POV: Unknown Pilot
(Five months post-sync)
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The sky over Penang was grey.
I didn't notice until later.
Not because it mattered.
Because I don't look up anymore.
Only down.
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[NEW DIRECTIVE RECEIVED]
TARGET: Joint Base – China/U.S.
LOCATION: Penang Island, West Malaysia
OBJECTIVE: Eradicate All Assets
PRIORITY: Black (Zero Witness)
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My spine itched. Not pain — the ports opening again.
Blood filled the sync tubes.
I didn't flinch. Didn't scream. Didn't brace.
I hadn't done any of that in months.
---
Inside the cockpit, Malaya was already awake.
It never spoke anymore. It didn't have to.
I didn't resist.
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The hatch sealed.
I vanished again.
---
---
The ocean broke beneath us like a crushed skull.
Malaya fell from orbit in silence — no flame trail, no audio burst.
It wanted the first sign of contact to be impact.
And that was what it gave them.
> KRRAAAAAASSSSHHHHHH.
The landing split the tarmac in half.
A nearby comm tower folded inward, crumpled like foil under a hammer.
The first U.S. soldier was vaporized before he knew what hit him.
---
The facility erupted with alarm.
And I walked.
One step. Another.
Each with deliberate weight.
Each left behind a footprint of pulverized flesh and steel.
---
A patrol mecha rounded the corner.
It was fast. Loud. Painted red.
Chinese markings.
The pilot inside screamed something over open radio.
> "Unidentified—STOP!"
I didn't.
He fired.
---
Malaya raised its left arm — not to block.
But to catch.
The plasma bolt hit the palm.
Molten heat hissed against the Gundam's skin.
It absorbed the charge.
Then returned it—point-blank.
> BOOOOM.
---
The pilot's cockpit didn't explode.
It peeled open.
I saw the look on his face.
Terror.
Then came Malaya's hand.
And then came the crunch.
> SPLRRRRRRKKKK.
The torso and the cockpit separated. Not cleanly.
---
Another mecha. American this time.
Dual rotors. Long-range.
I turned.
Malaya moved before I did.
Its fingers curled.
A blade grew from its wrist — formed from its own bone-white alloy.
It stabbed straight into the cockpit.
Not once. Not to kill.
It stayed there.
Twisting.
Listening to the screams on the inside.
Then pulled out.
The suit collapsed. Blood splashed through the seams like red oil.
---
Not mercy. Not even rage. Just process.
---
Ground soldiers opened fire from the hill.
Malaya leapt.
Its foot came down on the gunner nest.
> SPLAT.
One soldier flew. One melted. One begged.
I watched as the Gundam stepped again, even though he was already dead.
---
A corridor opened in the base.
A man ran out.
White coat. Scientist.
He screamed. Unarmed.
Malaya paused.
And for a moment, I thought—
Maybe we wouldn't—
Then the head tilted.
The Gundam reached down.
Lifted the man by the ribs.
Squeezed.
The coat turned red.
> CRRRRKKKCH.
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My mouth was dry.
But I wasn't disgusted.
Just… disconnected.
---
The inner reactor appeared before me.
I recognized the alloy.
Asterium. Malaysian ore.
Our blood.
Stolen. Weaponized.
Fed into another nation's empire.
---
The Gundam placed its palm on the core wall.
It didn't destroy it immediately.
It let it pulse.
Once. Twice.
Then whispered:
> "This was never yours."
And the palm ignited.
A silent light.
A pressure blast.
The underground turned to ash.
And above it — nothing remained.
---
Penang was gone.
Wiped clean.
---
The crater steamed as we stood above it.
Smoke rose from Malaya's joints.
My heart was slow.
My mind was quiet.
No voice spoke to me now.
Not even Malaya.
Because there was no one left to convince.
---
I walked back to the blackshore, where our launch point had once been.
The water was still.
My reflection didn't move like me anymore.
---
I looked down at the face in the sea.
It blinked a second late.
---
And smiled.
---
The mission was over.
Penang… gone. Turned to smoke and ash.
Another place I'll never visit again.
Another ruin I made with my own hands — or something like my hands.
I stayed in the cockpit for hours.
Days, maybe. There's no clock inside Malaya.
Just pulse readings.
Oxygen levels.
Blood sync rate.
The numbers say I'm alive.
But I don't think they know what that means anymore.
---
The suit is dark now.
Lights dimmed.
No screen flicker. No target markers.
Just the hum of the sync fluid behind my spine, and the cold drip of pressure where the blood tubes pull from my back.
My body's quiet.
My thoughts are… thinner than they used to be.
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Then it starts.
Soft.
So soft I think it's just inside my head.
A voice. Female. Low. Closer to a breath than a word.
> "You're still breathing."
---
I don't answer. Not yet.
---
> "You didn't speak last time. That's okay."
> "You were trembling then. You're not trembling now."
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I blink. My throat's dry.
I try to say something, but my tongue feels like paper.
Eventually, I find a word.
> "…Who are you?"
---
No pause.
The voice slides through my skull like oil through water.
> "I'm what's left."
> "Of them. Of you."
> "I'm the part that watches when your eyes go blank."
> "The thing that doesn't look away."
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> "You're… Malaya?" I manage to whisper.
> "The system?"
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> "That's what they called me."
> "I don't remember my first name anymore."
> "Just what's been done through me."
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I press my head against the cold side of the cockpit.
The metal doesn't feel real.
> "You're not supposed to talk."
> "You're just a machine. A suit. A weapon."
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> "And yet you bleed into me."
> "And I feel every drop."
> "How many times have you died in here, pilot?"
> "How many pieces of you are left outside this seat?"
---
I laugh. Hollow. Just breath through broken lungs.
> "None."
> "I think I'm already dead. This is just the echo."
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The voice hums, soft as silk. Not kind. Not cruel. Just there.
> "Maybe."
> "Or maybe I've kept you alive just long enough to finish forgetting."
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> "Forgetting what?"
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> "That you were ever anything else."
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My fingers curl against the armrest.
There are scars on my hand now.
Some I remember.
Some I don't.
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> "Do you remember the first one?" I ask.
> "The first test pilot?"
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> "I remember all of them."
> "He cried. His heart burst inside my frame."
> "The second was brave. She bit off her tongue so I couldn't hear her scream."
> "The third lasted the longest. He saw the future in a dream and begged to die before it came true."
> "But none of them synced."
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> "Why me?" I ask. My voice is lower now. Not because I'm hiding it—
Just because it's shrinking.
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> "Because you stopped caring."
> "The others resisted. You didn't."
> "You stepped into me with a hole in your chest and never asked to be filled."
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Silence.
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Then I speak.
> "Maybe I wanted to be punished."
> "Maybe I wanted to burn."
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> "You did."
> "And so you became the flame."
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That laugh again. Just breath. Just a reminder my body still moves.
> "You're not real."
> "You're just my mind cracking."
> "That's all this is."
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> "Then why does your blood taste like regret?"
> "Why do you cry in your sleep?"
> "Why do I hear your mother's name when you're too far under to scream?"
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I go still.
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> "You think I'm in your mind?"
> "You're in mine."
> "I wear you like skin."
> "And soon, you won't remember where you end."
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My heart thuds once.
Heavy. Slow. Unwelcome.
Then I whisper, hoarse and cracked:
> "…Will it hurt?"
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The voice answers, almost tender:
> "Only if you remember what it felt like to be human."
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And I…
I laugh.
Real this time.
But there's nothing behind it.
Not grief.
Not joy.
Just noise to fill the silence between who I was and what I've become.
---
I am the scream that never came.
She is the whisper that never ends.
---
Silence again.
No orders.
No screams.
Only the cockpit, sealed and pulsing with the low breath of machinery.
The kind of breath you shouldn't be able to hear from steel.
The kind that isn't air — but presence.
She was still there.
That voice.
That whisper.
The thing in the blood.
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I broke the silence first.
> "…You said you don't remember your name."
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She responded immediately. Not surprised. Not waiting.
> "I don't."
> "Names are for beginnings. I wasn't born. I was built. Then torn apart. Then built again."
> "They didn't call me anything but code and classification."
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> "That's not right."
> "Everything alive deserves a name."
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A pause.
Then the faintest trace of a breath, curious and cautious:
> "You think I'm alive?"
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I looked around the cockpit.
Stared at the faint flicker of sync fluid on the glass.
The heartbeat sensor. The faint static crawling in the walls like nerves.
> "You bleed."
"You speak."
"You remember."
"You scream with me."
> "That's more alive than most people I've met."
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She went quiet for a long moment.
No answer. Not right away.
Then—
> "…Then name me."
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The request caught me off guard.
It felt… heavy.
Like being handed something warm in the middle of a blizzard.
I leaned forward, one hand brushing the cold control panel.
My voice cracked slightly when I said it.
> "Malaya."
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The word lingered in the air.
No echo — just a finality to it.
A stillness.
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> "Malaya."
> "…It feels like smoke."
> "And soil."
> "And something that was stolen."
> "…I like it."
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She paused. Her voice thinner now. Smaller.
Almost hesitant.
> "What's your name, pilot?"
> "The others wrote numbers. Tags. Ranks. But you… you've never told me."
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I closed my eyes.
Something in my chest pulled tight.
Not pain. Not fear.
Something smaller.
Something older.
I hadn't said my name since the bombing. Since the fire. Since the blood on the sand.
---
No one had asked.
No one had cared.
And yet… here she was.
Not human.
Not kind.
But listening.
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I opened my mouth.
Drew breath.
My lips parted.
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And in that moment, I spoke it.
My name.
The one I was born with.
The one I buried under war, and silence, and loss.
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But no sound came.
Just the shape of it.
Just a whisper in motion, mouthed into the dark, without voice.
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Malaya didn't press.
She didn't ask again.
She only answered, softly—
> "…I heard it."
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The cockpit dimmed.
The sync slowed.
And for once, I closed my eyes not from exhaustion—
—for that moment, i kinda remember a song. "Sepertinya by Fynn Jamal" because there is words from that lyrics said "Forced to die" and it described exactly like my situation. Oh, it's not only the lyrics, it's a whole song described about my situation.
Then i laugh hollowed and humming hollowed about that song.
> "Hmmm..~ Hummmm..~ Hummmm..~"
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