The dining area was much like the recreation center, it was also outside with the trees towering miles above our heads, with another line of windows adjacent to the entrance, inhabited by a man with the face of some reptile. I saw animalistic humans waiting in line to go up to the the small window and receive a tray filled with food from the man with the reptilian face. The group that I had been following, including Piper and Canis, had all dispersed into the moving line to receive food.

When Canis went up, the reptilian man handed him a plate of undercooked meat, when Piper went up she received a plate of fish and various meats. When I went up the reptile-man just looked at me curiously.

"What are you supposed to be?" he asked rudely in a voice similar in tone to 245's.

"I'm... human I guess." I answered, unsure of what to say. The man's eye slits widened a bit as he scanned by body.

"What'll you have then?" he asked, his tone still suspicious.

"Uhm... are there any other humans here? What do they eat?" I asked warily, not quite liking the looks of this guy.

"No, but I can give you what we fed the ones that were here before?" he half asked, half stated.

"Alright then I guess." I replied. He handed me a tray with vegetables and some kind of cooked meat. Despite it's odd appearance, it's smell made my mouth water. Back home, we just had a pill a few times a day to stop the pains in our stomachs and provide the right vitamins and minerals we need to be heathy, I had never really seen anything like what was in front of me.

Everyone from earlier now sat at different tables, except for Canis and Piper, both sitting at a table similar to the one we had sat in earlier, only this one was flatter and was made out of metal, not wood. Both of them were digging into their food like starving animals.

I sat down next to Canis and looked at my odd looking food. The only reason I knew what a vegetable looked like was because that was what the Empire had said they needed when I went on my first mission . They told us what they looked like and what they needed to grow. I picked up a green one that resembled a small, miniature tree, looking at it curiously I popped it in my mouth. Piper and Canis looked at me with their mouths full, not quite sure what my reaction would be to this foreign delicacy.

Inside my mouth was a more interesting story, I broke up the small tree with my teeth and moved it around my taste buds, getting a good idea of what it tasted like. I can't exactly describe it, other than it was bland, but was much different than the food pills we got at home. This new food excited me, I put another vegetable in my mouth, this time it was long and colored orange. I broke off part of it and put it in my mouth. It was a similar sensation with the small tree, it was not too flavorful, but much different from the pills and the small tree.

Now feeling like a child on Christmas day who had just got new toys, I cut off a piece of meat and put it into my mouth, this was so much more pleasurable than anything I had ever tasted before. It was the juiciest and richest thing I had ever tasted, my taste buds were dancing on my tongue in excitement and pleasure. The subtle herbs and spices it was cooked with made it even more delightful. I couldn't help but let out a moan of pleasure. I heard laughter from both Canis and Piper at my reaction to the meat.

I had expected such a reaction, seeing as they probably don't see this everyday, but it still surprised me that at this point, they were laughing so hard that they weren't able to communicate. Even Piper, which, as much as it surprised me, I couldn't help but smile at the sight of her laughing, at something I did. Which, I'll admit now, I still find to be quite odd.

Canis however, was now laughing so hard, he had fallen off the bench with tears coming from his eyes, and was still laughing while on the ground. His laugh sounded off, like it wasn't a real laugh. I took no notice of it however, because by the looks of it, this wasn't a race of jokesters, because many people around us had begun to stare, and they weren't exactly smiling.

After our laughter had calmed down, Canis had joined us back at the table, the tension I felt before, between all of us really, was mostly gone, even between me and Piper.

"So, what do you do around here? Is it all play for you or do you have jobs as well?" I asked.

"Yeah, we both have an off day today, tomorrow we all go back to work. I'm a technician and Piper is a scout, basically just making sure nothing gets near us." Canis replied.

"What will I do you think? I mean, I don't want to be a dead weight or anything..." I was cut off my an announcement from the loud speaker overhead.

"Will 642 please report to the hospital room." it boomed from the metal facility.

I grabbed my crutches and stood up.

"Piper, can you show me where the hospital is again? I don't know if I can find it again." I asked. I actually wanted to ask her about my name, but it helps to have a guide as well.

"Sure." she agreed, and got up to escort me to the hospital.

"Bye Canis, it was nice meeting you!" I called back to him. His face brightened and he waved back to me as I went inside, the doors shutting behind me.

Piper walked ahead toward the hospital room, and I followed. The words were itching my tongue, but I was afraid to say them, I didn't want to rub her fur the wrong way.

As I watched her walk in front of me, I couldn't help but notice how her steps were almost perfectly even each stride, and her tail moved back in forth like a pendulum as her balance shifted from right to left. Her ears flicked about once every thirty seconds as well, normally the right ear, but sometimes the left one would flick as well.

I became so fixated on the tiniest of movements and patterns she had, I almost stumbled into her when she stopped at the hospital door.

She said nothing, but opened the door and I followed her inside. I didn't know quite what to expect, but I hoped that one of my crew mates was still alive, but the chances of that were slim, and whatever was lying on the hospital bed was covered by a sheet, hidden from my view.

"Who's that?" I asked the doctor I had met when I first arrived.

"We don't know. We found him just a few hours ago, poor guy was scrawling around the rubble, calling out for someone before he blacked out. He was hurt badly, it's all we can do to keep his heart beating. He just arrived, so we don't know what all has happened to him, but it doesn't look too good. His torso was almost completely crushed, and his skull fractured.

"Can I see him?" I questioned nervously.

The doctor nodded silently, and walked over to the bed, my steps taking me over there as well.

I braced myself, putting up my emotional walls so that if it was 525 or 245. Carefully, the doctor pulled back the sheets, and the walls that I had erected a second ago were obliterated as the sight of a man with a young face and curly hair, no older than 25.

What before was freckled and seemingly innocent before, was now beaten, bloodied, and broken. His face was covered in gashes, his chest, soaked in red, was deformed, and his body looked lifeless from the waist down, hidden under the blanket. His hair was knottted and caked in blood, his fingers rubbed raw, most likely from trying to crawl out of somewhere and his clothes, ripped and bloodied, lay on the table beside him. His body was fully exposed from the waist up, revealing skin that had been slashed away, like a deep cut mark.

Tears welled in my eyes as I turned away, my mind poisoned by the boy I once knew, so broken and hurt now. All because the Vivere needed human company.

He won't ever be the same, even if he lives, he will always have those scars. There's no way his spine isn't fractured, or that he will ever walk again. His once jovial face is now marred by sharp, precise cut marks from broken metal.

"I'm sorry if this upsets you, I'm trying all I can do to remove the infection and bandage him quickly enough to prevent the wounds from opening again. I was almost finished when you arrived."

"No, it's fine. I asked to see him. I wanted to know if he was okay. I think I'll go now, I've seen enough." was all I could choke out. It was all I could do to restrain the sobs that threatened to leak out.

When I turned to leave, Piper looked at me differently now. That was the moment she saw me as a different human. I cared for 525, he reminded me of myself a few years ago. So young and innocent. When I saw him, lying on the bed, broken, I grew up.

The gravity of everything suddenly occurred to me, the Vivere were not the perfect society that I thought they were. They caused this. They are the reason that 525 is almost dead, if he is not soon. They are the reason I can no longer live as I did before, ignorant and happy.

If I had that chance however, would I take it? To forget what I've lived up to this point, and to go back to living in ignorance and false happiness?

No.

That would be an insult to everything I am, my morals, my beliefs, everything that I am now.

There is no turning back now, because this is war. War against whom, I don't know yet.

I have yet to find that out.