CHAPTER 57: TRAUMA.

"Do you hear voices?" Pablo asked without even trying to be a little careful with it... he asked it straight up, without thinking a lot about it.

"No, I just heard voices." Joseph looked at him. "For 8 straight years it spoke to me. Though I think it was because I began to lose my mind in the darkness, the first years were nothing but the 2nd year it all started, first with whispers from the wall, ceiling, floor, then the voice just became like a bubble around me, no... like a dome from all directions just echoing." He gestured around his head. "Then in the 10th year it just stopped."

As he finished, they said nothing, no, more like Pablo and Mirella eyed each other.

I might’ve said too much...

"To be true, I had voices too." Pablo began. "But I think for you it was inevitable, like 10 years in the darkness alone... though for me too it was inevitable as I think more about it." He said as he crossed his arms and leaned back, but Joseph noticed his leg shook too.

"What was yours?" He asked, but that moment Pablo just froze down a little, the shaking stopped and he just stared up ahead. "I mean if it’s okay to ask."

"Ohh it’s okay, I’m already good. I mean they gave me some drug for PTSD." He laughed about it, but it was an obvious fake laugh. "My second year at DAG we were deployed in Gundulf to kill a militia leader." He started as he leaned forward, putting his hand on the table and the signs of stress were immediate, his hand was tapping the table and his leg again started to shake. "He was a fucking monster... and well the voice I heard was more like screams."

"Screams?" Joseph asked.

"Yeah... well that fucker found out that one of his men is an informant to us and to retaliate he bombed the school of his son." He didn’t look at Joseph, just stared up ahead as his hand tapped more. "But it was not a simple bomb, it was a lot of fuel, maybe napalm too, and I witnessed... uh... children, small ones, maybe 9 years old up to 12, running out of the building on fire and just screaming as their flesh, skin just peeled off like ice cream, they were just running there on fire, screaming... and when I tried to help one I grabbed his hand but..." He leaned back. "As I went to pull him up, the... skin came off... I just pulled off his skin as I pulled his arm, and he just screamed more, and that smell, that burned flesh..." He stopped as he took a big breath. "Well, that’s it. The screams of him and the other kids just stuck in my mind and I heard it even day and night just screaming at me, but after that I got meds and it helped, it pushed the voice away." He gestured to his head as he finished, and when he looked up, Mirella was crying.

She was shaking by just hearing the story, and even Joseph was struck by the sheer brutality and what he went through.

"What happened to the guy?"

"Ohh, we set him on fire like a witch when we captured him." He laughed as he looked at Joseph. "We gathered a lot of rumble, and wood, and we just handcuffed him to a pole in the middle, and set him on fire, let him burn as he screamed... it was a scream that just gave me more strength... like maybe even his screams were the cure to the voice in my head as he burned to death. It was—"

"I’m sorry..." Mirella stood up suddenly and just ran straight away from them... she couldn’t handle it, even though she was too a soldier, she was too someone who killed many, but this was different than what just Pablo told... maybe it was too much for her soul, pure veil while she is a believer.

Though Pablo laughed, now it was some kind of genuine one. "My therapist, back then they sent me to one, and when I told her the story she just ran out of the session and didn’t come back." He laughed more. "Well, I knew what the job came with, everybody just turned their back when reality struck them." He looked at Joseph, but he wasn’t laughing nor smiling... he was thinking about a sentence Pablo said.

He said ’maybe his screams were the cure to the voice in my head’ though as Joseph thought about it, it didn’t make sense to him... his story wasn’t like this, and well, they were all dead anyway.

When they died... the voice was still there for years... then why the fuck I heard it, why the fuck it spoke to me...

"What about yours?" Pablo asked, pulling Joseph out from his thoughts.

"Mine was different... it was like the voice was not harmful, but... in a way wanted to save me from the darkness... it’s strange to say out loud."

"Like an angel? Maybe a guardian angel of yours."

"I think it was more myself, trying to save itself from the suffering and despair, maybe I developed this defense mechanism, to, I don’t know save myself or fuck knows what the fuck was it." He looked at Pablo. "But it obviously failed, and now I am maybe a mentally ill motherfucker with countless disorders, but at least I’m still functional." He laughed as he drank some water.

"Yeah, me too, and well, all the DAG, we all suffered... a family of insane people, with voices in their heads." He laughed as he stood up. "But about the plans and territory." Pablo quickly changed the topic of the conversation, which Joseph, of course, noticed. He knew that something like what happened to Pablo would stay with him for life, so he didn’t press further about the voices and traumas.

"Let’s go." He said as he stood up. "And let’s finally take some territories."

The Cassian family’s next steps toward greatness began as they made their way up to the office, where the city maps will be redrawn, borders will be built... killzones will be made.

The Cassians territory.