The next morning, I woke to searing pain in my skull. The memories of last night came back in shards—her voice, the weapon, the fall.
But there was no time for recovery.
Training began at sunrise.
Every day, we drilled harder than the last. We stepped into 3D simulations projected from combat data—real scenarios recorded from the invaders' planet. Every battle, every cry, every death.
It wasn't just war. It was life. Families. Laughter. Terror. Resistance. The enemy wasn't faceless anymore.
We watched mothers shielding children, lovers saying goodbye, rebels falling in slow motion.
Sometimes, we hesitated.
Suru dropped his rifle during a hostage drill. Nkhensani screamed during a house breach where the walls were painted with handprints.
I stood still in one scene, unable to move as a boy—no older than I was when the war began—looked straight into the lens, eyes wide with fear and defiance.
These weren't just training exercises. They were mirrors.
We bled in silence. We broke and rebuilt ourselves every hour.
Not every mission was a fight. Some were infiltration. Rescue. Witnessing pain we couldn't prevent.
One simulation changed everything.
I stepped into the role of a teammate on a covert mission. The objective: eliminate the father of a politically crucial household and assume his place to guide the child into adulthood.
The mission stretched across simulated years. The moment I pulled the trigger on the father, something inside me cracked.
I lived in his home. Slept in his bed. Sat across from his wife—haunted by her grief—and raised his son.
The child was so much like me.
His laughter. His questions. The way he looked up to me like I was the sun.
I watched him grow, shaped him, protected him. I kissed his scraped knees. Held him through nightmares. Taught him to fight. Watched him cry when he found the photo of the man I killed.
His mother began to smile again. And I—God help me—I began to believe I could be a father.
The simulation accelerated, compressing years. First heartbreak. Graduation. His first kill.
The boy looked at me one day and said, "I want to be just like you."
And I broke.
I fell to my knees in the middle of the virtual battlefield, sobbing.
I had lived what he had lived.
I had done what my father had done.
The grief, the guilt, the unbearable love that only deepened the pain—it consumed me.
I felt a hand on my shoulder. Suru, silent, eyes red.
"It's not weakness to feel it," he said quietly.
When the simulation ended, I ran.
I didn't know where else to go but home.
I burst through the door and found her in the kitchen.
"Mother," I gasped, tears streaking my face.
She turned, startled. I collapsed into her arms.
"I saw it," I whispered. "I finally saw what he felt... and I don't know what to do with it."
She held me tight, not saying a word.
Just holding me.
Later that night, she stood once again in front of his prison cell.
The man who wore my father's face looked up as the door opened.
"He's changing," she said.
A flicker of something passed across his face.
"Because of what you did," she continued, her voice trembling. "Because of what you were. Not the monster. Not the traitor. The man who raised a boy with love, even if it was built on lies."
She stepped closer.
"I don't forgive you. But I see you now. And I think... he might too."
She turned and walked away, the cell door sliding shut behind her.
The man sat in silence, head bowed.
And for the first time in a long time—he wept.