"Is there anything you need?"

I refused to speak. Instead, I raised my chin to look at the black mirror that I knew was double-sided. The swollen on my lips, bruised on my ribs, and wounds on my thighs, throbbed in pain as the memories of the previous session of interrogation resurfaced.

They surely did the proper procedure of the interrogation thoroughly: asking, mocking, kicking, punching, and torturing. Truly a pain in the neck. But what surprised me the most, was I had not surprised at all at how they reacted and anticipated me.

We were supposed to be on the same side. They shouldn't turn against me like this. But who am I talked into? I didn't even remember my complete identity.

"No...." I hissed at the pain it caused to my lips.

"I couldn't help you if you don't tell us anything." Latifah pleaded now. "If there anything—

"I am a Martian." I told her the first thing that I knew. I knew I had basic motor skills superior than her, I remembered something off with this body that even a simple punch would break my ribs and nothing can healed it.

"And?"

I vaguely remembered it, though. "I was a soldier ... but I don't remember who my superior was or regimen I was placed into."

Latifah sighed. That woman had subconscious habitual that kept repeated over times. She sighed when she at the end of the session that resulted nothing. Then she would left, letting the next and worse Martian to come and did some practical skills of interrogation.

While she was busy with her own devastation, I looked down at my new clothes. My previous clothes that looked more like a dirty old rag was disposed. It contained blood and this place was so sensitive about blood.

"I'm sorry, but we can never be too careful with blood. I can't take more risk." Latifah said on the first day of interrogation. "We're in Hadriah, after all."

Then I remembered. Omar also said before. There were disease; a plague, that contaminated soil and water. Hadriah was one of the worst case.

That was the last remaining memory I had with Omar. The last prove that there was someone named Omar that lived in the same cell as I was. That fact alone enough to send me on the edge of wrath and disappointment. But unlike before, no pain came out. It has been three days and the pain no longer came.

Rationally speaking, that was a good thing. But at the same time, it wasn't.

"Have you buried him?" I heard they did some investigation on his body. I wanted to protest, but if they could do something to make that disfigured vassal of him looked a bit better, I could do so much.

"Yes."

Another good thing.

After a long pause, I halted when something warm touched my hand. Looked down, it was Latifah's hand that wrapped mine. The warmth seeped through my skin and strangely pushed the air of my lungs. My chest, once again, struck by the very same pain. Memories by memories came and gone, showed me the latest events, started from when Omar died of protecting me.

I tried to let go of that hand, but somehow, she grabbed me tighter.

"My deepest condolence." She said. "I mean it."

That damn pain, suddenly came again. I let out my handcuffed wrists from her and this time, she didn't insist.

"We had collected data about him. Do you want to hear it?"

"No need. I've heard everything."

"He must be a good friend."

No, I gulped, felt the pain blocked my throat. I didn't want to hear that word anymore. "I ... barely know him...."

The way she said that made me snapped. I quickly let go of her hand, and readied to lash out at her, but the moment my eyes met with her teary eyes, I was left with awe.

"You screamed like a madman when we found you."

We both turned to the door. Mika stood there, looked at us. His eyebrows furrowed.

"Scream?" Then I remembered that. It was exactly as she said. I screamed. "I didn't ... it was...." The pain tightened, prevented me from said anything further.

"The blood was still fresh when we found you."

"Mika!"

The man quickly ignored Latifah and approached me. He put a glass of water and one syringe, filled with blue-crystal liquid.

"The other interrogator send me here. They said someone ready to ick you up, so why don't we spend more time together before you leave? It's rare for us to have a unique visitor like you. A Maha—

Mika stopped when Latifah glared at him.

"Martian, that didn't even recognized by the others." He looked at the mirror. "Or probably they just want to hide it."

I said nothing, for I have zero argument to his assumption.

"Latifah assumed the best probabilities, but I didn't think so and I tried to prove it." Mika turned and glared at me. "Turned out, I was right."

For a moment, we exchanged looks. Latifah said something, but I ignored it completely. There was something about this guy that similar to the warden and the people I met before.

"You killed him, aren't you?"

The coil now crushed into pieces. Not because of his words were hurt, but because of how real it was. Omar was killed. I killed him. If not because of me, he wouldn't jump in front of a trap.

Before I even knew, the voice that once I never knew, came out of my mouth: I laughed.

***

When I was escorted to another strange unfamiliar room, Latifah left immediately, leaving only Mika to watch over me. That man didn't even bother to hide his animosity. I didn't bother at first. Observing the room I was put in was far more interesting. The room had a proper—though, small—bed, a drawer, and even a bathroom. Except all the furniture, wall, and ceilings painted in white, I have no objection about this room.

This was a total paradise, compared to the darkness I was entrapped into.

"You're such a heartless monster." Mika claimed. "And you had laugh like a maniac."

Even the pain and the bitter laugh still remained in my mouth up this moment. My lips curved a smile on its own, so easy unlike the other days. I never knew smile was this painful. Why Uriel always smiled all the time? How could he?

"You're right...." It taste bitter. Strange, indeed. I've never heard any facial expression could send an impulse to taste bud. "I killed him ... I was—

"Liar." Mika retorted. "He sacrificed himself for you."

As I was sunk in deep-repeated-memories, Mika let his hand out of the table. He left something on the table. A tube-chip with the size no bigger than a maggot and a tab.

"I've managed to identify the code of this transmitter they planted on your neck." Mika walked away. "You came from Lab 621. Luckily we found you before he left Hadriah. It was always pain in the neck to collect the remnants if you exploded, Pal. But, unluckily, your cellmate didn't make it. Be grateful for it."

"For what?" I replied curtly.

"For a good friend you had once." He said. "You might be never met anyone like him ever again. Don't waste the life he saved. That was the only way for you, the living, to honor the dead."

The truths were too much. I closed my eyes, covered it with one of my hand. The memories became clearer. The pain came once again. The moment when Omar dead, the words once he spoke to me, my decision to succumb to this loss, it was all because of him.

When I realize, my palm got wet, I quickly let go of my eyes.

After the door closed, my vision blurred. I blinked, but something stung my eyes and water came out of both of it. My finger raised and touched my own cheeks.

There were water on there, trickled down from the corner of my eyes.

I cried.

***

I didn't cry much. Right after Mika left, I was too surprised to ever cry again. Latifah came again to my room.

"On the checkup we've done to you, we detected trillions of inactive nano-agents in your body, head to toe. From your skin to your DNA." She told me. "That was also the reason you could be save and placed here."

After implied that if I weren't a Maha, I wouldn't be ended up here, she left with a promise to: let me rest.

I turned and looked at the bottle, syringes, the chip, and the tablet. Mika hadn't explain the liquid yet. The chip was pretty much broke and the tablet ... I reached out with the hand that didn't attach to the IV-bag.

There was a book on the drawer. It was there the moment I stopped crying. I turned it on and the colorful cover pages of a book shone brightly.

Cat and Dog: A Child Story.

"Mika told me to give that to you." Latifah told me. "What is it?"

"Nothing important."

Against that silly book, my mind wander on itself, recalled the memories when Reana talked about her secretly. I just remembered it and this was a good time to talk about it.

"Reana...." As expected, when I brought up that name, Latifah's attention was focused solely to me. "You knew that name."

"Reana who?" Whether Latifah was playing dumb or just to be sure, I didn't know.

"Reana Melista. I met her at camp in Yemen." I told her. "She talked about you." She sounded have known you, a daughter of Hadriah's president, so well. "You knew her."

"Camp Al-Mast." How stupid. I just realized that I never knew the name of that place. "Yes, I knew her. And I knew she is there, worked as a volunteer of her country." She laughed. "At what chance you heard her said that? Did you keep tabs on her or something?"

She didn't expect a normal situation. Their connection was supposed to be a secret. Why? "Do you know him?"

Before Latifah could've answered, the door between us, swung opened. Latifah stood up and I could feel my heart dropped. It stop beating as the pressure in that room took another level. It was hard to breath. Hard to move. Hard to keep calm.

"Greetings, Your Grace." Latifah said calmly as she nodded and bowed her head a little. "To meet you today, it is an honor."

Unlike her, sweat trickling down on my frozen skin. I bowed like her instantly when someone entered the room. Fear weighing my neck down. The coldness bite my fists. My breath ragged only because of this intimidating presence.

"You may lift your chin, Soldier."

Just like what he wanted, I lift my head, looked at the man in front of me, right in the eye.

He looked like a Caucasian man from Earth. But no one from Earth had pure-white hair and reddish eyes like his. With height that grew beyond two meters, he loked intimidating enough, even without his formal black-military uniform of Alliances.

One name rang in my head. Only one name and that was enough to push me to salute him. "Greetings .... Generaloberst."

Ares.

***