Sector-33 | ✓

a change // the date // root -1

November 02, 2897

Dear ______ ,

- let me start that again.

Felix

***

November 02, 2897

Dear Friend,

I hope you don't mind the change in my addressing line. I thought that, as the clock brings us, tickingly, closer to the end of my trials, I might as well call you a friend, to reassure myself that at least someone whose anonymity I have taken away, in a certain manner, will miss me, as I will miss writing these letters to them.

It's November second, today. I don't know why I wrote the date on the top of this letter - it just felt like it was the right thing to do. Tomorrow, we're out on the field.

Tomorrow, it's the final test, the final exam. I remember sitting down and writing a letter to you a week ago, telling you that the next day would be the biggest day of my life. And it was, in many ways. But this time, tomorrow will be bigger.

Tomorrow won't be alien simulations and fighting drills with robots programmed with Artificial Intelligence. If Zuandro dies tomorrow, then he will be gone for good. 

I barely feel more prepared. 

Zuandro has been taking good care of me, and our last fighting session was earlier today. He was being purposefully gentle and letting me win most of the hand-to-hand combat, but although I wanted to appreciate it, I didn't. A part of me tells me that he hasn't quite grasped the full concept of it all- the other half says he's just experienced enough, and knows what he's doing.

I sit here beside him, in bed, as I write this letter to you, resting the page against the chessboard on my legs- I don't want to poke a hole into this perfect, white paper.  I wouldn't want to ruin it.

He lies with an arm curved around my waist, half-slumped against the metal headboard of the bed. It doesn't look comfortable. His white bangs look as wonderfully crisp and messy as ever, and I love them. I love his deception, his look of purity, everything about him. I love him.

I love him irrationally, as x = √-1. 

The time already reads 1:03. I ought to get some sleep.

                                                                       Oh, and one last thing.

If I don't get the time to write you another letter, dear reader, tell mum and dad and Sara that I love them. Please, could you do that for me?

And tell Clyde to stop judging everybody all the time. Make sure he knows I miss the sun. He'll understand that, he does have a large ego after all, more so than Zuandro.

Yours, ever faithfully,

Felix