17 Conversation

After double-checking that everyone was gone, General Arnold immediately softened his expression, his aura from a solemn military man to a simple old man from across the street.

"Sorry to annoy you with this, Eric, but you know how annoying those bureaucrats could get." The general subconsciously ruffled the hair from the back of his head and said in a rather familiar tone, as though he was speaking towards an old comrade.

"That's alright, I'm already used to it by now." Eric waved his hands, immediately accepting the other's apology. "I'm actually more relieved that those people seemed to be more interested in arguing with each other than scrutinizing my behavior during the explosion. When I first arrived here, I thought you were going to demote me for my sloppy job in protecting the scientists."

"They wouldn't dare to even try suggesting such a thing." Arnold instantly expressed his anger and sneered. "Those bureaucrats are too busy trying to save their own skin to even dare and make a move against someone like you, a well-known hero of the war who had obtain great merits."

"Stop, now, Arnold! You're going to make me feel embarassed for flattering me like that." Arnold joked and expressed his 'dismay' towards his old friend. After the both of them gave out a few laughs at the same time, Eric suddenly turned serious gain. Seeing his expression, Arnold also turned solemn and waited for the other to speak.

"How are things holding up in the Octagon, Arnold?" Eric narrowed his eyes and spoke in a dark tone. "I heard a rumor that the Martians are trying to make a move again. Although I had initially thought they were simply being paranoid, after what had happened at District X-23, I wouldn't be so sure, anymore."

Arnold gave Eric a meaningful look before giving out a helpless sigh. "I would like to say that the Martians had never stopped their aggressive militant policy against us even after signing the peace treaty more than 10 years ago, but from the looks of it, they seem to be making a big move soon."

"The upper brass back there finally can't hold in their trigger-happy fingers anymore?" Eric sneered, exuding an extremely hostile aura directed towards the Martians.

Arnold simply shrugged and reply, "I can't tell you much about it since it's been classified at the highest level, but lets just say that the incident at District X-23 would simply be the first of many 'incidents' that the Martians may cause in the future."

The general gave out a sigh again and muttered to himself, "But I can't even belive our intelligence departments could not even figure out how much antimatter the Martians may have hidden on Earth."

Since Minerva directly recorded the voices from the origin, Eric was able to hear what Arnold had said clearly and widened his eyes in shock. "You mean the antimatter weapon detonated just now may just be one of many hidden within our midst? Just what have your intelligence agencies been doing?! I thought their sole jobs were to snuff out the spies hidden within the Federation. Did they spend too much time spying on their own citizens to even remember what their job is?"

"Don't underestimate the capablities of the Martian Empire, Eric." Arnold warned as he furrowed his brows in frustration. "You out of all people should know what they're capable of after experiencing the war."

After his reminder, there was a stifled silence within the room, seeming as though the two war veterans were silently licking their old wounds as they accompanied each other. Finally, in an attempt to change the subject, Arnold spoke in a lighter tone, "I heard that Dan's son is living at your place now?"

Hearing the name of his old friend, Eric could not help but soften his eyes. However, Arnold could see the visible sorrow that came from deep within his soul when his expression changed. Feeling as though he must have brought up the wrong subject, Arnold wanted to change the topic immediately only to be cut off by Eric before he could even open his mouth.

"Daniel is recovering at my place right now. It seems what happened earlier must have caused a large amount of mental trauma within him." Eric said with guilt in his tone.

"Don't worry too much, Eric." Arnold reassured. "Although that boy is still young, he's still the son of one of the greatest heroes the Federation has ever produced. You should have more confidence in him. Although it's unfortunate that his first experience in combat turned out to be such a tragedy, no one can control one's fate after all."

"I just hope that Daniel would be able to recover from this." Eric replied with a worried tone. "He's been acting quite docile for the past few days, only eating the required nutrient pacakages each day while staying silent most of the time."

After reassuring Eric for a few more minutes about Daniel and also recommending a psychiatrist specializing in PTSD to him, both men finally hung up their holographic call. As the lights within the conference room dimmed, only then did Eric's fists loosen. He heaved a heavy sigh before leaving the conference room by himself.

***

"Why didn't you fulfill my wish!" A man tried his hardest to crawl towards Daniel, who was standing inches away from him. His flesh was completely burnt, showing the bones within his body. A part of his skull was revealed on his face while the other side still looked normal, sending chills within Daniel's heart.

There was alook of indignance and hatred on the dying man's face, as he used all his might to move his broken limbs to reach Daniel. He lifted his hands, which were dyed crimson, revealing the damaged muscles within his body as he tried and drag Daniel by the ankle towards armageddon.

"I died trying to safe the last bit of research material! Why did you take it away from me instead!" The man yelled as tears of blood started to fall from the eye sockets of his skull.

***

"Haaaahhh!!!"

Daniel awoke in the middle of the night screaming from his terrible nightmare. A cold sweat started oozing down from his own forehead. Within an instant, he felt an overwhelming form of nausea as he subconsciously smelt a sour and decaying aroma of burnt flesh.

Since Daniel didn't get any injuries from the explosion back at District X-23, he was immediately discharged from the nearby hospital after a routine check-up. As he was still in shock at the time, he didn't realize what had happened after the explosion until his body somehow arrived back in Commander Eric's house at night.

It was only after Eric described what had happened to him did he know that after being discharged from the hospital, a worried-looking Eric, who was waiting by the entrance of the hospital, had directly escorted Daniel back to his own house, even as Daniel continued to stay in a daze.

For the past few nights, the same recurring nightmare appeared within his dreams, with the ghost always accusing him of letting his death to go to vain. That's right, immediately after he had received the bottle of adamantine from the corpse of the scientist, he took advantage of the commotion of the explosion when everyone was too busy to observe his behavior and directly downed the adamantine into his throat in one go, compeleting his first mission.

It was only later, after the first nightmare, that the guilt had hit him. Feeling like a bastard, he could not help but feel guilty even though the bottle of adamantine was what he needed in order to survive. However, for the next few nights, the nightmare does not seem to want to go away, lingering within Daniel's mind to the point where he thought he was going crazy.

He would also smell the disgusting odor of the burning bodies from the explosion even though he had already left the scene for more than 3 days now.

When he stares at the food before him, the savoury aroma would instead turn sour, making him instantly loose his appetite.

Commander Eric, of course, noticed the anomalies within Daniel's mind and directly took the next few days off from school for him, allowing Daniel to recover from his own home. However, seeing that he doesn't seem to be recovering, he couldn't help but want to ask if Daniel wanted to see the psychologist that Genral Arnold had recommeded to him during the meeting.

However, when he raised the question during dinnertime, Daniel simply stayed silent, as though he compeletely did not hear Eric's voice at all. In the end, the person who actually made Daniel turn back to normal was the unreliable system that had forefully bounded itself to its soul -- the cause of this tragedy in the first place.