together, and he felt pain—more pain than he'd ever known. It was sharp, burning, a constant reminder that he was somehow still here, still aware.
He couldn't comprehend it, and yet… there was no denying it. His battered, broken corpse was moving through the void, surviving against all logic, drifting endlessly through space with no end in sight.
*Was this it?* he wondered. *Is this my punishment?* The emptiness stretched before him, infinite and absolute. And Simon, barely more than a shell, was left to wander through it, endlessly, with no promise of an end.