"You're not supposed to be here."

A pair of hazel eyes looked back at me, fearlessly. They blinked, as if didn't quite understand what I was just said. I pointed the camps, implicitly chased her away, but the girl insisted on stood still by my side, slightly shivering by today's cold.

She watched as the bubbles and the water poured down to the pond while fourteen feet to the north, a machine grunted as it worked to recycling the water used to laundry.

"Just let her be, Nathaniel." Reana, who also stick close to me, said. "It's rare to see Fatima became so close with someone else other than me. She didn't even want to get close to Bryan, so ... it's a good thing to see."

I should say, it wasn't pleasant feelings when she called, even with my code name and not real name. "Do as you wish."

As she said, I let that girl alone, doing what she wanted: watching me doing chores.

"Thanks for your help, by the way." Reana talked again. "After all this, you should rest again. I could take it from here."

To be exact, I was volunteering myself to avoid further suspicion. I've done the minimum standard, so that was supposedly enough. Besides, trained these useless body often was something useful.

A group of jets passed above our head. Not long after, sounds of battle reverberating through earth and sky.

"I wonder when will it finished...." Reana murmured to the empty sky.

"When the enemy is all killed." That's the basic truth everyone should've known.

Reana smiled sadly. "You're right." She sighed. "I am really not suitable for a place like that, huh." She turned around to see camps behind her, then smiled to Fatima. "That might be true. I felt more at ease at a place like this."

She was having a monologue. By her character, I could've guessed where was 'that place' she mentioned just now.

"You have a bad taste."

"Oh yeah?" Reana asked, sounds more curious than agitated. "You think so?"

"So, there was someone who told you something similar before."

Reana hissed nervously. "Well...." She stopped doing laundry. "Bryan did. He said that this place wasn't a good place to groom your hope and spirit. It's not a place to strengthen your half-baked will, or so he said."

"Nice said." While we were talking, Fatima took a bit of foam and blew it away, turned it into tiny bubbles.

But I insisted. Since this place was unlike the other one where I could only survive by doing "kill or be killed" thingy.

"Fool."

"I couldn't help it." Reana washed the clothes as I insulted her. "I couldn't bring myself to chase them away from this planet, for that promise—whatever it is—I couldn't kill them either. Why should I?"

"I don't know."

"We were the wrong side here...."

There were never 'we'. I wanted to say that, but that would ruin everything. I haven't gained much information yet. I couldn't revealed anything now.

"But I couldn't let my kind be killed either." She looked at Fatima. "Especially those who still have future."

So that was why Bryan said she had a half-baked will.

"You're disgusting."

"Excuse me?"

Now she sound offended. "You talked as if death is some picky male. That's disgusting." I told her. "Death isn't some petty guy who pick their victims because he think they have lived their life."

Reana didn't give any answer for two seconds. She only washed her hand and sighed.

"Weird, isn't it?" When we exchange looks, I could see something ... tainted her eyes. "In a life where war will be finish if we just disappear from this planet, I still have a hope for these youngster to fully live their life someday."

"Yes, that's weird." I turned and stared coldly into Fatima's eyes. That girl blinked in confusion. "This girl, as well. It's way better for her to just die right here right now, than keep living for another day under mercy of the enemy."

"Living hell ... living nightmare. Indeed, living in this kind of era must be felt like that." Reana snickered as looking up at the sky. "But isn't that what hopes are for?"

Another nonsense made by humans. "That's the weirdest thing you've said so far."

"Many said that." She waved her hands at Fatima and the girl moved to her side. Fatima hugged her necks, cuddling her. "But you see, for me ... it's better to live in this hell rather than end everything and die. You called that weird, it may be right, but for me, that's what they call bravery ... and that's what they call hopeful."

"You're a fool."

"And why is that?" She looked at me curiously.

"Hope is nothing but a hypocrisy." Along with despair, emotions, feelings, soul and every nonsense they made. Old Age had bad habit to call every nonsense they couldn't solve with whatever they like. "There is only probabilities. Low and high. By following that rules, you could at least put a higher chance to your success. That's a reality, the truest of everything in this world."

Reana made an odd facial expression. "You're really into a Maha, aren't you?"

That remarks left me dumbfounded.

I was revealing my identity in the stupidest way possible. And I was just scolded her for being a fool. Damn it.

"Well, most people see problems that way these days." I peeked at her playing with Fatima. They both smiled, as if there were nothing that should be feared of. "But isn't it weirder to rely in such a probabilities and chasing certainty, where you knew, there is nothing certain in this world?"

Reana turned at me, blew her bubbles and foam to my face. She giggled, along with Fatima n her shoulder.

"Whether we would be success or fail in the end. Nothing remained constant." She said, then leaning closer. "We could just try. That's why there is hope in this world."

She touched my nose and pick some foam from there. "That's why this is called living." She blew the bubbles to the pond. "Because in certainty, nothing could be achieved. No one could live. That's why it's called death."

Such a paradox. She talked with sweet words, only to close it with something that certain as death. What a hypocrite, just like any other humans. "Nonsense."

As a response to my bitter comment, Reana laughed, along with Fatima.

That time, I thought, both of them looked like nothing of this world. They seemed unusually otherworldly dazzling as the faint breeze blew up their hair and the slight sun from the clouds illuminating their smile, etched the memories forever within my head.

A second later, the moment ended. The sun once again, hide behind clouds as the darkness quietly approached.

And the beginning of it was a simple call, right after we finished the chores and was about to prepared the lunch.

"Reana!"

Bryan came when I, once again, trapped with her as sort of surveillance. He broke in to my tent when Fatima was present as well.

The man's hair ragged and his face was anxiously pale, as if blood had jus drained from his face.

"They're here!"

Then, came the footfalls of at least one troops of army. The sound was so clear. Fatima quickly jumped to me, buried herself on my chest. I had no time to react, but when I was about to, her trembling body stopped me.

"Who?" Reana's expression turned grim.

The sound of clicking gun snapped us to the entrance.

Reana turned even paler when her eyes fixed on someone outside the tent. Bryan slowly walked in, with a gun at his head. A man with grey uniform and badges of twin lions entered the tent casually.

"It's Union." He said as horde of drones break through, pointing us as its target. "Now, where's the soldier?"

***