This is kind of like journal entries, flashbacks that Xavier is having. It just seemed like a cool idea. Hope you guys like it.

20061404
8 )It's All in Your Head

We were making our rounds through the people who had arrived recently to the citadel.

"Hey, my name's Xavier. This is Dahvid," Dahvid gives the man a weak wave, "We're going around to talk to all the new arrivals to ask about any scientific or military background. Do you have any experience with-"

"No."

The man cuts me off before I can get any more of my sentence out.I can understand his hostility seeing as how in the last couple weeks and months the world has changed so severely.No one could really understand what was happening. We had been running for so long, now that they said they had some meager defenses to hold back the flow of the demons, it was hard to get acclimated.

"Well, what's your name? We're apparently going to be neighbors for a while."

The man seemed distant, like he was lost, and tired. But more than anything else...cold. Like death. He had curly hair and a thick beard as if shaving no longer mattered.

"A name? Ha! Hahahaha! What do names matter anymore? We're all dead, it's just a matter of time."

His laugh was devoid of humor. The hopelessness of his tone was almost staggering.

*******

We're the only ones who that man will talk to. He is extremely hostile to everyone else and he only seems to speak with us to keep from going insane. More insane, perhaps. He seems angry at everyone, as if this were somehow all of our fault. I don't know what about us makes him feel any better, but it's starting to make the two of us edgier. We've began snapping at each other over very miniscule things. He's a strange man.

*******

Everyone has been saying that he was hiding a gun since he had gotten here. We had tried to go around and collect them for testing, but some people said they had no weapons or just said they didn't want to give them up. This man seemed overly secretive and paranoid. He said he didn't have any weapons. He wouldn't eat the food with everyone else, either. Not that he didn't eat, he just would take anything that was given to him. He would end up with it later, eating the same rations that everyone else did. Just... I believe he stole it. Maybe it made him feel more in control of this whole situation. No one ever saw him do it though.

*******

He was going to kill himself. We had taken his gun- he was on a kind of suicide watch- but we had taken it from him. He got it back. I walked in on him trying to shoot himself in the head. I tackled him as he was pulling the trigger, and ended up getting myself shot in the bicep. He was allright. Some of the arcanist were able to fix me up, but there's still a scar. They get a lot of practice with the wounds that the demons cause, but they still are not perfect.

The guards didn't see him, and the gates didn't register him having entered or exited the gun cage. He hasn't told anyone what he used to do. Before this. I want to find out.

*******

He's been acting differently since our last... encounter. He seems less skittish and jumpy, like he feels better, has gotten over his issues. I saw his forearms today. I noticed jagged scars running from his wrist back to his elbow, but in a spiral like he had tried to slit his wrist perpendicular to his veins, but had kept going around in a spiral. He seemed ok with the fact that I noticed, but even more ok that I didn't mention anything about it. He and Dahvid have been seeming to get along also.

I managed to get him a razor, and he had shaved so he looked a little less like a bum. He looked more like a Zorro or Robin Hood. That's what I thought when I saw him. Like a scoundrel with an allright heart.

*******

He's been helping me build and design a new suit model. He seems to know something about circuit analysis. He still hasn't told me his name or what he used to do.

He still stole his food and other necessities. But never more than he needed. Why he didn't just ask I can't say. Some of the others have been saying he was special, destined by fate to be special. But he just couldn't stay out of trouble. For that I named him Somsien, a likeness of the Biblical character he reminded me of. The name has seemed to stick and he's comfortable with it.

*******

After everything I've gotten him out of, I can do nothing for him now. He took the suit. They said he was too unstable, that he couldn't be trusted. I argued that he had practically designed and built the thing. They didn't want to "lose resources". Even in a time like this, they were being politicians. I can do nothing but pray he doesn't die out there alone...