“Honey! My goodness, are you alright?”

  Gahn closes the door to his home, and gestures to his wife to lower her voice.

  “Shh, shh, are the kids asleep?”

  “Yes, they are now.”

  “I just didn’t want us waking them up.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question! What happened to your nose?”

  “I got punched.”

  “You didn’t go looking for a fight, did you?”

  “What I—no! Of course not!”

  “What was it then?”

  “It was Vertan!”

  “Vertan? Him? Aren’t you two friends?”

  “Yes, I’ve told you before—”

  “I know, I never liked him. The way he is and all, and now he’s punched—!”

  “Well, he didn’t mean it honey, it was more of a reaction—”

  “I don’t care! It still doesn’t change that he punched my husband!”

  “Please trust me, I know him—!”

  “I don’t care how long you’ve known him for! You need to stand up for yourself more —!”

  “Alright! Can I talk?”

  “Sorry, honey.”

  “It’s alright, honey.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Not right now.”

  “Alright.”

  “I don’t know what it is or what he went through, but he’s definitely…seen some things, I guess I should say.”

  “What happened? What makes you say that?”

  “The look in his eyes when I first saw him—and I’ve never seen him like that—they seemed to stare off to another planet. Never mind that every bit of him looks like he’s falling apart at the seams!”

  “So he’s gone all cuckoo?”

  “I wouldn’t say that. It seemed too genuine. Too specific. Says he’s spent more than five years out there in the two weeks that’s passed since he’s left back home. How do you come up with that? And the way he couldn’t talk about Hilgo makes me think something must have happened.”

  “How did he get home, then?”

  “We brought him home ourselves, that’s why I was late, honey. He struggled for a bit in the car before we finally brought him to Mother Zviedal’s front doorsteps. Needless to say, it was an emotional hour for all of us.”

  “Oh, my.”

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “He’s lucky he has a mother like her. Personally, I wish that he would have listened to her more before he left. Listened to all of us, her, me, and Hilgo, too. Maybe that’s the caveat of knowing someone so long since childhood, they take you for granted.”

  “But what’s happened with him though? Didn’t you tell me he was with the Special Expeditions?”

  “That’s what I thought, too. He left for them two weeks ago. Came back a broken man.”

  “Something must have gone horribly wrong.”

  “Maybe so.”

  *****

  “Vertan! My dear, my son!”

  “Mother…”

  “By the cosmos, what’s happened to you? Where is your arm and leg? Where is your hair? You look thin! What’s happened? What’s—”

  “Mother—I’m exhausted—”

  Mother Zviedal holds her tattered son in her arms in tears, the soup she is preparing boiling on the stove.

  *****

  It would be another few months of recovery before Vertan could return to being a functional adult, though silence still haunted him.

  Those around him notice his uncharacteristic quietness and submission to an unspoken defeat. No longer would he talk of the things he used to, and many answers to countless questions remained secret. Even the effort of entertaining certain memories and thoughts soon became too painful for him. And yet the irony is that oftentimes he found that he must.

  The “Vertan effect” as they soon dubbed it within the group and community became noticeable in hindsight. Somehow, since his return, certain blessings came their way. Certain parts of public infrastructure received enough funding to be repaired and upgraded. Schools and hospitals soon received better equipment. The quality of life improved. One day, his mother reported all debts to have been paid off.

  And yet, Vertan all but seemingly disappeared from everything, preferring to keep to himself. Most days, he still goes out to fish, at the same time and routine as he used to. He would go down to his fishing vessel, still there the same way it had always been, go out, fish, and come back all the same.

  His friends would eventually come to ask why he wasn’t taking on the opportunities sprouting locally, to which he simply answered that he preferred the way he had things right now. Eventually, so too, did acceptance come that Hilgo had passed, though the details can only be speculated upon.

  It was another one of those days. Right at the break of dawn, Vertan embarked on another fishing trip, going out further this time. His memory once more pictured the day with Hilgo, the two laughing, bantering, sometimes arguing. How much he wished that he could even argue with him again.

  In the sky, the gateway watches down on him with its distant gaze.

  It was about here over five years ago, or rather, earlier this year, that he and Hilgo were talking about Vertan’s aspirations to jump offworld. Coming out here, he thought, is the least he could do to honor his memory as much as he can. There wasn’t even the dignity of a proper burial; Hilgo now forever lies eviscerated millions of light years away.

  And at least out here, he felt he was the furthest away he could get from people in everyday life. He would not be monitored or surveilled, or at least not as much. Would he still be? The paranoia of the Coalition’s power continues to eat at him. Could they reach this far out, to his homeworld?

  Having stopped the vessel, and feeling the ocean breeze, Vertan pulls off his gloves, and takes a break from fishing for a moment. Unlocking a hidden compartment underneath the dashboard, he pulls out a pen and journal, and continues where he last left off on writing his thoughts.

  It was an intentional effort to preserve as much as he could, lest the details of his memories decay any further. Everything detailing his childhood troubles, the first steps of his journeys, witnessing Suprima, Alpharion, the day he was recruited, the expeditions, the team and camaraderie, the details and names of his squad comrades. Etrad, Calian, Fero, Reja, Syani. Hilgo. The siege of Gateworld Thoma. The bureaucracy that followed. It was only moral obligation, following the erasure of all his previous records and logs as an expeditioner.

  But more importantly, in the months of reflection since, his disillusionments and ideologies.

  Finishing the last sentence and turning the page, for a moment, a potent ball of resentment laced with guilt and regret bubbled up from within him, though this anger had no direction to go. He felt cowardly for his decision. He watches the fish, swimming freely through Ulminh’s oceans, while he had voluntarily put himself in a bowl. The most expensively extravagant aquarium is still an aquarium.

  It was at times like these that the urge to shoot himself or throw himself overboard was strongest, but Vertan would remind himself that doing so would mean Hilgo’s sacrifice would have been in vain. Such a dishonor to his efforts and memories would be too much.

  Perhaps one day, the truth could no longer be contained the way I am now, Vertan thought.

  Looking up from his page, Vertan sees the gateway, an eye in the sky, which he now rues.

  It appeared to gaze down upon him watchfully.