Darkness acts as a strong stimulus to the imagination and thus burdens the nervous system; a feeling of insecurity, which might eventually lead to panic, may be the outcome. The sensitivity of eyes and ears differs between night and day, with the result that in darkness objects seem bigger and distances greater. The ears exaggerate sounds that would hardly be perceptible during the day. Darkness plays tricks on you.

This is why night operations call for calm, cool, self-reliant, disciplined troops.

I was a 16 year old kid, stalking through the ditches on the side of the road, dropping to my belly each time a passing patrol would drive by. I had enough sense to squeeze my eyes shut so as not to ruin my night vision. I'd pick myself up and keep going, crawling through culverts, soaking myself in muddy water, washing the blood from my skin.

My father always said, "if you're looking for trouble, you'll find it in a city." That's where I was headed. I'd seen them place collars around Mrs. Foy's next and I imagined them doing the same to my sister.

In the lead-up to the raid on Mindoir, I had watched news clips of similar raids on other colonies. The Batarian Hegemony was extremely secretive and officially condemned the practice of raiding, however their economy seemed to have no issues buying and selling humans on the slave market.

I knew that they would be shipping desirable slaves off world and assumed they would be coordinating the selection and shipping from a central hub. So I followed the trail of fire and listened to the screams get louder all around me. I could hear the strange combinations of clicking tongues, and growling reverberations of the Batarian language. I was a farm boy, and as such, had no use for a translator. Their harsh alien language scared me but it caused me to remain attentive, just shy of being panicked. I was alert and afraid, but I was silent as I moved.

It was almost dawn when I reached the city and I was completely exhausted. The sun was starting to come up and I needed to get out of sight as quickly as possible to avoid the patrols. Peaking out over the ditch where the gravel road met the dirt, I recognized the fuel depot across from my location. I knew there was a sewer grate that I could remove and drop down to the underground maze that ran beneath the Mindoir was famous for one thing, other than the raid, it was vast, open spaces. The sewer was my best bet at staying hidden.

Convinced I was alone, I held my breath and made a dash to the grate and fumbled with its weight. I'd never felt my heart beat so fast. Finally, with shaking hands I lifted the grate and began descending the ladder into the darkness below.

I didn't think to bring a flashlight and didn't have an omni-tool to use.

I cursed myself at my poor planning and continued to descend the ladder, watching as the light above slowly disappeared before me. Touching the ground, I threw off my backpack and started to blindly search for the familiar object I needed. My lighter. My brother's lighter actually. He'd given it to me as a consolation prize when we got caught smoking the first time.

I stood silent for a minute, listening for any type of unfamiliar sound and flicked the lighter allowing the immediate space around me to be illuminated in the comforting orange glow. I touched my hand to the left wall and started to walk, extinguishing the flame to conserve the fuel. Following the wall slowly, hearing the sound of my footsteps lightly wading through the ankle high sludge, I would flick the light on every few minutes to make sure I was still on the right track and to provide myself with a little comfort.

As I walked alone in the dark, my mind drifted to my parents and my brother. These Batarians had come and destroyed my home and my entire family and for what? They seemed to only care about taking women and young children as slaves and just killed and burned everything else. I had been educated in human on human atrocity but I couldn't understand the why of the Batarian raids. I couldn't understand the cruelty of it.

On the farm, I was taught that our animals were to be cared for and only killed out of necessity and when we did have to kill them, it was done so as humanely as possible. It was like the Batarians didn't even consider us as animals. We were insects to them.

This realization enraged me and as I walked and thought about it, the angrier I became.

"Anybody can become angry — that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way — that is not within everybody's power and is not easy." Aristotle said that. Anger is just anger. It isn't good. It isn't bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It's like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice.

I wanted to destroy. I wanted to kill for what they did to my parents, my brother, the Foys and my sister.

I walked for what felt like hours, navigating as best I could with no real idea of where I was or where I needed to go and it felt like the walls were closing in on me. I needed sleep. I had been going non-stop but I couldn't convince my body to stop moving. Steph was out there somewhere and I needed to find her.

Finally, I could see a distant light overhead, indicating a large drain. I made my way to the ladder and started to climb, slowly, methodically so as not to make a sound. As I drew closer to the dim light I could make out the clicks and growls and knew there were at least two Batarians above me.

I listened to their conversation, not understanding anything and after a few moments, I heard one of them leave. I cautiously used my head to raise the drain cover to get a better view of my surroundings, watching as the other Batarian made his way to a chair and sat down, facing what looked like a group of people, bags on their heads, kneeling on the floor. He sparked up a cigarette.

Silently lifting the drain cover about half an inch off the floor, I tried to take in a 360-degree view, to make sure there were no other threats around.

I could take one on my own, right? I'd butchered pigs, cows, even horses when necessary. What was one Batarian? A knife through the neck was likely to kill anything.

I could turn back and continue to wander through the sewers, or I could take a chance that one of the bagged prisoners might be my sister.

I slowly lifted the drain cover above my head, and bit by bit slid it to the side, as quietly as possible. When there was enough room for my body to get through, I started climbing the ladder. Taking the first steps out of the sewer, I glanced around again, making sure there were no others around. I was in a large warehouse, where exactly, I couldn't be sure. There were four prisoners with bags on their heads, and one Batarian sitting on a chair with his feet up, smoking a cigarette. His rifle was leaning against the chair.

I withdrew my knife and tried to slow my heartbeat. It thundered in my ears and my eyes, my mouth felt dry, my hands were shaking. I was going to kill something. Not human, but not an animal. A person. This is not a natural act.

Inhale, count to four, exhale, count to four.

[CRUNCH]

I stepped on a piece of broken glass.

The Batarian almost fell out of his chair, as startled by the disturbance as I had been. We locked eyes and hesitated, neither of us unsure what to do next.

It's engrained in our culture from a very young age that there are two responses to danger: fight or flight. However, this model holds that the fight or flight dichotomy is the appropriate set of choices for any creature faced with danger other than that which comes from its own species.

This Batarian was not a human, but he was not an animal. He spoke a language, he had a mother and father, might have had children of his own, he had thoughts and feelings and processed them into actions. He had opinions, he had motivations, and he made choices. If I had a translator, we could have had a conversation.

When a human is confronted with aggression from their own species, or a species with equal sapient capability in this case, they responds with fight or flight, but also decides between fleeing and posturing. We don't have a natural tendency to kill one another and this natural tendency can be overcome with training. Without training though, you never know how you will respond when confronted with a life or death situation. Even highly trained soldiers will find themselves frozen with inaction in certain scenarios because our lizard brain just assumes control.

My lizard brain commanded me to start running at him.

It caused him to fumble as he reached for his rifle, but he braced himself for me and I tackled him to the ground. I tried to plunge the knife into his throat but he blocked me, intent on fighting as well. The knife fell out of my hands and he used my temporary discombobulation and punched me in the stomach hard.

The punch knocked the wind out of me and I fell back while he got up and made his way for his gun. I scrambled for my knife, forgetting about the shotgun I had strapped to my back.

In the end, I was that one second quicker; I had that one crucial second that decided both our lives. I thrust the knife into his neck as he turned around about to fire and lowered him to the ground as his weight started to bare down on me.

Killing is a very intimate act. Killing at such close range even more so. The whole thing must have lasted a second but it's printed on my mind like a slow motion vid. He slipped to his knees and I lowered him down, his hand grasped my arm and I pushed the knife a little further. His face was terrible and twisted in pain and hate. Such hate. There was so much blood, seeping onto my hand. It was warm, and thick. I saw the light leave his eyes and then I vomited.

The military would later teach me to deal with the psychological effects of killing other people. But for now, this experience was entirely new. It was raw and powerful and unforgettable. I never knew his name but I will never forget his face, and all the sounds and smells he made as his life left his body.

I pulled the knife out of his throat and stood up, shaking terribly from adrenaline and a feeling of pure horror when I looked down at what I had done. I had murdered this individual and I had wanted to.

I'm not sure how long I had been standing there when I heard another voice, male and clearly human.

"Hello?" He asked tentatively through the bag over his head.

I walked over to the prisoners and took their coverings off one by one and watched them squint at the sudden light. They were all male, between the ages of 7 and 15. I recognized the older one as Kyle Gardiner, a friend of my sister.

I must have looked worse than I thought because they all just stared at me with this fearful look in their eyes.

"Are you from the Army?" A little voice asked innocently.

"No. I'm John. From the Shepard farm." My voice was shaky and strained. I had no idea where the Alliance was, or if they were already on the ground. Someone had to come for us. Right?

"We have to get out of here," The older boy, Kyle, piped up. "That other guard will be coming back soon to take one of us."

"Take you where? I'm looking for my sister, Stephanie."

"They're taking all the women to another site. The shipping yard I heard them say. I think that's what they said." Kyle's eyes were focused on the door behind me, waiting for that other guard.

"You understand Batarian?"

He was getting frustrated now. "I have a translator, my dad works in off world shipping." He was started to panic. "We really need to get out of here, that other guard will be back and he's going to take one of us."

"Is it just the one?"

"As far as I can tell, yeah."

It took me a minute to formulate a plan. I walked over to the Batarian and heaved him back up to his chair, leaning the rifle like it hadn't been disturbed and hastily wiping the pool of blood with some nearby rags. Then I moved to cover up the heads that I had just exposed, watching the 7 year old, Mike, crying as I did so.

"Don't worry." I assured him, "I'll be back before you know it." I smiled at him with some newly found confidence.

I moved to cover Kyle's face last.

"I hope you know what you're doing." He worried.

Me too, I thought.