My second life, like the first, died abruptly.

We were in her kitchen again. She asked me how my morning was. I had gone to the market with him. I told her that I had seen something odd. I told her that it felt like something I had seen before. There were two men in suits running down the street, each with a pistol in hand. No one noticed. A child sat on the sidewalk crying for his parents. No one noticed. No one except for Seraph. He took my hand and led me into a shop that we visited often. Quick words were spoken in a foreign language, and he ran out the door. The storekeeper led me back to the apartment, and I hadn't seen Seraph since.

She rubbed her forehead, but then looked up at me and smiled. She gave me a cookie, and we sat down at her table. She asked me if I knew why I had recognized that scene. Of course I knew. That child was lucky. His parents were most likely dead, like mine. When he woke up, he might not remember his dreams, only darkness. But it would be a darkness that everyone knows. Every night, when I go to sleep, I dream of a darkness that is real. Of course I knew why that scene had been familiar to me. I'd be insane if I forgot. But then again, I could go insane remembering.

She then proceeded to tell me what an agent was. She said that they were made to guard humans. They were able to take over anyone who lived in the Matrix. She told me about the Matrix. She told me about the rebels, and the One. She said that she and Seraph were programs like the agents, but-

I didn't hear the rest. I didn't care what she had to say. I looked at the cookie she had given to me. She- she who was related to those agents. Those agents who had taken the lives of my parents. And that Seraph. Most likely he had been involved in that fatal car crash. These past few years I had lived with them. My parents' killers.

Those were the thoughts that flashed through my head at that moment.

My parents' killers.

I crushed the cookie in my hand and gave her a malevolent look. I ran out the door and down to the elevator, not looking back. She never called out to me. I stood in the elevator, waiting for the lurch at the bottom. When it opened I ran out of the apartment. Tears streaked my face.