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In the distance, sounds of blaster fire still rang out from the center of town, interspersed with screams. As Luthen Rael watched flashes of scarlet reflecting on the walls that entombed Ferrix’s honored dead, he knew each one was very likely ending a life.
Even now, he could forgive himself for having wanted such scenes to play out across the galaxy; for wanting innocent people to feel enough personal suffering to rise up against their oppressors. He could forgive himself because he knew it was all for the eventual greater good, the breaking of stones to build a wall that would someday topple upon the Empire. The unavoidable tragedy was simply that those stones were flesh and blood.
Yes, beneath the shadows of motives he had painstakingly constructed over so many years, he could forgive himself… but he could never forget. The pain-stricken faces that surrounded him during the memorial would be burned into his memory until his last breath, and their screams as they died would ring in his ears until the day he finally joined them.
The ghosts with whom he shared his dreams would never let him forget…
And now, he would carry still more of them.
2022 Jordanna Morgan