"What are you doing here?" Sevda had asked. As Mahu drifted into a peaceful and deep sleep under the effect of the medicine, Sevda didn't wait, knowing she had other patients to attend to. She began walking toward the inner part of the infirmary with rhythmic but hurried steps. Edmond hesitated for a moment but followed her.
As he followed behind Sevda, Edmond took care not to bump into the patients who were trying to block her path to talk to the doctor, clinging to her arm pleadingly, or seeking help only with their eyes. But in this crowd, even being careful was often not enough. While walking, a surgical stand pushed in front of them might suddenly appear, followed immediately by a rusty stretcher or a cracked column reinforced with support poles.
The infirmary seemed designed as if it deliberately wanted to mislead a person. The corridors were unnecessarily long; they curved without giving the feeling of arriving anywhere, then suddenly narrowed and opened into another chaos. In every corner was a moaning sound, and with every step, the smell of blood and sweat mixed with the sharp scent of antiseptic. This damn infirmary was too long, too cluttered, and definitely housed far more patients than it could handle. Edmond couldn't help but think that this place resembled a front line trying to stay upright more than a healthcare facility.
Sevda was much different than the last time he had seen her. Because when Edmond last saw Sevda, all her friends had been slaughtered before her eyes, her cybernetic body had become almost unrecognizable, and most importantly, she had been dragged into a heavy psychological collapse. Now, her blonde hair was combed straight, reaching down to her shoulders. This simplicity made her slightly slanted blue eyes and sharp-featured, pointed chin more prominent. Her white coat, no matter how stained with blood, medicine, and dirt, might still be the whitest thing visible in that town. It was as if, amidst all the decay and hopelessness around her, she was a symbol stubbornly managing to stay standing.
Her cybernetic body, which was impossible to hide under the coat, was completely removed from the warm colors of human skin. Cold and matte metal surfaces had replaced the skin. From what Edmond understood, whoever repaired her did not have the means for a coating to hide the metal or for aesthetic concerns. This body seemed more held together than repaired; functional, but resembling a wreck whose soul still remained in the past.
"I was looking for you," Edmond said. After a brief silence, he added, as if the words had spilled out of his mouth involuntarily: "I thought you were kidnapped."
Sevda didn't answer. She skillfully stuck the needle, which an old nurse had placed in her hand, into the arm of a child whose voice was hoarse from crying. The child flinched, but not the slightest hesitation appeared on Sevda's face. She was already continuing to walk as she withdrew the needle.
"As if you cared…" she said in a cold voice.
Then she stopped suddenly. With a sharp movement, she turned and approached Edmond; her voice dropped, but her words were sharp enough to pierce his eardrums.
"You are a Weisshafen, Aldoux." He felt her breath in his ear. "I know what shit you and your lineage are. So don't act like someone you're not… please." There was a short pause. "You're embarrassing yourself." She didn't wait for an answer. She turned and continued on her way.
Sevda began to climb the stairs with heavy and determined steps. When she reached the upper floor, she headed toward the bench where test tubes were lined up. She picked up a tube filled with a distilling green liquid and shook it slightly. Just then, from inside her cybernetic eye, lenses opened one after another with a mechanical click; the metal iris narrowed, focused. As Sevda examined the tube with almost surgical precision, details that a human eye could never see became clear to her.
Meanwhile, Edmond had remained at the bottom of the stairs. Looking after Sevda, he realized that she was no longer just a survivor; she had adapted herself to this hell and become a working part of this order. In the movements of her back, in the determination of her posture, there was an almost ant-like industriousness. Edmond, or rather Aldoux, understood right then that he had to be honest.
How did he know?
Because in his previous life, he had lost many women. Velsil was only one of them… But she was the heaviest burden. Not being able to sit down and talk honestly with Velsil before she died was a regret that had been gnawing at Aldoux for a long time. Velsil often wanted to talk about her toys. For hours, with the same excitement… Perhaps if Aldoux had paused and listened a little, maybe he could have truly known Velsil through those toys. He could have connected with small, seemingly meaningless details.
The greatest pain remaining after Velsil died was how few memories they could have accumulated together. There were things to remember, of course, but it wasn't enough.
Because back then, Aldoux couldn't get out of the weight of the traumas he lived through. He was a spoiled noble who numbed himself with alcohol, sex, and movies; hiding behind his privileges. It wasn't possible for someone whose only search in life was these three escapes to truly accumulate memories with another human being anyway.
Now, looking after Sevda, he knew he shouldn't make the same mistake again. If he ran away this time, he wouldn't be running away from this hell, but from himself.
Or Isolde…
The woman he loved from the one and only Dragno Family. His first and perhaps only love. An innocent woman, cruelly slaughtered.
The memories he shared with her were full of affection, of love; but even within those memories, Aldoux had searched for himself. While looking at Isolde, he was actually thinking of a way to escape from the Dragno and Weisshafen Families. In no moment he spent with Isolde had he truly thought about Isolde.
Well, had he really been able to tell her how great the love he felt was? Had he been able to put it into words? He didn't know.
This was Aldoux's greatest fear. Had Isolde been able to understand how much he loved her before she died? Had she been able to hear that voice inside Aldoux that he couldn't silence, that fluttering in his heart, even once?
Perhaps Isolde's death was not the most painful loss in Aldoux's life. Perhaps the real loss was the words that could never be said.
As Edmond climbed the stairs heavily, Sevda gave him no attention. She continued to deal with the test tubes as if he weren't there.
Edmond noticed at that moment that the room he was in was actually Sevda's bedroom. At the other end of the room, right in front of the window, was a bed; its sheets were still messy, and the bed stood leaning against the glass as if watching the outside. Right next to the bed was a bulky energy generator, weighing at least a few kilograms; it was running with a low hum, constantly vibrating the silence of the room.
On the windowsill were books stacked on top of each other. Judging by their covers, they were cheap romance novels. In a world where digital technology and cybernetic interfaces were so widespread, it seemed strange to Edmond that a cybernetic was still reading books. But at the same time, it was human. This perhaps meant that the emotion module was still not repaired. It was quite possible that such technology did not exist in such a town. As long as a cybernetic didn't have emotion-suppressing modules, if they had human organs, they could very well show human emotions. And if their mechanical muscles allowed it, they could even make facial expressions.
"I'm sorry…" Edmond said.
There was no reaction from Sevda. A small silence…
"Yes, I'm a spoiled noble. I know that too. I constantly mess everything up. I constantly break the hearts of the people I love in a way I'll regret. I never give value to what I have, and usually, I lose the valuable things I hold. Most of the time, I am sorrowful. But to quench this sorrow that constantly occurs in my body, I cling to wretched things."
He looked at Sevda out of the corner of his eye. He liked seeing a slight smile on Sevda's face. Apparently, Sevda seemed to enjoy Edmond putting himself down. Noticing Sevda's silence, Edmond added.
"I'm sorry because I acted with spoiled nobility toward you. I wasn't by your side even though you had just lost your friends. I didn't support you… While I should be grateful to you for saving my life, I wanted to see you as a burden and push you away from me. Like I said, I'm a wretched noble."
"You could have spoken a bit more poetically," Sevda said in a mocking tone. "That was a quite mediocre soliloquy, I must say. But the real topic I'm curious about is this… Why are you telling me these things, Edmond?"
Edmond couldn't understand why Sevda asked such a question. Sevda, on the other hand, seemed to be waiting for the answer with great curiosity.
"Well… how should I say…"
"You can pour your heart out however you want."
"I might have started a massive war on this damn planet, and I might need you to end this war. That's why, Sevda, I might need you."
"What?" she said, and suddenly dropped the test tube in her hand onto the table. While the test tube on the table shattered, she was looking at Edmond with a shocked facial expression. "You must be joking, right?"
"What happened?"
"When you say you started a war, are you talking about this damn war? You know, the one that has taken over the whole planet! Did you start that war?"
"Yes…" Edmond said hesitantly. He was scratching his beard out of nervousness.
"And you need me to end this war?"
"We need to extract the evidence from your memory module that Labiba tried to kill you and used Nuskul while doing it, and deliver it to Hianyan. That way, we can pull the SWR (Supreme World Republic) to our side in the war."
"Hianyan? Did you cooperate with that damn Hianyan?"
"Actually, after we killed Nagara, he cooperated with me."
"Did you kill Nagara too!"
"Are you really going to ask this many questions? With the same tone of voice and the same facial expression…"
"You stupid man! How can you be so relaxed while such an important event is happening! You fool!" she said, stood up from the chair, and grabbed Edmond's wrist. While dragging Edmond behind her: "Let's end this damn war as soon as possible, before it's too late!"