Era of Madness

I love you too

Meanwhile, in his own room, Tyler was also looking at himself in the mirror, though not for the same reasons. Taking off his shirt, now chest-naked, he examinated his upper body. He still had a few small scars he had accumulated over the years, especially one on the lower part of his right hip. However, there was not even the smallest scar on his shoulder, even though Melia nearly cut his arm off at this exact same spot.

"Wow, Fefnir tech does is miraculous" he thought out loud. "Well, this slut Melia managed to survive after getting blown away by a point-blank explosion, so I shouldn't be too surprised..."

And yet, when he looked at his face, he still saw a little scar passing through his eyebrow, perpendicular to it. It was the one left by Melia's anti-matter ray.

It was actually pretty logic: just like the magnetic shields of the spatial ships, the anti-matter rays the strong cyborgs could use were a type of armement conceived directly with the help of Fefnir technology, it was only normal that its effects would be different.

'Uh... that does give me a cool look, I guess?'

Tyler emmited a quick laugh: who knew, maybe he could've become a renewed action movie actor if he didn't choose the 'infamous Cifer criminal' path instead?

'And yet John and Erica give out a much more authentic action movie hero aura than me, so unfair... hmm, maybe I should start working out?'

He put his shirt back on, and grabbed a glass and a bottle of wine.

'Nah, fuck it, not when this ship has so much funnier things to enjoy'

Enry Arsin was undoubtably a piece of shit, but at the very least he had good taste for alcohol.

'Sorry Harry, I know you wanted me to do better than you, but I guess bad habits are hard to lose after all. But I'll do my best to go easy on the booze, that's the least I can do for you pal'

Tyler resisted the temptation of drinking all the wine directly from the bottle, and instead chose to fill his glass to the brim before putting back the bottle at its place.

After it he carefully placed the glass his room's desk, and sat on the chair next to it. But instead of directly starting to drink it, he reached for the interior pocket of his shirt, and took out the oject Cain had given him on the balcony of the Party Hall. Tyler had no idea of how the magician had put his hands on it. Really, not the start of an idea. And had he saw it with his own two eyes, he would've still had doubt about its authenticity.

But facts were that, here and now, it was in his hands. It could've been counterfeit, but Tyler knew this object more than any other, and knew it wasn't a fake. It was the actual one.

The letter Alicia had written to him before her death, the one with her last words for him.

For years, Tyler had been too much of a coward to dare to open it. Even after losing it, and somehow retrieving it thanks to Cain, he couldn't bring himself to read it. But eventually, when he saw Harry die with his own two eyes, he realized that he didn't have the choice anymore: in this world, for people like him that weren't conforming to the rules of the Paradise Council, death could find them at any time.

Who knew, maybe tomorrow they'd stumble across one of the council's spaceships or spatial ships and die? Or on their next stop on a planet, they'd meet their end to the hand of its Guardian, or even a special agent that was passing by?

Before, Tyler coul always tell himself that there would be another day but now, that wasn't the case anymore. And maybe, in truth, it wasn't- completely- a bad thing.