Archive of Our Own

You take a deep breath, chilly air filling your bronchi, before you look into the mirror. Of course, you know those cold eyes staring right back at you, this face framed by dark locks. How can you not, when you have seen and feared this very face, long before it became your own?

Casting your gaze down to your feet, you make sure to position them shoulder wide apart, just like you learned in personal combat class. Carefully, you shift your weight, pull your fingers into a tight fist and rotate your knuckles upwards as they shoot forward in order to draw out the maximum damage upon impact.

For a fraction of a second the coldness of the smooth surface presses against your skin, until you hear the clatter, followed by a sharp sting of pain spreading through your tissues. Warm, undiluted liquid dripping down your fingers, your eyes following those little drops before they reach the floor...

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Considering the size and sharpness, you pick up one of the shards, glance one last time at the reflection – tinted in red this time. Is it Peter’s smile, or is it yours? It doesn’t matter; there’s no one and nothing, not even a tingle of doubt, to stop you from doing what you don’t fear.

You close your eyes. You’re finally ending it all.

i.
Ender.

Valentine was the first one to call you this. You and your siblings were in the living room, Peter slumping lazily on the couch with his hands behind his head while you and Valentine were lying on the soft carpet with the magnetic letter board your parents had gotten you on your 3rd birthday.

“Can you read this?” Valentine pointed to the series of plastic letters she had arranged neatly.

“F-Fae-me-li,” you whispered slowly, followed by a more determined “Family!”

Valentine clapped her hands cheerfully and gave you a peck on your cheek like she did when you had recited the alphabet backwards or brushed your teeth before anyone had the opportunity to remind you.

“Well done. How about this?” she asked, her long fingers flying across the board to form the next word. It didn’t take you more than a short glance to recognize the familiar pattern of red, green, yellow, blue, violet and orange.

“Enjoo, Enjoo!” You beamed a smile at your sister, your index finger pointing at yourself proudly.

Peter threw his arms up and let out a long sigh. “I can’t believe it. Mommy’s boy Andy Dandy doesn’t even know how to pronounce his own name.” The couch creaked as he lifted himself on his legs, his mouth tightening to a smirk, and made his way towards you.

Valentine rolled her eyes, but continued, “A-N-D-R-E-W. Drew. Repeat after me: Andrew.”

Your throat tightened with each of your brother’s steps nearing you, your lips forming an almost inaudible sound now. “E-Enjoo.”

“Maybe it’s a sign that you don’t deserve the right to have a name, you Third. Maybe you should be punished.” Peter’s voice came from above; he stood right behind you and Valentine, his right leg tipping the edge of the letter board.

Valentine shoved his leg away, replaced a few letters and turned the letters to you. You had never seen this arrangement before, but your lips formed the word immediately.

“Ender.”

Peter raised his eyebrows.“Ender? Who is he going to finish off? But I guess hearing him choke on his own tongue all the time is worse.”

Valentine just smiled at you and planted another kiss on your cheek.

ii.
You were only six years old when you left for Battle School. Not until much later would you understand that it was your final departure from place you call home, never to return again. Thinking back, it tears at your heartstrings that the last sight of your mother was her crying face, that you were never able to witness your parents growing older nor would you ever leave your mother's beloved Asiatic lilies at their graves.

Your father looked solemn as he lowered himself down on one knee to put a comforting arm around your sister. Too empathetic for her own good, for mankind’s good. That’s what Graff tells you later on the journey to Command School, but you know that’s not true.

Peter didn't cry.

Now that you think about it, you can’t even remember whether you’ve ever heard your brother cry or seen tears tumbling down his cheek.

Colonel Hyrum Graff said that there was only one game at school and you weren't sure if he was joking, but you decided that it was better not to ask more questions, at least not in front of your family.

If you had known that a single “game” would send numerous pilots of the International Fleet along with the entire species of Formics to their death, you would have rather endured anything else, even Peter’s petulant outbreaks.

iii.
Although you had been at Battle School for almost three years now, you still missed home more often than you wanted to acknowledge. Except for the younger Launchies that still cried out for their parents at night in their bunks, struggling under their sheets against the crushing loneliness, no one really talked about it. It was pretty much an unwritten rule: admitting to homesickness would equal defeat, giving your opponents an even bigger target to tear you apart outside of battleroom.

It was the silence after evening practice which made it obvious to you that the lack of weakness didn’t only earn you respect but also loneliness. In the past, a few other boys would often stay behind after practice with you, recapping the clumsiest maneuvers with your faces flushed from laughing so hard that you were gasping for air. But now you were alone most of the time.

“Practice is concluded for today. You can all go and take a shower now, and if you’re quick enough, you might even make it in time for dinner,” you said firmly as the boys scrambled for the door. You listened for the last footstep leaving the room before you slumped down onto the floor.

You heaved out a loud sigh and closed your eyes, your mind drifting to the Giant’s Drink like it so often did, even with your desk turned off or at night in your dreams. No matter how often you played the game, you couldn't find any sense in it. You felt yourself climbing up the castle to the tower surrounded by a clear blue sky, through the open window to the room with the mirror. You had been there so many times already, seen the rug transform into the serpent telling you the same words before you looked everywhere for an exit in this door-less room, only to find the mirror showing Peter’s face. Who exactly programmed the game? How was it possible that the game knew Peter, you wondered, but before you could answer the question yourself, a sound from behind snapped you back to reality and you looked up.

It was Alai who stood there, clearing his throat to announce his presence.

“Salaam, Ender,” he greeted you, his voice louder than usual as he held out his hand. “You shouldn’t fall asleep here.”

You grabbed his warm hand and let him pull you up, “I would have heard you if you were whispering.” You tried to give him a stern face for disturbing your tranquility but found yourself unable to hold back a grin. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

“Probably because I’ve been waiting here the whole time,” he shrugged.

“What for?”

He pursed his lips to a smile, one hand inside the pockets of his flash suit, the other hand still wrapped tightly around yours. For a second you saw a slight frown as he rummaged, but at last he pulled out his left hand holding a beautiful red flower, carefully folded out of a paper napkin.

“You probably can’t tell, because of my lack of skill, but it’s supposed to be an Adenium. We had a lot of desert-roses back at home and I figured a paper flower is better than no flowers at all. I mean, we don’t even have real windows or natural sunlight here in space,” Alai said, his face flushed a light pink as he leaned in and kissed your cheek.

“Happy Birthday,” you heard him whisper.

iv.
The following few months were the ones that threw you off your axis. It wasn't always the same dream – sometimes it was not even Peter in the mirror, sometimes it was Stilson or Bonzo – haunting you every single night, seizing hold of your guts, following you till the moment you woke up covered in sweat.

You were still not used to being a commander, not sharing the barracks with the others anymore, returning to a room too big for just one person. You often found yourself avoiding the mirror in your new private room, scared of seeing Peter instead of you. At night, you wished you didn’t have to fall asleep and face it in your dreams, but the knowledge that a new paper slip was awaiting you the next morning forced you to shut down and get some sleep for the sake of yet another pointless battle for Dragon Army, another pointless game the adults were playing with you.

“You look terrible,” Dink pointed out one evening, standing in the hallway, when you left the video room after another session of analyzing bugger strategies. You hadn’t spoken to him ever since you defeated Petra, who was completely ignoring you now, but it made you happy to know that Dink was still your friend.

“You think I’d look less terrible if I didn’t have a battle scheduled for every single day of the week?” You smiled, but wondered whether the dark circles around your eyes were really this noticeable.

“Maybe if you’d take a closer look in the mirror, you'd notice that your hair is getting awfully long. You almost look like a black sheep with those dark curls, it’s quite distracting. During breakfast I had to double-check whether they allowed animals in the commanders’ mess hall.” He grabbed your hand, a big grin across his face.

“Follow me.”

“Where to?” You tried to keep pace with him, your heart beating faster with each step, and not because he was running too fast; you’d had enough exercise in the last few years at Battle School for that. The mess hall was in the opposite direction, so you weren’t headed for dinner, but instead of following the light ribbons of Dragon Army, Dink turned left into a familiar corridor you recognized as Rat Army’s barracks.

Stopping in front of a door, he let go of your hand and turned around, his eyes fixing you, “This used to be Rose’s room, but you know he always slept in the barracks because he was afraid to be alone.”

“So you've told me.”

“I almost regret that I didn’t accept those two promotions before taking over Rat Army. If I'd known that the commanders’ private rooms were this comfortable...” Dink winked before he turned the knob and led you to the chair in the middle his room. To your surprise, he pulled out a pair of kitchen shears from his trousers.

“Make yourself comfortable for a new haircut, little buddy.”

You raised your eyebrows but offered no resistance, since it was true that your hair had been getting in the way during battles lately. “Only if you can guarantee me that I’ll still have some hair afterwards.”

“While I can’t offer you a mirror or a hairdresser chair here, you can leave it to me! It’s my family’s specialty, actually.” Giving you a firm pat on the shoulder, he paused for a moment, observing your hair. “You know how no one really talks about what life was back on Earth? But don’t you sometimes wonder what kind of person Rose de Nose or Bonzo was, before they came here? Before Battle School turned them crazy?”

Dink knelt down, ruffling your hair as he continued “As for me, I have plenty of experience shearing the finest texels you’ll find in Europe on my grandpa’s sheep farm. The school can take away all of your personal belongings, but don’t give them the pleasure of forgetting where you’re from and where you belong to.”

v.
"Ender, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I know how it feels. I'm sorry, I'm your brother. I love you."

You hear a whimper next to you. You’re not sure whether it’s something you have long forgotten or you’re just imagining all of this, but somehow it’s very soothing.

Your eyes snap open as you’re gasping for air, breathing heavily as you find yourself surrounded by the penetrating smell of disinfectants and high white ceilings above your head, not the low ones you find on Eros. An attempt at pushing yourself up from the bed is stopped by a sharp sting in your limbs. You gaze down at your left wrist to see the bold white line carved into your skin before you notice the muffled sobbing next to you and slowly turn your head.

The sobbing stops when you meet the figure's eyes, a hoarse cry escaping from those lips instead. “Andrew!”

There is a boy in a chair by your bed, wiping the tears away with his jumper’s sleeve, dark circles around his swollen red-rimmed eyes. Of course, you recognize those messy curls, his nose, those prominent cheekbones, all those straight lines which form that angular face illuminated by the streams of light coming from the window. Alexander the Great the adults called him when you were little: striking, resolute, the innate leader.

With his hair unkempt, sticking out in all directions while mucus and tears are running down his face, he looks more like a little boy rather than a 14-year-old. It’s almost as if you’re watching a mirror image of yourself crying. How can the person that has been haunting you all these years, each time you fall asleep or whenever you catch a glimpse of your reflection, the person you had feared to become, be so non-threatening?

It isn’t until he has calmed down that you open your mouth.

“Where am I?”

“You don’t remember?” Peter leans forward, clasping your hand tightly, huge drops from his face blotting down on the soft duvet cover.

“I remember eradicating the buggers and dreaming about the past. Why am I on Earth?” You ask.

“4 months ago you were found bleeding to death in your room at Command School. Luckily, Valentine had arrived just in time to order an emergency operation. Locke and Demosthenes arranged for your safe transfer back to earth.” Valentine had told you about the pseudonyms she and Peter had taken on the communications net for their political writings when both of you were at Lake Brandt. They must have gained enough influence over the last few months, enough to save and bring back someone like you, a murderer, too dangerous to return home.

“According to the I.F., it was a suicide attempt.” A frown forms on Peter’s forehead as he enunciates the last words.

“It was. I shouldn’t be here. I killed them without batting an eye, Peter.” You say it because it’s true. You shouldn’t have woken up, not after all that you’ve done, not after you murdered them, not when you can’t even face your own mirror reflection.

“You saved 7 billion people on Earth.” He shakes his head, his warm hand still wrapped around yours, his eyes fixing you, completely void of all the iciness you had always seen in the mirror reflection of Peter’s face. “Val and I had access to the protocols. It was the I.F.’s plan from the start, Ender; you being alive or back on Earth would be a huge inconvenience to them. You were just a pawn to them, free to manipulate and dispose of. Starting with the Giant’s Drink, they observed your susceptibility to suicide and thus started projecting images in your dreams.” His words continued on without you listening to them, because deep down you already knew what he was going to say.

You did not want to realize it, or rather you were reluctant to admit your own weakness, that you were only a little 10 year-old-boy who did what he was asked to do. Was it not your suicide which was supposed to bring a stop to everything? Was it not your final show of free will? But as you hear Peter continue his explanations it dawns on you that you were manipulated all along. You remember the big mirror in your room which was never to be found in the other commanders like Dink’s private chambers. Or the images of Peter, a bigger Peter you did not remember from your childhood and which must have been procured by the International Fleet.

“The responsible members of the I.F. were put on trial last month and you were cleared of any charges.” As Peter explains the state of evidence, how a blood examination has proven that you were under hallucinogens given by the I. F., you open your mouth, interrupting him.

“Peter, I’m...” But before you can continue, telling him how sorry you are for believing that he was your enemy all these years, Peter’s lips brush gently against your forehead.

“You’re my little brother. We’re a family. There are always people waiting for you, no matter how long it takes.” He points to the bedside table. There’s postcard featuring a sheep and right next to it a flower vase of fresh Adenium.

“It’s finally over, Ender. Let’s go home.”