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The fairytale dream is over. Waldemar no longer feels emotions, but he is
not back to his old self either. That experience has changed him, and he’s
having mixed feelings about it. No, that’s obviously the wrong way to word
it. He’s having contradicting thoughts. On the one hand, it’s
familiar, so he’s much more comfortable again. This is how he grew up, and
it seems right. It was working before. People weren’t happy, but he didn’t
need them to be. Still, it’s not like the end of the year of empathy means
that he can revert. He’s now living in a paradox. The logic in how he
behaved, and the kinds of decisions he made, are still in his head. They
still make a lot of sense. The darkness is fueling his rage, but it’s
also...intoxicating, and he doesn’t want to give it up again. Because, now
that he has spent time without it, he realizes that that’s what it is. It’s
fuel. It makes him feel strong and powerful. There’s that word again,
though.
He’s standing in his bathroom now, staring at the mirror. He’s looking
at himself in disgust, not because that’s what he’s feeling, but because he
knows others would if they knew the truth. He slaps himself in the cheek.
“Feel something,” he urges.
He feels nothing.
He slaps himself harder. “Feel something!” he cries.
Nothing.
“Feel something!” he screams at the top of his lungs.
“Stop that,” comes a voice from behind him. “Stop hitting yourself.”
He turns to see his late wife, Audrey Kristiansen. “Where have you been?” He
declared her dead, but he never knew what happened. When he didn’t feel
anything, he didn’t care, and when he did, he wanted to leave her alone if
she wasn’t really dead.
“I like the new place. I would have felt more at home here when I was
alive.” During the empathy year, he downgraded himself to smaller quarters
to look more like the common man, and he didn’t regret it. It didn’t really
matter.
“You know I don’t like to repeat myself,” he told her.
“And you know I don’t like to be ordered around. I’m not one of your
crewmembers. I was your wife, and you treated me like shit.”
“You knew who I was when you married me,” he pointed out.
“Yes, I did. That’s why I did it. I took that bullet so no one else would
have to. And I died for it. Now you are at a crossroads. You are starting to
believe that the only way you can get respect from both sides of the
imaginary political line is if you align yourself with a new belle. I’m here
to tell you that you don’t. You don’t have to be the ruthless dictator, and
you don’t have to be a squirming bleeding heart. You just have to follow
logic. And logically, hurting people has never made any sense. Yes, you have
a darkness. You can’t ignore it, so I’m not going to try to tell you to. But
it doesn’t have to define you. The year that you felt something taught you
what others experience all the time. Don’t try to get it back, but don’t let
it go either. Learn from it. Be better.” She paused for a moment. “And stop
with the self-harm. It makes you look weak.”
“I am not..weak!” he cries, lunging towards her with the anger of a
magnetar.
She doesn’t blink. “Prove it. Get out there, and do your job. Lead the
people. Don’t tell them what to do. Tell them what needs to be done, so they
can decide. If you don’t know what needs to be done, then lean on advisors.
That is what they’re there for.”
“You’re not really here. What are you?” Waldemar questions.
“That’s not the question you need to ask yourself, Captain,” she begins.
“The question is...who are you?”
