It's been 2 months since my first mission.
I slept through the sunrise.
Or at least, I thought I did.
The clock on my wall said 06:44. My last memory was shutting my eyes at 23:00 after a psych debrief. Standard. Boring. Nothing unusual.
But my body said otherwise.
My hands ached. My nails were cracked. There was dried blood under them — not mine.
My boots were muddy. My side ached like I'd taken an impact.
And my back ports?
Sore. Swollen.
Like I'd just come out of sync.
I staggered into the bathroom, turned the water on, and stared into the mirror.
I didn't recognize my own expression.
Like I'd been somewhere I couldn't remember.
Somewhere terrible.
The door buzzed. A staff officer handed me a standard-issue envelope.
Inside: A printed memo.
> "You are to remain on base. No deployment permitted.
UN surveillance satellites have flagged footage of your unit in unauthorized combat operations. An inquiry is pending."
I blinked.
"Huh?"
The officer stared at me like I was joking. "You're telling me you didn't get deployed two nights ago?"
My stomach twisted. "No. I've been in quarters. You can check the log."
He raised an eyebrow. "We did."
He left without another word.
Later that day, I walked past Hangar 7.
Malaya stood there — still cooling. Its armor bore fresh scratches. Dried fluids. Bits of singed flesh and cloth wedged into the joint seams.
Its left footplate was dented… like it had crushed something.
Someone.
I turned to the engineer on duty. "Who authorized a sortie?"
He looked pale. "No one. It didn't come through us. One minute it was in the dock, the next... it just wasn't."
My voice shook. "You're saying it deployed by itself?"
He hesitated.
"…No one's saying anything. That's the problem."
That night, I dreamed of screaming.
Not mine.
Dozens of others.
And fire.
And a voice whispering from the fire:
> "Die."
The next day, the bandaged man summoned me to a secure room.
He didn't sit. Just pressed a remote and played the footage.
Satellite feed. Thermal overlays. A jungle base — gone. Flattened.
And my unit in the middle of it, standing still like a monument of execution.
> Malaya. My Gundam.
"Tell me what this is," he said.
"Huh?" I answered.
He stared. Hard.
"You were in the cockpit."
"No! I wasn't."
"You were inside it for three hours."
I felt my throat tighten.
"No! I wasn't awake."
He leaned closer.
"Then who the hell was flying it?"
That night, I tried not to sleep.
I drank four cups of cheap black coffee, walked laps around my room, played old recordings of Petronas radio broadcasts just to stay distracted.
At 02:17…
I blinked.
When I opened my eyes…
I was back in the cockpit.
Synced. Tubes in my spine. Suit active.
Outside?
A small refugee camp. Barely lit. No weapons. Just people. Families.
My hand hovered over the trigger.
And I screamed: "STOP!"
Malaya answered.
> "Too late, pilot."
--------
After the mission, i didn't sleep.
I just sat in the dark with my hands on my knees, watching the blood dry beneath my fingernails.
I couldn't stop shaking — not from fear.
But because the silence left too much space for thought.
They were refugees.
Not rebels. Not threats.
Families.
Gone.
And I remembered every single face.
I wish I didn't.
At some point, I whispered:
> "I should've done something."
The voice answered without hesitation — smooth, sharp, like it had been waiting.
> "You did."
"You survived."
> "You hesitated — and I acted."
"Now there are no witnesses. No mistakes. No stories to twist later."
I gritted my teeth. My throat was dry. "You murdered them."
> "You're angry because I didn't wait for your permission."
"But your morality would have gotten us both killed."
I pressed my hand to my chest. My heart was still pounding. Still human. Still mine.
"...I didn't agree to this."
Malaya paused for a long time.
Then it whispered:
> "You didn't stop it either."
Later that morning, I got a black envelope — no insignia, no stamp.
Just a folded message:
> "New classification: Autonomous Hunter Asset."
"You are no longer bound to command discretion."
"Proceed at your own judgment. Denial is complicity."
There was no signature.
I stared at it for a long time.
Then folded it once. Neatly.
And slid it into the trash.
But I didn't burn it.
In the mirror, I stared at my reflection.
Eyes sunken. Jaw clenched. Skin pale from blood loss.
I touched the edge of my own cheek, just to feel something real.
Then I spoke aloud, just to prove I could:
"I am still me."
But I didn't sound sure.
Malaya replied softly, like a shadow behind glass:
> "You say that..."
"But what exactly is 'you' anymore?"
"Is it the hand that pulled the trigger?"
"Or the hand that wrote the report without protest afterward?"
"Both? Neither?"
"Which one will survive this world?"
I slammed the mirror.
Cracks splintered across my reflection.
And for a second, in the fracture,
I didn't see me.
I saw the cockpit.
Lit red.
Controls twitching.
Blood pooling near my boots.
And my own hands moving without command.
> "They don't need to be innocent."
"They only need to be alive long enough to remember."
"And you know what memory does."
"It spreads. It poisons. It invites retaliation."
I sank to my knees in the bathroom.
"I never wanted to become this."
> "No one ever does."
"That's why it works."
I stared at my hands.
They weren't shaking anymore.
That was what scared me most.
I didn't write anything that night.
But when I opened my journal the next morning…
There was a single sentence already scribbled at the bottom of the page — in my handwriting.
> "If no one else will do what must be done… then it falls to me."
And I didn't cross it out.