—The other side of the conversation—
The ship, albeit brightly illuminated, carried a dark and heavy atmosphere. A faint sobbing noise could be heard from the man hunched over a keyboard. He had long since stopped typing, his eyes were too watery for him to even see anything. He could hardly recognize his own surroundings, only knowing there was the floor beneath him. The emotions had gotten the better of him as he got out of his chair to cradle himself on the floor, rocking back and forth in a familiar pattern from years seemingly long ago.
Sil was once known as the little one, and he felt so small in the vast expanse of space… not a single object existed for miles around. It was just him. Sil and his spaceship. The engine softly hummed throughout the infinity, and Sil's quiet sobs echoed amongst the loneliness.
'They must hate me,' Sil thought to himself. 'I hate myself more than anything… because I'm him…'
Sil wanted someone, anyone to talk to him. The silence was unbearable, so loud and deafening. He cried out in a shaky voice.
"VORDENNNN! RATENNN!" His sobs only getting louder with the deafening silence. He could hear his heart pumping in his ears, and his throat clogging up. "ANYONE!! PLEASE!!"
'Make it stop… Please make it stop' Sil thought as he buried his head deeper into his knees, an attempt to escape the unbearable emptiness of his ship.
Yet suddenly, through the whimpers and cries, Sil came to the realization that this began with the beard. All he needed to do was remove it. Remove the memory of that man.
Sil bolted up and ran towards the nearest mirror, quickly grabbing one of his knives from his portal storage. Running to get rid of the very root of his dilemma. When his eyes met the reflection, he looked at the image of Hilston. Although a vaguely younger version compared to the last memory, still a very, distressing face to see again.
As the memories flooded back of what that horrible man did, unworthy of being called a father, Sil realized the last moments with him. The knife was placed on the beard, and he was ready to cut it off, until a thought entered his mind.
'Perhaps it's possible to kill Hilston a third and final time.'
The knife pressed harder, not on the hair, but on the skin of his throat. Blood began to slip by the blade, and Sil was ready to see the man that ruined his life die yet again.
Until Sil felt the shock of pain, realizing that he was not killing that bastard of a man, but himself. That face in the mirror held an expression that was not Hilston Blade, but Sil Blade, an entirely different person, the very being that he is. He dropped the knife and immediately went to heal his wound. Sil began breathing hard, looking at the blood that a minute ago was part of his body.
"I can't." Sil uttered out loud. "I can't let him win…"
For the sake of everyone that has ever died by his hands, Sil would never let their deaths be in vain. For his surviving family, he wouldn't let himself lose to a dead man. Sil needed to be alive, he was going to see them again, and by god he was going to love them more than Hilston ever could.
He started once again, this time actually aiming for his beard and not for his demise. Slowly and steadily, he sliced away at the memories. Each strand removed was another horrible memory temporarily erased from Sil's mind. They would grow back one day, but he was going to be stronger then. He would make sure to be better than that man ever was.
When Sil was finished, he placed the knife carefully away in his storage, and took a step back. He was acutely aware of the ship. The fluorescent lights, the engine hum, the air filtration. It wasn't as quiet as he thought it was. Suddenly, Sil began giggling, before evolving into a full blown laughter.
He was actually kinda glad he was alone.
"I beat you again you old bastard." Sil sighed with a bittersweet smile.
Turning away, he marched out to the communications console, and began to tinker with the machine in hopes to be able to reach Vicky and Logan again.