Vana observed with detachment, as she fired the gun. Unfamiliar with the weapon, she discharged at full power – at this range, the result was devastating.

A ball of plasma tore through the soldier, removing the middle third of his body, before shattering into incandescent tendrils against the wall. He lurched but maintained balance; she watched his hands move slowly to the charred void where his chest had been, shards of pinkish bone bent inwards, like the bars of a broken gate. He made sounds, staggered, all the time looking at her with the helpless disbelief of a child.

He stumbled and his ruined body snapped in two, pieces thudding to the floor. Looking into his face, she saw something fluttering wildly behind the eyes, as though desperate for escape: a moth behind glass. And then it was gone, and she was alone with cinders that were once a man.

Something sharp twisted within her, numbed suddenly as her insides turned to glass; she knew in that instant she would never truly feel anything, ever again.