My heart beats fast, as I jolt awake in bed. Another night, another nightmare.

Always the same nightmare.

I'm holding the knife, stabbing him right in the chest. Blood going out of his mouth. My mind full of thoughts of pure frustration. I wish I could stop this. I wish I could have saved you. I told you to stop. I wish you heard me. I'm screaming at him why he betrayed the Republic, instead of telling him that I meant to kiss him, that it was the only goodbye that I could ever give him.

I can still feel the knife in my shaking hands. I can still hear the broken shriek he gave—or I. I'm not even sure. Maybe it was both of us. I can still feel his hand, clutching my wrist as he collapses on the ground. I can still watch those eyes, wide open with pure shock, and then full of worriedness about his sister when he realizes he's going to die and she had anyone, but him.

I close my eyes, trying to push away that horrible feeling of realizing what I've done as his eyes lost the light. As his grip lost the intensity on my wrist.

I killed him. I killed him. Metias is gone and never coming back and it's all my fault.

I find myself crying, desperately. I feel like I'm back on that alley, ordering my body to move, ordering myself to get away, when I couldn't do it, because his absence hit me.

Then I'm screaming. I grab a lamp and throw it against the wall. I can't. I can't handle this anymore. I can't live in my own skin. I can't hear my own mind. I can't clean my conscience.

I wish I could give my life to bring back Metias.

I killed the only man who believed in me, who taught me without asking for something back, with who I grown up. I killed a man that loved me, that cared about me, the only light in my life. And I never told him that I loved him. I never said thanks. And now I never will.

"I'm sorry," I scream, hoping he will hear this, wherever he is now.

I'm on my knees in my apartment. My face looking at the floor where I am, as the tears wet it.

When I look up, my reflection is staring at me.

But I can't see myself in the mirror.

I see a monster.

He's looking at me. His hands full of blood.

He starts to laugh hysterically, like if I was something fun to him. Then he starts to scream. I can hear the words murderer, killer filling the silence of the room.

No, no. I'm not, I repeat, trying to believe the words as I hold my head in my hands, screaming, begging the voice in my head to stop it. Please, stop. Please. I didn't ask for any of this. Please. Please.

"Stop!" I scream desperate, hoping that I could be brave to finish with this. To put a bullet on my head.

Does the Republic worth this?

I look at my reflection in the mirror full of panic, without believing I have questioned the Republic.

It does, the Republic worth this.

But I can't say it aloud.

The Republic has to worth this. If I betray them, I'm nothing. I'm not a soldier anymore… What I am? I ask myself, afraid of knowing the answer.

The sound of an incoming call. I clean my eyes and then my throat.

"Bryan, Iparis found him. Come here now," Commander Jameson says and my heart is frozen. June found Day. He's going to pay for what I did.

"Immediately, Commander," I respond and I walk at my clothes. I dress up fast and I look in the mirror as I put everything on its right place.

My eyes find the reflection's eyes and I can't help thinking that maybe this is what I was meant to be. That I'm following the path that destiny had all this time for me.

I put my hat on.

I delete all the doubts I have about the Republic, I push Metias in a corner away from my heart. I take all our memories and put them in a place deep in my mind.

I can't let it win. I'm the perfect soldier.