Chapter 1

Solace slid further into the silk brocaded sofa, his chin resting in his upturned palm, brooding deep in thought. He sat in a dark room, shades closed, the only light emitted coming from the thin tablet resting on his lap.

The three months of paid leave the military had given him flew by far too quickly for his comfort, not that he had had any comfort since he lost his memories. Retrograde amnesia the doctors had called it. He had heard the veterans whispering, calling it a blessing in disguise when they thought he wasn't listening.

If only they knew how painful it was, how suffocating. Every time he went in for a psych-check the psychologist would look at him funny. Fragments of memories would come smashing through his mind as if it were a wrecking ball and his mind a glass house. Sometimes he would see a little girl no older than six, his sister, his mind would tell him. Sometimes she spoke but he could never make out her words as if his ears were underwater.

The psychologist had every right to look at him funny, considering that apparently he didn't even have a sister. He was conceived in a machine and brought to life like many others. Sol lived in a boarding school, a boys only school, up until he was sent into the military.

So. Who. Was. The. Girl.

Solace pulled himself out of his thoughts and tapped his chin. He lifted the tablet to his eyes, briefly scanning over the contents of the document before pressing the submit button.

"There's no turning back now," he sighed.

Moments later he heard footsteps approaching from outside, and the door swung open.

"Gah!" the woman shrieked as she jerked backwards. "Sol! I've already told you not to sit in the dark with that light under your face! You gosh darn near scared me to death looking like the devil and all that!"

Sol chuckled to himself as Martha flicked the light switch on, promptly blinding him for a few seconds.

"Ow, gosh! Martha!"

"Oops, sorry child," she laughed, hastily dimming the lights to a tolerable brightness.

"And will you please stop calling me child, I'm almost twenty you know?" he shot back mildly irritated.

She waved him off. "In the infirmary, you're all my children, seeing as you all come to me banged up and all, and I gotta nurse you to health," she said with a smirk. "be grateful I'm helping you kiddo."

Martha was in her late sixties, quite respectable for a healer in the military. She was a stout old woman, short but built like a tank. Nobody wanted to mess with her, lest they would find their heads off their shoulders.

She ambled towards the sofa to peek at Sol's tablet.

"Ah," she said with a grim expression. "So you've decided to stay with the military?"

Sol sighed, "It's not as if I have a choice. Basically it came down to if I wanted to leave the military with a small compensation fund - hardly enough to sustain me for a month by the way, or if I wanted to stay with the military and have all my costs covered? That's not much of a choice is it?"

"I suppose not, Sol, I suppose not."