The room did not welcome me.
It studied me.
As I stepped forward, the air itself felt heavier, as if the walls were listening too. Thirty people sat there, spread across the long table, their faces lit unevenly by the glow of screens. Some leaned back in their chairs, arms crossed. Some leaned forward, elbows resting on the table. A few didn't move at all.
Some looked at me with anger.
Not the loud kind—the kind that explodes. This was quieter, sharper. A restrained fury that lived behind disciplined eyes. The anger of people who had survived long enough to believe they had earned their place.
Some looked at me with warmth.
Not kindness exactly—more like recognition. The way a veteran looks at a recruit who reminds him of someone he used to know. Someone who didn't make it.
And some looked at me with pure fighting spirit.
Their eyes were steady. Measuring. Curious. Not judging me as a man, but as a weapon. As a variable. As something that could either fit… or break the balance.
That was when it finally reached me.
These were not politicians hiding behind speeches.
These were not observers.
These were fighters.
The best kind. The worst kind.
Men and women pulled from different nations, different fronts, different definitions of hell. Each one of them carried a history written not in words, but in scars—some visible, most buried deep where no one could touch them.
And suddenly, standing there under all those eyes, one thought cut through me so sharply it almost hurt.
What am I doing here?
I was eighteen.
Just eighteen.
I didn't grow up in a training camp. I didn't attend any elite military academy. I never learned tactics from books or simulations. I never had instructors telling me how to breathe, how to kill, how to survive.
Everything I knew, I learned because I had no choice.
Compared to them, I was inexperienced.
Compared to them, I was young.
For the first time since the war began, I felt small.
Then something else followed that thought—quiet, stubborn, undeniable.
Does it matter?
If I was here, there was a reason.
If they were looking at me, then something I had done had already crossed a line.
So I stood there.
I didn't lower my head.
I didn't straighten my posture either.
I just waited.
The general at the head of the table raised his hand slightly.
The screens behind him came alive.
Light flooded the wall, shifting maps and static dissolving into order. The sudden brightness pulled every gaze away from me and toward him.
"Death," he said.
Just that.
My name.
The room didn't react, but I felt it. The word carried weight here. Not drama. Not fear. Recognition.
"You arrived last," the general continued calmly. "So we'll start with you."
Every eye returned to me at once.
My stomach tightened.
This wasn't like waiting for an ambush. This wasn't the clean clarity of a firefight where instincts take over and fear disappears.
This was worse.
This was exposure.
I had never been this nervous in my life.
The general didn't raise his voice. He didn't pace. He didn't perform. He spoke like someone stating facts that could not be argued.
"You were born in India," he said.
I stayed still.
"You joined a private agency," he continued, "not for ideology, not for loyalty—but to survive."
That was true.
"That agency eventually placed you into the Russian military structure."
A few heads turned slightly at that.
"You had no formal combat training before this war," he said. "No background in warfare. No preparation."
My hands felt oddly light, like they weren't fully attached to my body.
"Your family died during the war," he said next.
The words landed without emotion.
"They are gone. You were left with no one."
The room stayed silent.
No sympathy.
No discomfort.
Just attention.
"And yet," the general said, finally lifting his eyes to meet mine, "in two years, you have done enough that every person in this room is watching you."
I swallowed.
Inside my head, one question kept repeating, louder each time.
What did I do… to deserve this?
The lights dimmed.
The screens changed.
A video began to play.
At first, it didn't feel real.
Then I saw myself.
Not how I remembered myself—but how the war had seen me.
From above.
From the side.
From angles I had never known existed.
Drone footage.
Cold. Silent. Unblinking.
There I was—moving through rubble with a rifle pressed tight into my shoulder. My body moved smoothly, efficiently. I advanced without hesitation, firing in controlled bursts. One body dropped. Then another. Then another.
No pause.
No reaction.
Just motion.
The footage shifted.
A narrow street. Smoke thick in the air. I watched myself throw the rifle aside and pull a knife, stepping into close combat without slowing. A flash of steel. A body collapsed against a wall. Another followed seconds later.
The camera didn't look away.
Another cut.
Me alone.
Against a squad.
Outnumbered.
Pinned.
I watched myself move through chaos like it was routine—using corners, shadows, broken doors. One man fell. Then two. Then the rest.
The room was completely silent now.
No whispers.
No movement.
Only the sound of my past breathing through speakers.
The general spoke again.
"Every day," he said, "you raised your own standard."
The footage continued.
Different locations. Different fronts. Different seasons.
"You moved from one level to the next," he said. "Without pause."
I watched myself kill again and again, and something strange happened.
I didn't feel pride.
I didn't feel shame.
I felt… distance.
As if I were watching someone else entirely.
Was that really me?
"You may not even know your own count," the general added.
The video stopped.
The screen went black.
Then numbers appeared.
Large. Clean. Unforgiving.
"With guns," the general read aloud, "six hundred and twenty-four."
The room did not move.
"This includes all firearm types."
My chest felt tight.
"With knives—two hundred and forty-three."
I clenched my jaw.
"With bare hands—one hundred and eleven."
Someone shifted slightly in their chair.
"With grenades—one hundred and forty-three."
"With traps—seventy-two."
The general paused.
Just long enough for the silence to stretch.
"And with "Unregistered weapons" twenty-four."
The words hung there.
Heavy.
"These numbers," he continued, "are only from what the drones managed to capture."
The screen flickered briefly, showing fragments—angles cut short, footage ending mid-motion.
"There are more fights," he said. "More deaths. Not recorded."
Something inside me sank.
I finally understood.
Drones don't just strike.
They watch.
They remember.
They turn chaos into data.
The screen went dark.
The room felt colder.
The general stepped forward slightly and faced everyone.
Then he looked directly at me.
His voice did not change.
"But I can tell you all this," he said clearly, calmly, without hesitation.
"This young man is Death himself—as a human."
The room did not react.
No applause.
No gasps.
Only silence.
And every eye stayed on me.