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I think too much about my past. It drags along with me like a thick shadow, stuck to my skin, impossible to ignore. Every time I close my eyes, I see it all again: the metallic hallways, the stark white FEMA lights, the cold orders I followed without question… and the worst part, what I did even before I got there. Sometimes I think my mind got trapped in that place, in that time, repeating to me over and over that I don't deserve to sleep, that I must remember, that I must pay.
What hurts me the most—what drowns me every night—is having killed that girl's father. The same girl who lives with you now, in that makeshift kitchen that has become your refuge. I'll never forget that man's face in those last seconds before everything ended. He wasn't a threat, and I knew it. But back then… I was something else. An instrument. Or maybe a coward looking for an excuse to justify his obedience.
There was a time when I really thought what I was doing was right. That we were on the "good" side. That the sacrifices were necessary. But deep inside me—where I couldn't lie to myself—I knew I was only trying to convince myself of something impossible: that I wasn't a monster. And yet, we killed. We experimented. We took innocent lives as if they were mere variables in a report.
My mind won't let me forget anything. Especially when I try to sleep in that cold, damp bathroom of the house we live in now. I curl up inside the bathtub, and the echo of my own thoughts bounces off the walls like foreign voices whispering in my ear. Spinning and twisting me.
And yet… when I think of you, something quiets down. It surprises me every time, because I don't know you completely. I don't know who you were before the disaster, but I like to imagine it. Imagining you living peacefully, waking up without fear, without that tremor in your hands that sometimes betrays you now. Imagining how you spent your days without having to sleep in a kitchen, how you moved through life without having to listen to people's cruel jokes or the murmurs when they think you can't hear.
Sometimes I fantasize about getting up from this bathtub, walking over to you, and whispering for you to come with me. To sleep here, even if it's not comfortable. Even if we have almost no space. Just the idea of sharing that little corner with you… calms me. It gives me back something I thought was dead inside me. It's strange, but just by thinking about that, I manage to sleep entire nights. Without nightmares. Without jolts.
I don't want you to have a bad image of me, so I must tell you something else.
There are moments—and I hate it—when I miss being at FEMA.
It's a selfish thought. There I never lacked food, shelter, or purpose. But I know that if I went back… I'd still be complicit. I'd still be staining my hands. And what breaks me the most is thinking that, if I hadn't escaped… sooner or later I would have ended up hurting you. The thought alone turns my stomach. I couldn't bear that burden. I'd rather die than raise a weapon against you.
There's something else that obsesses me, although I've never told you. Sometimes I wonder what color your eyes were. Not out of morbid curiosity or anything shallow. It's… because I think they were beautiful. I imagine it. I can see them in my head: a soft, warm olive green that would match the way you move and your calm voice. I wonder what your whole face would look like, with those eyes that are no longer there.
I don't ask you about it because I know it's a sensitive subject. What you did… tearing out your own eyes in the middle of a psychotic episode… anyone else would be terrified. But I'm not. It does the opposite to me. It draws me in. It shouldn't, I know, but it does. I wonder what you saw in that moment. What you felt. What drove you to do it.
They say the eyes are the window to the soul. And I would give anything to see yours. To understand what hurts you, what you regret, what you love. To see every little detail that makes you who you are. To comprehend how someone like you can exist in such a rotten world.
The strange thing is that we hardly talk. We barely exchange a few words a day. And yet… you are important to me. Far more than you should be. I wonder how you managed it. How someone as broken as you managed to slip through all my defenses without even trying.
You're blind. You tore out your own eyes. You sleep in a kitchen on old blankets. I should pull away. I should be afraid.
But I can't. You pull me into your orbit effortlessly. More and more every day.
And I don't know if it's dangerous… or necessary.
Little by little, as I think of you—of your hands moving carefully around the kitchen, of your calm breathing as you sleep—sleep overcomes me. The bathtub becomes warm, almost cozy. My thoughts fade away one by one.
Just before I fall completely asleep, I realize that tomorrow, when I wake up… I will finally ask you your name.