Refracted

- - Prologue - -

"Tell me again."

"I already told you everything."

"Tell me AGAIN!"

"I can't... I... I... don't... remember."

"You know what will happen if you deny what I command."

"Please no! Anything but that! I'm begging you."

I looked at the pitiful girl before me, her once fiery-red hair was dull and matted, in some parts it had been shaved. Her eyes had lost the spark I loved about her a long time ago. But that was another life and my loyalty belonged only to those above me in the government. But sometimes I did wish things had been different, perhaps then I would have still loved her and maybe, maybe she would even have loved me. That was now impossible and such a thought would lead me to my death. Death. The only escape from the nightmare which I had to now call home. I wished now, that I could kill her, maybe there was still some act of love within me.

No. She didn't deserve that, the rebel scum. She was the reason that my job existed. They had to be eliminated. I had to protect my planet, preserve what was good, prosper in the future. I repeated that slogan a million times a day, just as I was told, almost as many times as I heard variations of her awful, horrifying story. It was not punishment, I was told, but privilege.

Protect, preserve, prosper.

It was what kept me almost sane as I uttered my next fatal words:

"Then tell me again..."