When I Laid My Eyes On You

Arc 1: Chapter 12

"Rwuan!!! You can't do this!"

"Why??!"

"Why must you choose this way?"

"No... You promised! You will never do this! Why?!"

"Rwuaaaan!"

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"Are you alright?" Martin ask softly. He looked at the startled man, breathing heavily from who knows what nightmare. His gentle gaze filled with worry.

Bastian took a deep breath, heartbeat slowly returning to its originally slow and calm beat. He glanced at the surroundings, pulling himself up from his current slouch from sleeping inside the military truck they were currently at.

"Here" Martin gave him a bottle of mineral water, his inquiring gaze met Bastians' blank ones.

"Nothing. I'm fine. I'm just tired."
Bastian stated, his cold tone reverberating and firm yet his trembling hands seems to tell otherwise.

Martin sighed. 'He hadn't trust me yet.' 

"You seem to be opposed in going. What changed your mind?" Martin asked, he took a rubics cube from the car's compartment, twisting and adjusting the colored blocks. The grinding sound completely breaking the awkward and stiffling silence. Currently, they were the only ones riding the military truck. Martin wanted to ask Bastian, thus he made some excuse to team up.

"It's dangerous." Bastian simply answered. His quick yet straight response made Martin pause.

Bastian stared at the other cars parked at the roadside, he saw the others getting off, simply talking amongst themselves.

"Everywhere is dangerous. There's no safe place out here." Martin pointed out. To them, people trying to survive in the apocalypse, no place is safe. It doesn't matter even if your inside the base, there'd always be an infection occuring be it from rats or any types of infected animals. It will always start another out break of infection.

"I know. But trouble coming to you is different from you coming into trouble." Bastian bit back, his sharp eyes glaring daggers but his slightly drooping shoulders really showed enough of his concern.

'Heh' Martin felt it was funny. He chuckled, eyes filled with astonishment from the child like behavior. Unexpectedly, Bastian retained his sneaky character.

Bastian took a deep breath. 
He was still quite shaken from his dream. It was like a dream from somewhere he wasn't aware of. He forgot what it was but the voice- that voice seemed awfully familiar. He just can't seem to remember.

"Where are we now?" Martin glanced at him again before setting the rubics cube before answering-"Where currently 3 towns away from the location. The team is currently looking for supplies and food to eat as well as a place to stay the night. The only good thing is we hadn't encountered any nightwalkers yet."

"Nightwalkers won't simply appear hear. They were much more intelligent compared to the undead who walks like a moving brick." Bastian grumbled before slowly relaxing back down to his seat.

"Sometimes I wonder how you seemed to be familiar with things-

"My familiarity to things came from my experience." Bastian answered stiffly. Although his tone seemed dismissive, his expression remained cold. "In such a situation, being experienced yourself is much better compared to being dependent to a bunch of paid bodyguards. Your family won't be of help and perhaps you'd see yourselves going againts each other just for survival. Don't you think it's possible to trust anyone right now?"

Martin shrugged his shoulder, eyes still focused at the cold man beside him. "It doesn't matter of they can be trusted or not. I still trust you and this team."

"That's simply foolish." Bastian retorts mockingly, however, his voice no longer carried the hint of aggression from earlier.

Martin laughed, "Perhaps, however, humans are naturally social creatures. Its in our nature to find someone and be with those we can trust, and not even the apocalypse can change that. Perhaps we will be wary and cautious for a short time, but when we meet people that we can place our absolute hope and trust, then those scars would simply disappear and we'll try to trust again. It might sound hypocrite, but, I truly believed that that time will come."

With those words, Martin grinned then left the military truck, leaving Bastian staring from the man's receding back just like he always did. 'Looking at him saying those words, he doesn't seemed to be suffering from multiple rebirth.'

[Rebirths, I assumed, based on observing the target, seemed to be just a way of peeling oneselfs weariness. He seemed to have mellow characteristics compared to his original set up.] The system's robotic reply came to his mind. Bastian chuckled after hearing that.

'Perhaps. Anyways, being able to say trust and hope despite the lives he lived is truly somewhat amazing. I myself will change into something I am originally not, probably a much colder and calculative individual '

[Hosts' life of being a winner in life is truly such a remarkable feet. You encountered not much of a hardship ever since you were born. It was truly astonishing.]

'Is that so? I myself questioned it. Thus here I am, doing missions for you.' Bastian promptly stated. ' System, this worlds of yours, it's not truly only a world right? Perhaps, it is more.'

[Yes. Truthfully, the worlds you may encounter is divided into two category .First, the independent one, just like this world where there is an infinite laws of the universal law. Then there's the world of creations where the worlds where originally created by the beings of the independent world. You may call it novels, stories and even script. It is a type of small worlds dependent of those independent ones.] The system explained.

Bastian nod his head, he already expected such an answer. 'System, aren't you being secretive for not explaining this details? Why make me ask for details? Where's your sincerity in that?'

[Host's intelligence far surpasses of those normal beings. Thus, the system see's it to be of no use to spoon fed it to the host. The system assumed that you'd come up with it based on the observations in your minds' calculations.] The system answered. It does not completely understand it's host's woe. It simply assumed based on the data gathered and then made its own conclusion. [Also, the Host seemed to prefer challenging things, thus, it is imperative to make the host feel more independent and the system assumed that by avoiding to be a nagging mother is the correct path of achieving such purpose.]

'Pfft! Nagging Mother? Where the hell did you get that phrase?' Bastian's lips twitched, finding it funny.

[The system has a lot of stocks of knowledges in its  database. Is the system right, host?]

'Yes. You're quite right. Slowly unraveling things is the way to make everything exciting. If I just depend on you, nothing will change of my boring life. I will feel unmotivated and find it a waste of time. Thank you, System.'

[I see. Your welcome, Host.]